VETERANS FOR PEACE
CONVENTION
Workshops
Friday, August 16, 2024
1:00 - 2:30 pm ET
The Worldview and Peace Workshop​
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Presenter: Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows)
Description: ​This workshop aims to deepen the understanding of how precolonial and colonial worldview precepts influence our thinking and actions. It will demonstrate how daily reflection on these precepts can be a powerful tool for personal, organizational, and institutional transformation, ultimately leading to relative peace and a genuine sense of interconnectedness. It will introduce the VFP role in what might be the first ever university sponsored research project studying the possible outcomes relating to regular reflections on the worldview precepts, often uninvestigated, that guide our thoughts and behaviors.
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Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows), aka Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D., is a professor at Fielding Graduate University’s doctoral program in Educational Leadership for Change. Former Dean of Education at Oglala Lakota College on Pine Ridge, he fulfilled his Sun Dance vows with the Medicine Horse Tiosopaye there and is a made relative. Having received his honorable discharge as a lieutenant in the US Marine Corps in October 1969, Four Arrows co-founded the VFP Chapter with Bud Day and Tony Van Renterghem in Flagstaff, Arizona. He served four tours of duty at Standing Rock.
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Friday, August 16, 2024
3:00 – 3:45 pm ET
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Deported Veterans Advocacy Project​
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Moderator: Willie Hager
Panelists: Jan Ruhman, Robert Blessing, Rudy Melson, Gary Loutzenhiser, Miguel Hernandez, Robert Vivar
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Description: At this 2024 Deported Veterans Advocacy Project (DVAP) 2024 Workshop will discuss our ongoing work and introduce you to a “new” group of Panelists working on the issue and how you and your chapter or organization can get involved in our work to help these veterans in exile through our Legislative effort and the efforts of the many professionals helping us make their live better in exile and the progress that has been made to date to return home over 100 deported veterans.
VFP, National Deported Veterans Advocacy Project (DVAP) advocates for deported
veterans by Lobbying Members of Congress to Amend 8 US Code 1101 (a) (22) to
make them U. S. Nationals upon graduating boot camp.
We hope you will join us for this important one hour workshop followed by the
VFP National Save Our VA (SOVA) Projects one hour workshop . Thank you!
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Willie Hager is a lifetime member of VFP as well as the Project Coordinator for VFP National Deported Veterans Advocacy Project. He previously served as a board member of VFP from 2013 to 2016 and again from 2018 to 2021. A member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War since 1971, he currently lives in Jacksonville, Florida with his life partner.
Jan A. Ruhman is the Operations Coordinator for the VFP National Deported Veterans Advocacy Project as well as a member of VFP Chapter 91 in San Diego since 2008. A member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War since 1971, he currently lives in San Diego, California.
Robert Blessing earned his Master of Divinity Degree in 1984 at Church Divinity School of the Pacific Seminary in Berkeley CA. Not long after, he began serving as an Episcopal priest in Seattle and later as a Missionary in Korea. He signed on as an Army Chaplain in 1993, both active and Reserve, trained to promote the spiritual and personal well-being of members of the Department of the Army. Blessing served three deployments after 9/11, two which were in Iraq. He retired in August of 2018 with 25 years of service. He now assists veterans recovering from the moral and spiritual injuries by walking with veterans on pilgrimages in Spain and upon the beaches of San Diego. He volunteers with the Unified United States Deported Veterans Resource Center in Tijuana Mexico
Dr. Rudy S. Melson, DrPH, MACM, MHA, is President and Founder of Consultants For America’s Veterans (CAV), LLC. also known as CAV, a company dedicated to helping U.S. Military Veterans and servicemembers.
Dr. Melson is an Eagle Scout and a U.S. Military Veteran. He entered the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol at age sixteen. Subsequent to that, he served in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps ROTC as a Midshipman; and, enlisted in the United States Army as a Healthcare Specialist. He culminated his military career as a Health Services Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
Dr. Melson’s healthcare background and education have allowed him to serve in prestigious civilian roles during his career including appointments as a Clinical Risk Manager for the Weed Army Community Hospital, Ft. Irwin, CA; and, a Clinical Systems Informatics Training Instructor at the Keller Army Community Hospital, West Point, NY.
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Gary Loutzenhiser (Chief Lou as he is affectionately known) and his wife Mar Cárdenas have been steadfast supporters of our Deported Veterans since 2012. His work, support, and close contact with Deported Veterans in Tijuana, as well as his presence at the office, has been helping keep the doors of the Office open, He is a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer. Mar is a dual immersion public school teacher and she is a Navy Gulf War veteran. They are both involved with many social justice organizations and they own an Airbnb named Centro GaryMar in Playas de Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico at which they have hosted and cooked Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and other events such as the VFP National Board Meeting in 2015 for Deported Veterans since 2013. In addition, they have donated generously of their time and money to help our fellow veterans and Gary has a unique perspective on our cause from having known most of them over many years, both living and deceased. Chief Lou will share his perspective on what the veterans he has and does know have been through as deportees.
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Miguel "Rocky" Hernandez was born in Mexico to a US citizen father from Texas and mother born in Mexico, and was brought to the USA as a child. After graduating High School. Miguel enlisted in the US Army during the Vietnam War serving honorably. Like many veterans Miguel, had difficulty integrating back into civilian life self medicating with alcohol and encountering the legal system. This landed Miguel, with immigration consequences that resulted in his being deported in 2017 to Tijuana Mexico. Fortunately for Miguel the VFP-DVAP/ Unified U.S. Deported Veterans Resource Center Office had just opened a few short weeks prior. Miguel walked into Tijuana Mexico and easily found the VFP/DVAP Office and was able to get support for his housing as well as tools to establish himself as a barber.
After Miguel was a victim of a crime, he suffered a fractured dislocated hip, and again VFP-DVAP came to the rescue getting him the needed medical care he needed as well as a visit to his hospital room from Congresswoman Norma Torres of Calif. Through the support of this office Miguel was able to obtain his VA Age Pension through Dr. Rudy Melson as well as be connected to legal services for review of his case for possible repatriation.
Miguel lately has given up his job as a barber to dedicate himself fulltime as a veteran volunteer Staffing the VFP-DVAP/ Unified Office to keep it open six days a week Monday through Saturday to continue servicing and supporting our deported veterans Worldwide and on the ground in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico.
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Robert Vivar is Co-Executive Director of the Unified U.S. Deported Veterans Resource Center. He is also a member of the VFP National Deported Veterans Advocacy Project and a member of Chapter 182 in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Deported in 2013, he began working with Deported Veterans in 2014 and has been instrumental in their return home and continues to do so today. He was repatriated in 2021. He currently lives in San Diego with his wife.
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Friday, August 16, 2024
3:45 – 4:30 pm ET
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The Red Team Report Echoes SOVA's Stance​
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Panelists: Suzanne Gordon, Jeff Roy, Arlys Herem, Bruce Carruthers
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Description: Congress and VA Secretary McDonough are ignoring the VA's own Red Team Report that stated there is “a potential existential threat to the VA Health System” and that “addressing this matter should be an urgent priority for VA/VHA leadership.” The Red Team Report outlines steps that should be immediately taken to reverse the impact of privatization.
Hear about the report during a discussion of the Save Our VA (SOVA) Campaign, including: its history, what SOVA does to fight privatization and to save VHA, and how VFP members can join this effort.
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Suzanne Gordon is a journalist and the author of Wounds of War: How the VA Delivers Health, Healing, and Hope and The Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Policy Making and Patient Care and a Senior Policy Analyst, Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute.
Jeff Roy is a retired teacher, social worker and longtime community organizer living in Minneapolis. He entered Vietnam as a Marine radio operator in October 1968, and served in the 3rd Marine Division in Quang Tri Province and later on the border with Laos until October 1969. While in Vietnam, he turned against the American War and once he was state side, organized other Marines to oppose the war; and for that was kicked out of the service.
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Arlys Herem served in the Army Nurse Corps, including a tour in Viet Nam. She worked with a local NGO in Cambodia doing home care in villages for 20 years before retiring to Minneapolis in 2018. As a SOVA Steering Committee member, she believes all veterans should be able to choose health care provided by a fully funded, fully staffed VA.
Bruce Carruthers is married with 3 sons. After serving in Vietnam he worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs as a member of the Federal Executive Service until retiring in 2002. He has been a Steering Committee member of the VFP National Save Our VA Project since February 2020 and is a member of the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute’s Steering Committee.
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Friday, August 16, 2024
5:00 - 6:30 pm ET
Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Seek Justice— And The Outlaw of Nuclear Weapons— through People’s Tribunal
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Panelists: Juyeon JC Rhee, Brad Wolf, Ann Wright, Elliott Adams, Joseph Essertier, Kapsong Kim, Gil Kim
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Description: As an effort to abolish nuclear weapons in the world, this panel will introduce a journey for justice by Korean atomic victims. In August of 1945, 70,000 Korean a-bomb victims were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They had been forcibly removed from their homeland by the Japanese and became victims of the atomic blasts. They were noncombatants and were not enemies of the United States. While they suffered for the past 79 years through neglect, discrimination, and oppression, they have won individual victories from the Japanese government for medicare and from the Korean government for social welfare. And now, they seek an apology from the United States. They also seek through this people’s tribunal a legal ruling that the US atomic bombings in 1945 violated international law at that time, and that nuclear weapons and the threat to use nuclear weapons are currently in violation of international law.
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The tribunal has gathered participants and a renowned legal team from around the globe to build a case and move it forward with the opening gavel set for 2026 in New York City to coincide with either the UN Review Conference for the Non-Proliferation Treaty or the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The tribunal is supported by numerous peace and social justice organizations and seeks to highlight the many dangers and unintended victims of nuclear weapons, particularly in this current age where the threat to use nuclear weapons has increased dramatically by nuclear weapons states.
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Not only providing necessary backgrounds, the panel will discuss their own perspectives on the nuclear abolition, U.S.’s deterrence strategy, Korean a-bomb victims, and international people’s tribunal.
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Juyeon JC Rhee is a Board member of Korea Policy Institute, a steering committee member of Koreans for Woori School, and belong to other peace and anti-war organizations in the US. She has been working for peace and Reunification of Korea as a diasporic Koreanfor the last 30 years.
Brad Wolf is a former prosecutor, lawyer, and director of Peace Action Network of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal and is the coordinator of the US organizing committee of The International People’s Tribunal on the Atomic Bombings of 1945. He recently published a book on the writings of Philip Berrigan entitled a “A Ministry of Risk” and writes for numerous publications.
Ann Wright is a delegate of 2015 crossing of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Korea, a member of Advisory Board of World BEYOND War, and a juror of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Ann is a retired US Army Reserve Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the US war on Iraq. She received the State Department’s Award for Heroism for her actions during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
Elliott Adams is a a member of Veterans For Peace(VFP), New York State chapter and past president of VFP’s National Board. He served in the army as a paratrooper in the infantry in Viet Nam, Japan, Korea and Alaska in the 1960s. Over time, Elliott transformed into a nonviolent warrior, applying himself to building movements focused on creating justice and ending our war culture. Actively engaged in resisting violence, he has participated in various campaigns to close Guantanamo, peace in Gaza and Korea.
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Joseph Essertier's activism has included participation in street protests against nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster, resisting Nanking Massacre denialists, hundreds of street protests against U.S. bases in Okinawa, and educational events on Korea. Recently, Essertier has written and spoken about the dangers of nuclear weapons and NATO’s eastward expansion. He has been the Coordinator of the Japan chapter of World BEYOND War since 2017, is an editor of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, and is an associate professor at the Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan.
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Kapsong Kim is National Coordinator for Korean American Peace Fund, and Director for MinKwon Center. Since 1984, Kapsong has served at community organizations in LA, SF, DC. NY/NJ as a staff or board member for 40 years. He was also a journalist for 20 years, which includes the role of editor-in-chief at The Korea Daily New York.
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Gil Kim is a member of Solidarity for Peace And Reunification of Korea (SPARK). Participated in the 2024 Second International Forum in Hiroshima for The International People’s Tribunal to hold the U.S. accountable for dropping Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an English interpreter.
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Saturday, August 17, 2024
4:00 – 5:30 pm ET
Impact of Current Wars on Climate Crisis
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Panelists: Gary Butterfield (Moderator), Ian Mooney, Taylor Smith-Hams, Patrick Bigger, Lennard De Klerk, and Tamara Lorincz
Description: Although the world is preoccupied with the two tragic ongoing wars, the other existential, relentless threat to humanity continues to bear down on us. Most of us won’t be around to experience the full, devastating impacts of the climate crisis if the US government (among others) does not act decisively, but our kids and grandkids will.
This workshop by the Climate Crisis & Militarism Project (CCMP) focuses how climate/environment and war/militarism intersect. Our panelists will provide an update on the status of the global climate and context on how the current conflicts exacerbate the climate crisis. Of course we demand “Ceasefire Now” to bring an end to the hostilities in Gaza and Ukraine. We call on all nations to demilitarize and to redirect spending to deal with the climate crisis.
We will emphasize that Militarism Fuels the Climate Crisis and discuss how CCMP is now collaborating with 350.org US and other groups to protest military air shows as examples of air, noise and greenhouse gas pollution, with an opening in the larger issues of military waste and pollution. At the conclusion we will ask that all attendees sign the VFP-350 petition to the Secretary of the Navy to cancel ALL military air shows, as part of the No MAS campaign.
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Gary Butterfield was drafted into the US Army during the Vietnam War and then declared as a Conscientious Objector and opposed the war while in the military. He is resolute in acting on his commitment to Peace. He is Treasurer of the San Diego Chapter of Veterans For Peace and currently on the Steering Committee of the National Veterans For Peace Climate Crisis & Militarism Project. He is also a member of San Diego 350.org and is keenly interested in the effects of militarism on the climate crisis.
Ian Mooney is a veteran of the US Army and a graduate worker at the University of Kentucky’s Philosophy Department. Their research focuses on questions of environmental ethics, police and military abolition, and new political ontologies. In
addition to serving on the CCMP steering committee, Ian organizes with UCW local 3365, the Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition, the DSA, and the Red Black Alliance.
Taylor Smith-Hams (she/her) is a US Senior Organizer with 350.org based in Baltimore, MD. She is passionate about equitable and intersectional public policy rooted in relationship building and systems thinking, and she views art as a critical component of social change and movement building. Taylor holds a BFA in Painting & Humanistic Studies from MICA, an PA in Sustainable Infrastructures & Public Policy from UCL, and is a Climate Change Professional (CC-P), certified by the Association of Climate Change Officers and the State of Maryland.
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Patrick Bigger (he/him) is the Research Director at the Climate and Community Project. Prior to joining CCP he was a Lecturer in Economic Geography at Lancaster University in the UK and holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Kentucky. At CCP he leads work on militarism and the climate crisis plus work on the International Financial Architecture and US Public Lands policy.
He has written on these issues in academic journals including Science; Nature: Ecology and Evolution; and Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, and outlets including The Nation and Dissent. His work on the climate costs of militarism has been featured in media around the world.
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​Lennard De Klerk has developed businesses in Central and Eastern Europe with a focus on climate change and environmental technologies. He developed climate projects under the Kyoto Protocol to purchase the resulting CO2 reductions on behalf of the Dutch government. In 2004, he founded a consultancy company to develop Joint Implementation (JI) projects in Ukraine and Russia with a portfolio of more than 55 JI Projects, which was reducing 64 million tCO2. He built the Irota EcoLodge resort in Eastern Hungary, consisting of three villas and a shared biological pool, in which a number of environmental technologies were applied. This resort is the first and so far the only carbon-neutral accommodation in Hungary. He started an initiative to determine the impact of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine on carbon emissions and is lead and co-author on emissions reports from the war in Ukraine and estimates of emissions from war in Gaza.
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Tamara Lorincz is currently in the process of completing her PhD in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs (Wilfrid Laurier University). Her focus has been on the impacts of militarism on climate with a keen eye on NATO. She has a law degree and MBA focusing on environmental law and management from Dalhousie University and an MA in International Politics and Security Studies from the University of Bradford. She is a member of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Environmental Working Group. She’s also a fellow with the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.
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Sunday, August 18, 2024
12:00 – 1:30 pm ET
Calling Out the War Industrialists and Calling for Divestment​
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Panelists: Christian Sorenson, Terry Lodge, Jack Gilroy, Nick Mottern, Kathy Kelly
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Description: This workshop will provide VFP members with examples of actions that are calls to conscience for the general public and war industry employees to separate themselves from weapons-making and to particularly support student organizing for divestment in the U.S. war industry.
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Christian Sorensen is a researcher focused on the bundling of military and big business. A U.S. military veteran, he is a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network. His research is available at thebusinessofwar.substack.com.
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Terry Lodge is a longtime environmental, antiwar and civil rights lawyer in Toledo, Ohio who in 45 years has represented opponents of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, mountaintop removal, fracking and its radioactive waste, and war. He's led legal fights against illegal nuclear weapons tests. Most recently, Terry was the main author of a letter from Veterans for Peace to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, demanding a criminal investigation of the State Department's open-ended military munitions support for Israel during the ongoing Palestine genocide.
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Jack Gilroy has been a resister to war since he left the military. Jack strongly supports conscientious objection to the military and encourages young people to be conscientious objectors to the Defense (war) industry. Jack's novels Absolute Flanigan and The Wisdom Box are about COs from WWII and the Vietnam War. His play Reap What You Sow—Change of Heart? Premiers this fall and is available free to peace and justice groups for both conscience-raising and fundraising.
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Nick Mottern is Co-coordinator with Kathy Kelly of BanKillerDrones.org and is an organizer of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, which is calling for the prosecution of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, RTX/Raytheon and killer drone-maker General Atomics accountable for aiding and abetting U.S. war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and violations of International Human Rights Law that have occurred since 9/11. He is also a member of the national board of directors of Veterans For Peace and a member of Demilitarize Western Massachusetts.
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Kathy Kelly is an American peace activist, pacifist and author, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and, until the campaign closed in 2020, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. As part of peace team work in several countries, she has traveled to Iraq twenty-six times, notably remaining in combat zones during the early days of both US–Iraq wars.
From 2009 to 2019, her activism and writing focused on Afghanistan, Yemen, and Gaza, along with domestic protests against US drone policy. She has been arrested more than sixty times at home and abroad, and written of her experiences among targets of US military bombardment and inmates of US prisons.​​
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Sunday, August 18, 2024
2:00 – 3:30 pm ET
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Resisting Repression: Strategies of Solidarity in the New McCarthy Era​
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Moderator: Joshua Shurley
Panelists: Jodie Evans, Jesse Nevel, Allie Wong
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Description: In the face of escalating efforts by the US government to marginalize peace groups, journalists, activists, and other dissenting voices, this timely panel discussion examines strategies to navigate the current landscape of censorship, repression and persecution. Our panel of activists—Jodie Evans of CODEPINK, Jesse Nevel of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, and Allie Wong of Columbia University—share their firsthand experiences and insights with being targets of these malign efforts. From media smears to financial targeting to malicious legal prosecution, these tactics aim to silence those who challenge the status quo and manufacture consent for a wide range of despotic global and domestic policies that harken back to the bad old days of the Red Scare. What lessons can we draw from these experiences to strengthen our collective voice and protect civil liberties and the pursuit of peace? Together, we'll explore effective strategies for building solidarity, resistance, and resilience in the fight against this ongoing tyranny as we seek to build a culture of peace.
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Jodie Evans is the co-founder and a current board member of CODEPINK. She has been a visionary advocate for peace for decades, as evident through the numerous documentary films she has produced and the books she has written. Whether in board rooms or war zones, legislative offices or neighborhood streets, Jodie’s enthusiasm for a world at peace infuses conciliation, optimism, and activism wherever she goes. More recently, she and her group have been targeted by senior members of Congress for their calling out of US policies of genocide and reckless brinksmanship.
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​Jesse Nevel became active in the movement for reparations to African people in 2010 when he met Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) in St. Petersburg, Florida. He has served as the National Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) since 2014, building white solidarity with African Liberation and reparations, under the leadership of the APSP. In 2017, Jesse ran for mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida with the slogan, “Unity Through Reparations!” Along with Chairman Omali Yeshitela and Penny Hess, Jesse is one of the Uhuru 3 facing bogus charges for working for reparations to African people.
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Allie Wong is a PhD student in communications at Columbia University in New York City, and one of the recent student organizers during the Justice for Palestine protest movement. Her research areas explore how dis/misinformation, conspiracy theories, and radicalization inform domestic extremism and foreign policy. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies an M.A. in International Affairs from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and a BA in Human Rights Peace and Nonviolent Activism from New York University. Allie has served as a consultant on Middle Eastern regional security issues to various think tanks, research institutes, and international NGOs.
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Joshua Shurley is the current national vice president of Veterans For Peace. In addition to teaching political science at Fresno City College, Josh is a former conflict researcher specializing in US foreign policy in Africa, is the the lead organizer of VFP Chapter 180 in Fresno, California, and is involved in several organizations, projects, and committees related to peace and resistance to imperialism. ​
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Sunday, August 18, 2024
4:00 - 5:30 pm ET
The Rising Multi-polar world: Will the Empire start World War to prevent it?
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Moderator: Michael Wong
Panelists: Matt Hoh, K.J. Noh, and Ken Hammond
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Description: After the Cold War, the US neocon elite planed to dominate the world. The US attacked and wrecked multiple nations in the Balkans, Central Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. But China continued its peaceful development and is now helping these nations develop and/or recover. The US considers this alter-development a threat, and now China, Russia, and its allies have been designated "revisionist powers"--official enemies– and our Washington elite are attacking, sanctioning, & threatening everyone who will not join us against China and the rising multi-polar global south.
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US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed a secret order designating the US to be in "active combat with China." Kurt Campbell, Deputy Secretary of State, has threatened to unleash "A magnificent symphony of death." General Minihan and Admiral Davidson expect war in 2025 and 2027, respectively. Will the US trigger global war for hegemony, or go gently into that good night? The planet is at stake.
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Michael Wong is the vice president of Veterans for Peace, San Francisco chapter 69, serves on the VFP National Board of Directors, is a past national vice president of VFP, and is one of two co-ordinators of the VFP China Working Group. He is published in the book, “Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace,” edited by Maxine Hong Kingston, and appears in the documentary, “Sir! No Sir!” about the GI resistance movement to the American war in Viet Nam. He is a retired social worker with a Master of Social Work degree.
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Matt Hoh is the Associate Director of the Eisenhower Media Network, an organization of expert former military, intelligence and civilian national security officials who seek to reach broad, cross-partisan audiences in diverse media outlets and among the American people – who increasingly sense that U.S. foreign policy today is not making them, or the world, safer. Matt is a former Marine Corps captain, Afghanistan State Department officer, a disabled Iraq War veteran and is a Senior Fellow Emeritus with the Center for International Policy.
Matt has been a prolific writer and speaker about issues of war and peace. Matt serves on the advisory boards of many peace organizations including Veterans for Peace and World Beyond War and is an associate member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
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K.J. Noh is a peace activist, journalist, and scholar specializing in the geopolitics of the Asian continent. He writes for Asia Times, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, and other publications. He is special correspondent for KPFA Flashpoints on the Pivot to Asia, the Koreas, and the Pacific. KJ Noh is a South Korean Army veteran and a member of Veterans For Peace and Pivot To Peace.
Ken Hammond is a professor at New Mexico State University specializing in China and East Asia. He spent ten years living and studying in China, is fluent in Mandarin, holds a B.A. in History & Political Science from Kent State University, and a Ph.D. in History & East Asian Languages from Harvard University. He is the author of several books and courses, and his latest book is "China's Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future," published by 1804 Books.
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Sunday, August 18, 2024
6:00 – 7:30 pm ET
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Moral Injury in Today’s Wars and a Future Care Model​
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Moderator: Ellen Barfield​
Panelists: Chris J. Antal, Joe Wiinikka-Lydon,
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Description: Dr Wiinikka-Lydon will look at the ways in which moral injury transforms life in societies for both soldiers and civilians in war zones. Moral injury harms not only the psyche but the way one sees, imagines, and hopes, and imagination is central to the prospect of post-conflict peacebuilding.
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The Rev Antal will focus on an innovative moral injury group model developed at the VA in Philadelphia and now available for adoption at other VA Medical Centers. Participants will be introduced to the group model as well as outcome data from past participants.
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​Ellen Barfield has belonged to VFP since 1988, served on the board from 2000 to 2008 and returned this year to fill an unexpired term. She co-founded the Baltimore, MD Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter #105 in 2003.
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Chris J. Antal, (Doctor of Ministry, Hartford Seminary 2017), is Staff Chaplain at the Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia, where he has led a military moral injury group since 2015.
Reverend Antal is a minister in full fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association, with ecclesiastical endorsement from the UUA to work in VA. Prior to joining VA, Chris was a military chaplain and a congregational minister.
​Joe Wiinikka-Lydon is currently a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center. He has researched moral injury for a decade and a half, and has previously been a college-level instructor at several universities. He received a doctorate in religion and ethics, focusing on religion, conflict,and peace, from Emory University in 2015.