Veterans for Peace Gainesville announces its 7th Annual Alachua County Peace Poetry Contest, where all students, grades K–12, are encouraged to submit one original poem focusing on the idea of peace and social justice.
The deadline for submitting a poem to the contest is March 21.
Gainesville Veterans for Peace Chapter 14 announces its annual Peace Scholarships for the spring of 2016. We are awarding two scholarships of $500 for high school seniors or college students with demonstrated commitment and leadership in activities involving peace & social justice, conflict resolution, and/or nonviolent social change. Deadline for application is April 15.
Veterans for Peace will be displaying more than 6,827 tombstones from dawn on May 23 through dusk on Memorial Day on Eighth Avenue just east of 34th Street as part of their Memorial Day Weekend event to remember those who have died in the wars in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003.
The tombstones will line the street along Eighth Avenue just east of 34th Street, where the Solar System Walk is located. This is the ninth year VFP has set up the display, and in 2008 we had to cross over to the North side of Eighth Avenue due to the continuing number of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Veterans for Peace feel that these losses cannot be adequately understood with facts and figures alone. The visual impact of the tombstones conveys the reality of these numbers.
Gainesville Veterans for Peace will once again set up the Memorial Mile along the Solar Walk on 8th Avenue, east of 34th Street. The display will be set up on May 23 and will stay up through sunset on Memorial Day, May 25. While thoughts of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are unfortunately forgotten by the American mainstream media, there will still be tombstones added, each one representing the death of an American service member since Memorial Day one year ago.
Volunteers are needed to help set up and take down the more-than 6,700 tombstones. If you’d like to help, contact Scott at 352-375-2563.
Gainesville Veterans for Peace Chapter 14 announces its annual Peace Scholarships for the spring of 2015. We are awarding two scholarships of $500 each for eligible high school seniors, college students or adults who need financial support to succeed in college and who have demonstrated a commitment and leadership in activities involving: peace and social justice and/or nonviolent social change.
To be eligible to apply for the Peace Scholarship, the applicant must either be: 1) a high school senior planning to enroll in full-time undergraduate study at an accredited two- or four-year college, university or vocational-technical school in the United States for the 2015-16 academic year; 2) a college student currently enrolled and in good standing; or 3) an adult student enrolling in higher education who needs financial assistance.
Posted in Articles, March 2015
Tagged peace poetry, peace poetry contest, peace scholarship, Veterans for Peace
This year, the 28th annual Veterans for Peace Winter Solstice Peace Concert will be on December 20 at 8 P.M. at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville (4225 N.W. 34th Street, Gainesville, FL 32605-1422).
The doors open at 6:30 P.M. and the concert begins at 8:00 P.M., but people who purchase tickets in advance must arrive by 7:30 P.M. to assure a seat. Unclaimed seats will be opened up for those in line after 7:30 P.M., with no preference given to advance ticket purchasers, until all 400 seats are filled.
The event will feature music from Cherokee Peace Chant, Drums of Peace, John Chambers and Friends, Lauren Robinson, Kevin O’Sullivan, Quartermoon, Other Voices, The Erasables, and A Choir of Heavenly Semi-Angels.
Gainesville Veterans for Peace will once again set up the Memorial Mile along the Solar Walk on 8th Avenue, east of 34th Sreet. The display will be set up on May 24 and will stay up through sunset on Memorial Day, May 26. While thoughts of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are unfortunately forgotten by the American mainstream media, there will still be at least 89 additional tombstones added, each one representing the death of an American service member.
“When we started this project in 2007, we could not imagine that we would still be fighting in Afghanistan in 2014, it is way past time for us to bring our troops home,” says Scott Camil, president of Gainesville Veterans for Peace.
Veterans for Peace encourage the public to stop by and walk the stunning mile at any time, believing this is the best way to take in the reality of these wars. Each tombstone representing individual Americans also represents the friends and family of the deceased who were and still are affected by these wars.
Photo by Paul Ortiz.
The 4th Annual Peace Poetry Contest, organized by Gainesville Veterans for Peace, was a great success this year with more than 230 total entries and 32 winners from grades 1–12. The Public Reading for the winners took place on May 11 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
Below is the 1st Place poem for grades 1–5 by Caden Kresak, a 4th grader from Archer Elementary School.
You can read all of the winning poems in the here: 2013 Peace Poetry Booklet. Photos of the event can be found here. Soon, you will also be able to see a video of the Public Reading there, thanks to the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.
If We Try
If there are no boundaries
Between north and south, west and east
And we all share the land,
Then we can all live in peace
If we help one another
Aid the poor, spread the feast
And we all share Earth’s goods
Then we can all live in peace
If we can agree to disagree
The whole world sign a treaty
And we use words not weapons,
Then we can all live in peace
No folded flags for mothers
All the violence has ceased
If we all accept our neighbors,
Then we can all live in peace
Caden Kresak, 4th Grade, Archer Elementary School
1st Place, Grades 1–5
Photos by Mary Bahr.
When the Gainesville chapter of Veterans for Peace first came up with the idea of Memorial Mile eight years ago, we had no idea that, in 2013, we’d still be displaying the tombstones of American service members who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. We thought the wars would be over, that the U.S. would be disengaged from these unjust occupations.
But instead, the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq just passed (with relatively little fanfare), and we’re going on 12 years in Afghanistan. Instead, the state of warfare is in flux, and the U.S. is waging even more secretive attacks through drone strikes, killing an unknown number of innocent civilians.
This is why we will erect the Memorial Mile display by sunrise on Sat., May 25, along the Solar System Walk. The display will stay up through sunset on Memorial Day, May 27.
Veterans for Peace encourage the public to stop by and walk the stunning mile at any time, believing this is the best way to take in the reality of these wars. Each tombstone representing individual Americans also represents the friends and family of the deceased who were and still are affected by these wars.
Posted in Articles, May-June 2013
Tagged code pink, memorial day, memorial mile, peace ribbon, Veterans for Peace
Members of Gainesville Veterans for Peace pose with Col. Ann Wright at the National Vets for Peace Conference in Miami in August. Photo courtesy of Gainesville Veterans for Peace.
Veterans for Peace (VFP) held its 27th national convention this year in Miami. The focus was on U.S. military involvement in Latin America with the theme “Liberating the Americas: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean.” Speakers included author Alice Walker, Father Roy Bourgeois and TV host Phil Donahue.
Also speaking at the workshops were familiar names like Col. Ann Wright, David Swanson, Medea Benjamin, Iraq War resisters Camilo Mejia and Victor Agosto, Carlos and Melida Arredondo, Marlene Bastien and DeAnne Graham. They participated in presentations on Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, a panel on G.I. resistance, a Hiroshima/Nagasaki commemoration and much more. You can see video of the workshops at vfpnationalconvention.org.
We met with many other members to discuss current issues including drone warfare, depleted uranium, Agent Orange, the military industrial complex, the war on drugs and U.S. foreign policy in South America.
Many of the members present in Miami worked together in the ‘80s. In Central America, VFP visited Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras. VFP was invited back to help monitor the elections of 1990. While older members of the organization were excited to reunite and have some laughs, newer members and guests were eager to meet some of these legendary characters who have devoted their lives to working for peace over the past decades.
Mohandas Gandhi said, “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”
With an increasingly corporate-controlled government that seems to have little regard for the views and desires of the American people, it’s easy to feel helpless and voiceless. Dreams of a peaceful world quickly become mere illusions.
From Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick comes “The Invisible War,” a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of America’s most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military.
Gainesville Veterans for Peace has teamed up with the Hippodrome State Theatre to show “The Invisible War” on Tuesday, May 15, at 6:30p.m. The event is co-sponsored by Gainesville Area National Organization for Women, National Women’s Liberation – Gainesville Chapter and Hippodrome Cinema.
The film paints a startling picture of the extent of the problem—today, a female soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. The number of assaults in the last decade alone is believed to be in the hundreds of thousands.
Focusing on the powerful stories of multiple rape victims, “The Invisible War” is a moving indictment of the systemic cover-up of military sex crimes, chronicling the women’s struggles to rebuild their lives and fight for justice. It also features hard-hitting interviews with high-ranking military officials and members of Congress that reveal the perfect storm of conditions that exist for rape in the military, its long-hidden history, and what can be done to bring about much-needed change.
At the core of the film are interviews with the rape survivors themselves—people like Kori Cioca, who was beaten and raped by her supervisor in the U.S. Coast Guard; Ariana Klay, a Marine who served in Iraq before being gang raped by a senior officer and his friend, then threatened with death; and Trina McDonald who was drugged and raped repeatedly by the military police on her remote Naval station in Adak, Alaska.
And it isn’t just women; according to one study, 1 percent of men in the military—a staggering 20,000 soldiers—were sexually assaulted in 2009.
And while rape victims in the civilian world can normally turn to an impartial police force and justice system for help, rape victims in the military must turn to their command—a move that is all too often met with foot-dragging at best, and reprisals at worst. Many rape victims find themselves forced to choose between speaking up and keeping their careers. Little wonder that only 8 percent of military sexual assault cases are prosecuted.
Tickets for the “The Invisible War” are $7.50 and can be purchased in advance at the Hippodrome State Theatre (25 SE 2nd Place, Gainesville). After the showing, a surprise guest from the film will answer questions and talk further about the inspirations for and impact of the documentary.
For more information on the film, visit invisiblewarmovie.com.
Gainesville Veterans for Peace will be hosting its 25th Annual Winter Solstice Concert on Saturday, Dec. 17. For a quarter century now, the anti-war group has been bringing together peace musicians, artists, organizations and advocates at a concert celebrating the Winter Solstice.
This year’s line-up includes Drums of Peace, John Chambers, Lauren Robinson, David Beede, Kevin O’Sullivan, Scrub Hill Billies, Talking Stick, Quartermoon, the Heavenly Semi-Angels and others.
The Winter Solstice Concert will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (4225 NW 34th St.). Doors open at 7p.m., and the concert begins at 8p.m. Tickets are $10 to $30 on a sliding scale.
Advanced tickets can be purchased at Hyde & Zeke Records (402 NW 10th Ave.) or by calling (352) 375-2563. People who purchase tickets in advance must arrive by 7:30p.m. to assure a seat. Unclaimed seats will be opened up for those in line after 7:30p.m., with no preference given to advance ticket purchasers, until all 400 seats are filled.
Outside the event, organizations and groups from the Gainesville area will set up informational booths and tables. Attendees are encouraged to bring clothing, food and personal items to be collected and distributed by Helping Hands Clinic. Refreshments will also be available.
Parking is available at the event but is limited (carpooling recommended!), and parking attendants will be present to assist drivers.
For more information about the Winter Solstice Celebration, visit the Vets for Peace Website.