About the North Country Veterans for Peace (NCVFP)

Photo of NCVFP members at April, 2005 meeting.

From Left facing (banner side) to right: front kneeling: Ed Clark, Sieonna Williamson, Zac Williamson (Vice President), Dale Pondysh. Standing from banner side Ed Bage, Dennis Lee, Dave Lennox, Paul Saint-Amand (Past-President), Rob Jewett (Treasurer), John Casserly, Miles Manchester (Secretary).

 

North Country Veterans For Peace (NCVFP) Chapter 121 is an officially recognized chapter of the national organization Veterans For Peace, Inc. (www.veteransforpeace.org). Chartered in the spring of 2005, our chapter holds regular meetings in Potsdam and Canton, NY. Like all VFP chapters, membership is open to veterans and non-veterans alike.

As veterans for peace, we feel that informed dissent is not unpatriotic; in fact, it’s the very cornerstone of our democracy. To that end, thousands of us belong to Veterans for Peace, Inc. (VFP), a non-profit 501(c)3 educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war. VFP was founded in 1985. Its membership is comprised of veterans from all wars spanning from The Spanish Civil War to the current Iraq War. These members are distributed amongst 127 nationwide chapters, and dozens of international affiliations. Its national and international work is described below from our national web site.

[Veterans For Peace works] with our affiliations in El Salvador, Russia, Canada, Japan, Guatemala, Viet Nam, the Netherlands, Chiapas (Mexico), France, England, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vieques (Puerto Rico), and numerous others. A member of the Nobel-Peace Prize winning Coalition to Ban the Sale and Use of Landmines, VFP has been undertaking arduous tasks since its inception. From bringing medical aid to Central American nations, to evacuating wounded children from war-torn Bosnian hospitals and securing medical treatment elsewhere around the globe, or just sitting down with American high school kids so that they may make choices for themselves based on reality, and not myth, we’ve tried to make a difference. We remain firmly committed to the abolition of war.

While we are not anti-military, we do believe that members of our armed forces should not be put at risk without using every effort to ensure that war is the last resort. We support all the men and women who serve at home and abroad and dedicate ourselves to issues concerning all members of the military and veterans.


We believe that bringing the cost of war to public recognition is good but it’s not enough. Because most of us have served in the military, we believe that no one should enlist without fully understanding what such a commitment means. We feel that school age children should not be targeted by military recruiters, and that adults who choose to enlist should have full and honest disclosure.


NCVFP recognizes that the North Country population is most susceptible to the influence of military recruiters. The local economy in of this part of NY – consisting mainly of small, struggling dairy farms, limited industry, the beautiful Adirondack Mountains, a closed Air Force base in Plattsburgh and small villages peppered with state prisons – has been identified an “economic impact zone.” Thus, North Country schools are prime recruitment centers for the “poverty draft.” To that end, we seek to challenge militarism where it finds leverage – in our schools with recruitment programs like JROTC and the Deferred Entry Program (DEP), a program that has military recruiters signing up high school students before they graduate. But the DEP isn’t the only entrapment. We are currently getting the word out to parents about the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 which requires school administrators under the law to submit a student’s name, address and phone number to military recruiters. Parents can “opt out” and tell the school not to do it. Most parents have no idea that this requirement is in effect. (see "Questions & Answers about opting-out")


North Country Veterans For Peace activities include film series, consultations with teachers, high school and college students, and an active presence in North Country civic events, such as the Potsdam Summer Festival.

 

 

Join Veterans For Peace