Debra Sweet | May 10, 2023

April took We Are Not Your Soldiers to speaking locations both within and outside the borders of the United States – remotely, although we would have loved to have done all these visits in person!

We started with a very new experience – speaking for two hours with graduate diplomacy/security students in France. The entire discussion was in English, a language in which they’re fluent. Presentations were made by Will Griffin and Joe Urgo.

Their questions were thoughtful and deep. Here are a few examples:

 Debra Sweet  | April 11, 2023

We Are Not Your Soldiers is featured in an April article, "Veterans Push Back Against Military Recruitment in Schools," in Yes! Magazine.

We Are Not Your Soldiers is a project of New York City-based nonprofit World Can’t Wait. The organization sends military veterans into schools to share honest stories of the harm they have caused and suffered. In doing so, they hope to prevent young people from signing up...

Sarah Gil, a school teacher at the City-As-School, a transfer high school in New York City, has brought veterans from We Are Not Your Soldiers to her classroom to speak to students in classes focused on just war, race and racism, economics, and moral responsibility. “They share their vulnerability, and it’s more than I could ever do with any of my lessons,” Gil says of the veterans’ visits.

We Are Not Your Soldiers started out 2023 with two visits to a NYC alternative high school special education class: the January visit featured presentations by Vietnam veterans Joe Urgo and Miguel Gabriel Velazquez while Miles Megaciph performed and spoke during the February visit. January related to Martin Luther King’s speech about the U.S. war on Vietnam and February to Black History Month.

In February, Joy Damiani addressed several classes at a NYC middle school which had been studying both how propaganda is transmitted through such media as comics and how to be an upstander.

Debra Sweet | December, 19 2022

Read messages from the veterans who do We Are Not Your Soldiers presentations:

John Burns

One of the most telling quotes I remember being told when I first joined was “You get to travel to distant and exotic places, meet interesting and exciting people, and then kill them.” It goes without saying this shouldn’t be something we aspire to. Since I have been alive, we have never not been in a war. Is this what progress looks like?

The world still cannot wait for the United States to cease being the biggest danger to world peace.  Please support the message from people living in this country that humanity and the planet come first with your year-end donation to World Can't Wait.

>> A generous supporter will MATCH the first $2500 in donations, so make yours count double.  

Dangerous events in 2022 - the proxy war between the U.S./NATO and Russia fought at the risk of Ukraine’s people, and the U.S. provocations toward China – mean that the existential threat of nuclear war is now, horribly, not unthinkable. A mass rejection of wars of aggression and the system promoting it from people in the imperialist countries here, in Russia and Europe is how the interests of global humanity and the planet can be realized. World Can’t Wait’s mission of “humanity and the planet come first” is one of protest on the streets, such as this year’s No Nuclear War actions, and struggle with people living in the U.S. who have been led to think “America First.”

No fee charged to your school: We Are Not Your Soldiers is set to come to your class this semester, still remotely as the term starts, with an anti-war veteran who will dialogue with your students and is ready to answer any of their questions.

Educators and students: please contact us now to set up a time for us to engage with your classes. If you are not an educator or a student, please pass on this information to anyone you know who is involved in education.

As world crises and U.S. wars continue and the threats of new wars and even nuclear annihilation is an on-going reality, students have many serious concerns.

Debra Sweet | July 14, 2022

It seems the U.S. military is having a recruitment crisis. Good.

Today, July 12, is the twelfth anniversary of the publication by Wikileaks of "Collateral Murder." Since then, we have shown it frequently during many of the We Are Not Your Soldiers classroom visits. As one college student wrote in an essay, "I was surprised to know that the U.S. is not part of the International Criminal Court and wouldn’t even allow investigators in the country to conduct an investigation. The video that we watched was leaked, and that is how we got to know about the atrocities and the war crimes committed by the U.S. military. Had it not been for the leak, we would have never known. Chelsea Manning, who leaked the video, was sent to prison for her deed. Even after the leak went public, nothing was done to reprimand the war crimes committed by the U.S. military… " And, Julian Assange remains in deplorable conditions in prison in London under imminent threat of extradition to the U.S. for the "crime" of releasing this kind of information to the U.S. and world public.

In March We Are Not Your Soldiers presenters spoke remotely at three alternative NYC high schools, a NYC middle school and to Spanish-dominant bilingual high school students in Philadelphia. A co-teacher at one of the NYC high schools wrote following Will's talk:

Thank you so much for your visit and your presentation today! I can't tell you how valuable of an experience that was for our students. We have been discussing and debriefing since you left. You touched on many issues we have been discussing in class, and your personal experience as a veteran adds so much that we can not. You had a huge impact on our students, and I can't thank you enough for that. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us and share some of your experiences today.

UPDATE:  You can watch the recoded panel discussion here: