This Veterans Day, I will presume to speak for my brothers and sisters in Veterans for Peace Chapter 54, the crew that gave Santa Barbara the Arlington West display on the beach for many years. Regardless of the results of elections, we support the democratic process, as imperfect as it may be.
This Veterans Day we, as members of Veterans for Peace, will honor our brothers and sisters in arms in a different way, by working to increase public awareness of the costs of war. We will work to restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations. We will work to end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons. We will work to seek justice for veterans and victims of war, and to abolish war as an instrument of national policy. This is our mission. So on this November 11th we will not be marching in parades. As Ulysses S. Grant stated: “The one thing I never want to see again is a military parade.”
Instead we want to renew the spirit of Armistice Day and commemorate it “with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.” We will reflect on our mission and to move it forward with purpose and commitment. We will be gathering to renew our bonds of service and the bonds forged by a realization that war is obsolete and that peace is the only path to a “more perfect union” with “liberty and justice for all.”