Veterans For Peace is a global organization of military veterans and allies whose collective efforts are to build a culture of peace by using our experiences and lifting our voices. We inform the public of the true causes and enormous costs of wars and strive to heal the wounds of wars. Our network is composed of over 140 chapters worldwide whose work includes: educating the public, advocating for a dismantling of the war economy, providing services that assist veterans and victims of war, and most significantly, working to end all wars.
NYC Chapter 34 of Veterans For Peace
We have an active chapter in the New York area, with well over 100 members involved in numerous activities. We march as a Veterans Peace conting;ent in the NYC Armistice Day Parade on November 11, hold an annual Memorial Day observance commemorating all who die in war, and participate in the Queens St Pats for All Parade, MLK Jr. Observance, Heritage of Pride parade, and other progressive citywide traditions. We help organize actions against the growing moves toward war with Iran, Syria, and Korea, do counter-recruitment in schools and elsewhere, hold peace vigils, demonstrate at offices of elected representatives, present public educational forums, promote veterans’ health and social justice issues, and travel around the country and the world to support, for example, water protectors at Standing Rock and Okinawans trying to stop further construction of U.S. military bases on their land. We had a large contingent in the Peoples’ Climate March, Peace & Planet Rally, March and Festival. We sponsored the My Lai Memorial Exhibit at the Quaker Meeting House on Rutherford Place.
The chapter also focuses on five ongoing projects:
- Move the Money: a campaign to build support for shifting resources from the military to meeting human needs.
- Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign: an effort to redress the harm done by the U.S. spraying deadly herbicides over Vietnam during the war, leaving lasting damage to both U.S. military personnel and Vietnamese civilians and combatants alike.
- Organizing Against VA Privatization: veterans organizing to protect their healthcare from the predations of privatization.
- Save Yemen/Stop Sanctions Campaign: a campaign against deadly sanctions imposed around the world, focusing in particular on Yemen; there is a weekly vigil for Yemen on Saturday mornings from 11 to 12 in Union Square Park.
- Peace & Planet News: a website and print publication dedicated to abolishing war, establishing racial and economic justice, and fighting climate disaster.
- Abolish Nuclear Weapons: a campaign to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which went into effect in January 2021, outlawing use, production, and storage of nuclear weapons around the globe.
- Japan Speaking Tour for Peace: an annual speaking tour connecting U.S. military veterans with peace activists inJapan, talking about their experiences in war and apologizing for the criminal U.S. use of nuclear weapons against civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, bombing and firebombing major cities across Japan, and continuing to occupy Okinawa. Currently being organized via Zoom.
The New York City chapter was founded in the late 1980s by USMC Veteran Mike Pahios, who became our first chapter president. When Pahios died in 2006, the chapter was named in his honor. The chapter received the prestigious Chapter of the Year Award at the 2019 National VFP Convention in St Paul, MN.
Join us!
Our meetings are held on the third Wednesday of every month at 6:30 pm and are open to the public. Each month we feature speakers on some aspect of the struggle against war and injustice. Currently the meetings are being held remotely via Zoom. Email us at [email protected] for information on how to attend.
You are also invited to join our dynamic chapter in the best Veterans Peace and Justice organization in the world, at veteransforpeace.org.
Contact information:
If there are any questions, call NYC Chapter Secretary Bob Keilbach at (718) 358-8568 or email [email protected].
You can also find information about upcoming activities on our NYC VFP Facebook Page.
Wage Peace – thank you for everything you do for peace!
VFP Statement of Purpose:
We, as military veterans, do hereby affirm our greater responsibility to serve the cause of world peace. To this end we will work, with others both nationally and internationally
- To increase public awareness of the causes and costs of war
- To restrain our governments from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations
- To resist racism and repression in our home communities
- To oppose the militarization of law enforcement
- To end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons
- To seek justice for veterans and victims of war
- To abolish war as an instrument of national policy
To achieve these goals, members of Veterans For Peace pledge to use non-violent means and to maintain an organization that is both democratic and open with the understanding that all members are trusted to act in the best interests of the group for the larger purpose of world peace.
