POSITION STATEMENT ON WAR WITH IRAN, September 2019

Military Families Speak Out is opposed to the recent decision made
by the President to send troops to Saudi Arabia. There is no need to
sacrifice the lives of our loved ones in the US military over a regional
conflict between the nations of Saudi Arabia and Iran. The US should
be joining the international effort to find diplomatic solutions instead, to prevent another disastrous war in the Middle East.

March 13, 2018

Military Families Speak Out urges all members on the House Foreign Affairs Committee to move HR Bill 1229 (Repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force) out of the committee and into the House of Representatives for a full vote. Military Families Speak Out is a national organization made up of families that have loved ones in the military since 9-11. This bill is of utmost importance to our families because the AUMF has been the legal authority used to justify sending our families to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and anywhere else in the world without first getting any new authorization from members of congress. We urge you to co-sponsor the bill and get the repeal of the AUMF out of committee for the following reasons: 

• The AUMF has been the legal authority used to justify our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Congress has failed in its constitutional responsibility to vote to authorize the use of military force for over 16 years. 
• The AUMF had expanded the president’s power to use military force anywhere in the world and has reduced congressional oversight
• It is extremely dangerous to allow the current 2001 AUMF to be the final say for allowing armed conflict. New wars, such as in Niger or even war with N. Korea is under consideration and could be justified under the AUMF. 
• The War Powers Act of 1973 is a federal law that was intended to check the power of the president so that troops can only be committed to armed conflict if congress can declare war. A constitutional crisis has been brewing while the AUMF repeal bill sits in committee, 
• The AUMF has no time or geographic distinctions and three presidential administrations have refused to step forward to get an approval for wars that have killed thousands of our troops, caused endless suffering and resulted in the killing of well over a million innocent civilians, mostly women and children.
• With no credible information of why military force is being used it is imperative that Congress vote on the AUMF. 
• It is our families who pay the price for wars. We are at the front lines making the sacrifices of America’s most treasured resources. 

It is our military men and women, their families, and innocent civilians involved in these many conflicts, who have suffered most.   

It’s time for Congress to show some courage and do its constitutional duty to debate and then vote on the authorization of war.  It is the least they can do when asking our military men and women to put their lives on the line.    

Pat Alviso

National Coordinator

Military Families Speak Out

P.O. Box 4193

Seal Beach, CA 90740

Work with the Military Families Speak Out media team and leadership to grow their membership and help bring our troops home and take care of them when they get here. Learn more here: http://bit.ly/OEP-MFSO

Job Description: Military Families Speak Out Organizer
Working With: Military Families Speak Out Media Team
Bill Scheurer, OEP Executive Director
Marie Rhoades, OEP Youth & Young Adult Director

On Earth Peace is managing this paid internship under its internship program, on behalf of Military Families Speak Out, with grant funding from The A.J. Muste Memorial Institute.

About Military Families Speak Out
Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) is an organization of military families across the US and around the world who are opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and have a loved one currently serving in the military, who has served in the military since 9/11 or who has died as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The mission of Military Families Speak Out is to advocate for all U.S. troops to leave Iraq and Afghanistan now and to speak out against unjust military interventions. MFSO supports policies that utilize diplomacy over military force. We support the troops and work hard to ensure that their needs are met while deployed and when they return home. https://militaryfamiliesspeakout.com/

About On Earth Peace
On Earth Peace (OEP) is a nonprofit organization helping people work together for justice and peace, using the spiritual and practical disciplines of active nonviolence, community building, and conflict transformation. We work through mutual equipping and accompaniment, serving churches and community groups, youth and young adults, and other individuals of all ages. OEP is also an agency of the Church of the Brethren, a Historic Peace Church. http://www.onearthpeace.org/

What You’ll Do
You will help MFSO grow its peacebuilding mission to “bring our troops home now, and take care of them when they get here.” Here are specific tasks you will be doing for MFSO:

• Expanding our social media presence.
• Call MFSO members to ask about doing interviews.
• Call and welcome and learn about new members.
• Organize all interviewee contact info by state/city, military family member relationships, branches of military, deployment histories, and current military status (including active duty, currently deployed, veteran, discharged, wounded, Gold Star, suicide, etc.).
• Collect and maintain media contacts by state/city.
• Ask other groups to share their media list.
• Help develop and send out press releases.
• Search and collect media coverage of our interviews and events.
• Post these and other pertinent stories and events in social media.
• Re-engage inactive/lapsed members.
• Assist leadership team with outreach for new members and partners.
• Consult with media coaches in preparing for and processing member and partner calls, and in helping members prepare for and report back on media interviews.
• Assist in updating general and specific talking points.
  Help media team with regular and special newsletters.
• Assure that the principles and practices of active nonviolence and skilled movement building are integral to all activities and conversations in all our MFSO interactions.

What You’ll Learn
You will gain valuable experience in community building and organizing, and will develop a firm understanding of the right tactics to combine online marketing with overarching outreach goals. You also will learn how to work in a professional environment and have abundant opportunity to make lasting connections. Specifically, you will grow in these and many other important skills:

• How to cultivate sustained impact, engagement, and community.
• How to build relationships with a wide variety of people and organizations.
• How to track social media and other analytics, and report results.
• How to develop compelling content that will be shared by influencers.
• How to learn from creative feedback and viral loops, and discover new ideas.
• How to develop, manage, and evaluate effective community building strategy.
• Deep exposure to the principles and practices of active nonviolence and conflict transformation for building justice and peace throughout your life.
• An understanding of the culture of the military and military families, and sensitivities and protocols for working with military family members and friends in a crisis and/or a state of anxiety during deployments, homecomings, or injuries to or losses of loved ones.

What We’re Looking For
Do you have natural gifts for making friends, forming relationships, and building community? Do your friends look to you in social media for the latest trends, ideas, and online memes? If so, we also are looking for these specific interests and skills:

• Passion for the work of justice and peace, and a genuine interest in learning more deeply about the practices of active nonviolence and conflict transformation.
• Creative self-starter who is comfortable with taking initiative and working on your own, and with working in close collaboration with teams and groups as needed.
• Multitasking finisher who can prioritize and make progress on multiple projects at once (both in parallel and serial), and is committed to finalizing each project on time.
• Detail-oriented influencer with strong written and verbal communication skills, and a good eye for compelling graphics, photos, videos, headlines, and stories.
• Enough power-user technical savvy to manage the tools and techniques of various online productivity tools and social media platforms creatively and effectively.
• Strong social organizing skills and instincts for calling people into community.
• Ability and eagerness to work in the practices of one-to-one community building via email, phone, chat, and video meetings, and where available in person.
• Creative energy and drive with a desire to come up with fresh ideas to grow MFSO membership and build engagement, participation, identification, and belonging.
• Willingness to try new things, take risks, accept responsibility, and learn.
• Ability to understand many different kinds of people, to listen to and speak to them, and to build bridges while maintaining clear commitments to our core values.
• Ability to listen to people in crisis and help them feel heard and supported.
• A high degree of intellectual and emotional confidence and maturity to comprehend and work with abstract concepts at a practical, concrete level of application.
• A marketing or communications major will help, since will be part of a media team.

Location
This job will be done from your school or home. You will need good reliable internet and phone access. You will need enough time in your schedule to be available for regular phone and video meetings, as well as be reachable as needed by email, phone, text, and video call.

Position Available (Date)
This job is available all three semesters (fall, spring, summer) on a rolling basis. MFSO currently has funding available for one full semester of work, with hope for renewal based on results.

To learn more and apply go here: https://www.onearthpeace.org/internships
Revision date: 9/25/2019

DEPORTED VETERANS, RESOLUTION ON (Submitted by Willie Hager, Chapter 174)

Resolution on amending U.S. Code to clearly state that U.S. military servicemembers are noncitizen nationals and to petition the President and the Department of Homeland Security to stay the removal from the U.S. of all foreign nationals who are serving or who have served in the Armed Forces of the U.S.; to lobby all members of Congress state by state and district by district to honor their sacrifices, and to amend United States Code and provide all alien servicemembers the equivalent status of a Noncitizen Nationals. Whereas U.S. servicemembers are being and have been deported after serving in the military from the U.S., and Whereas the current U.S. Code provides: that the term “national of the United States” means: a citizen of the U.S., or a person who, though not a citizen of the United States, owes permanent allegiance to the U.S. (8 U.S.C. 1101(a) (22)), and Whereas Federal law requires everyone who enlists/re-enlists in the Armed Forces of the United States to take the Oath of Enlistment. This Oath and the Oath of Citizenship contain this pledge of loyalty, and Whereas veterans who have served our nation in every war from WWII to Iraq and Afghanistan strongly believe the oath of enlistment is a permanent oath of allegiance to the U.S.;

Military Families Speak Out supports the action of governors of 11 states in denouncing President Trump’s immigration policy of separating children from their parents at the southern border by pulling their National Guard troops from the border and announcing that they won’t be deploying any more of the state’s military or will recall troops already sent. The states include Colorado, Delaware,
Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia. MFSO does not want our loved ones in the military to be part of enforcing this inhumane policy.

Military Families Speak Out is a national organization of families whose loved ones have served or are currently serving in the United States Armed Forces. We urge the governors of the remaining states to take a similar action and withdraw or recall their state’s National Guard.

DONATE NOW!

After 17 years of military intervention resulting in the needless loss of lives and trillions of dollars spent on endless wars, the Trump Administration has requested options from the military for withdrawal plans, including a complete withdrawal. This means we could be seeing the end of the war in Afghanistan finally within our reach.  This, along with the order for the complete withdrawal of troops from Syria and the scaling back of support to the Saudi action in Yemen is a good sign that even this administration is recognizing the futility of continuing all of these wars.

MFSO has always been at the forefront of this struggle, and is well poised to push hard this coming year to be the voice that can make a difference in finally getting all of our troops home and back in the arms of their loved ones. And so we begin the New Year with a campaign to lobby members of Congress and tell the story of the human cost of war- the story that our members know personally.

The voices of our active duty military, veterans and their families must be heard.  We are the people, along with millions of civilians in these war-torn countries, who have paid the price, and continue to pay the price, of a senseless U.S. foreign policy.

As you know, bringing all of our troops home has always been the main goal of MFSO, and our members are in a unique position to demonstrate the reality of war. By speaking from experience, we bring the reality of war home – death, lifelong injuries, post-traumatic stress, moral injury, suicide, traumatic brain injury, and much more.

We firmly believe that our families have been instrumental in getting the country on our side, so that the majority of Americans now understand that these wars do not make us safer, but in fact, have created more enemies for us.

In our concerted effort to end the war in Afghanistan, we ask for your help to continue this arduous work. Pease consider making a one-time donation to MFSO. If you have not already joined the growing list of sustained donors, please consider doing so. We are an all volunteer organization, without dues, and no hired staff. By supporting Military Families Speak Out, your tax deductible donation goes directly into funding actions that promote stopping unjust wars.

DONATE NOW!

In 2018, your generous donations supported MFSO in:

Numerous national and internationally aired interviews from around the country
Poor Peoples Campaign actions- CA, MO, DC
Op-Ed editorials
MFSO literature distribution across the country
Meet up, a new member orientation, outreach, tabling and member support at Veterans for Peace Convention- Minnesota
Regular on-going vigils across the nation
Workshop presentations in MI and CA
Congressional lobbying for a new AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force)
Support for members participating in actions across the country
Key organizers for 100^th Anniversary of Armistice Day weekend in DC which included the Silent march at Arlington Memorial, the Peace Congress, feeding the homeless and Occupy the VA.
Heart 2 Heart Tour- CA, ORE, AZ, NM, and OK
Support for families of deported veterans and their families, including border visits and assistance to prevent deportations and support to pass legislation to end veteran deportation

As this year draws to an end, MFSO is ready to confront the biggest challenge yet- to end the war in Afghanistan. Won’t you please consider being a part of history and making a one-time donation or become a sustaining member today?

MFSO welcomes all comments from members and supporters. Please send us your thoughts throughout the year via our website, Facebook, email or just give us a call anytime.

Pat Alviso
National Coordinator
Military Families Speak Out

DONATE NOW!

It was a whirlwind of activities over Veterans Day weekend. Attached you will find pictures of MFSO members in attendance that included our main event which was a silent march to the war memorials in DC on the 100^th anniversary of Armistice Day and organized by Marcia Westbrook, WVA. Included were Paula Rogovin, NJ, Sabrina Waller, Ill, Cindy and Al Glatkowski, SC, Stacy Bannerman, Ore., and Pat Alviso, CA,  Other events attended by MFSO members included a caravan tour, the Peace Congress, Veterans Occupy the VA and a peace concert in McPhearson Square. Please send your photos of actions in your area and we will get them out as well.

Link to CBS coverage of action/event at Independence Mall  https://cbsloc.al/2qFFLvf

Sunday  November 11