Veterans For Peace (VFP) was founded here in the state of Maine exactly 30 years ago this month. Six of us signed off on a charter we had been working on for months. I might have to gently remind younger readers that this was before the internet ever existed, before cell phones replaced landlines, and not much past the days when we rode in buggies pulled by horses. Okay, I exaggerate a tad there. But I would like to reinforce the commitment we made out of our passion for a peaceful world.

Five of us were military veterans one WWII veteran, one Korean War veteran, two Vietnam War veterans, and one so-called “peacetime” veteran. One of our founders was our first associate member — she was not a veteran. We telephoned each other, wrote letters back and forth and travelled countless miles up and down the state to meet and hammer out the details of this unique organization — the first of its kind populated predominantly by veterans and calling for the abolition of war.

We in Maine might take pride in the fact that VFP began here with six of us. Now we have 131 chapters, at least one in every state in the union, and we are formally recognized as a United Nations NGO. Our current four thousand members have been invited to our annual convention this August — this year we are meeting in San Diego; last year we met in Asheville, North Carolina; the previous year we met in Madison, Wisconsin; and next year we will meet in San Francisco. Two years ago we changed our charter slightly to become an international organization, accommodating the need of over 150 British soldiers who fought in WWII and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and who desperately wanted to use their military experience to abolish war. Our Vietnam chapter, housed in Hanoi, is composed of many veterans who have lived in Vietnam for years — their work in helping alleviate the suffering of Vietnamese exposed to Agent Orange and in clearing out unexploded ordnance left by our forces has won the hearts of the Vietnamese people.

Our national office is currently in St. Louis, Missouri, and, subsequently, we became deeply involved in the Ferguson, Missouri uprising — reinforcing what we have known for years that the militarization of America goes beyond adventures overseas. Our New York City members have joined their colleagues around the country in this effort as well. All of which illustrates an important quality of our organization — we are a federation of local chapters with much autonomy. As long as we all work to abolish war, and to do so non-violently, while acting on the behalf of our membership, we have the support of our national board and director.

Space does not allow me to elaborate on all we have done over these past three decades. I encourage readers to check out websites — our national site at veteransforpeace.org, our Maine site at www.vfpmaine.org and our current vietnamfulldisclosure.org website — to get a sense of what we are all about. And, of course, you can subscribe to our national quarterly newspaper Peace In Our Times to actually hold print in your hands. And, finally, we encourage you to join us — although we are predominantly a veterans’ organization (DD214s required), we do welcome associate members who are often family members of veterans. If you want to abolish war, and you are willing to work non-violently to do so — you have to join us.

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Doug Rawlings was born in Rochester, New York, attended college in Cleveland, Ohio, graduating with a degree in Economics in 1968. He was drafted in the fall of that year and subsequently sent to Vietnam in July of 1969 with the 7/15th artillery. After leaving the army he lived in Boston, Seattle, Bath, Maine and Chesterville, Maine. After teaching high school English for six years (including three years at Brunswick High School), he ran a Bass Shoe Factory Outlet and eventually ended up teaching writing at the University of Maine at Farmington. He retired from UMF 27 years later. In 1985, he was one of six founders of Veterans For Peace. He currently lives in Chesterville and has published two collections of poems (“Orion Rising” and “A G.I. in AMERICA) that capture his life as a veteran, a husband, father, and grandfather, and as four decade resident of central Maine.