From Warriors to Resisters
copy, whichever you prefer. Sixteen U.S. warriors-turned-resisters tell very important
stories in this book, stories we want to be read in every living room, library, coffee
shop, and classroom throughout the land. If you agree, please help spread the word.
Click here to read the Preface or
Introduction.
Thanks and Peace,
Margaret Knapke, editor
_____________________________________
Our photo gallery introduces you to the amazing people who share their stories in
From Warriors to Resisters: U.S. Veterans on Terrorism.
Attribution for the photos is given when known, and many belong to the resisters
themselves. If one of these photos is yours and you would rather we not use it,
contact the site manager and it will be removed.
_____________________________________
Bill McNulty
Bill McNulty has been active for many years in the effort to close the School of the Americas
(SOA), which since 2001 has been called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation (WHINSEC). SOA/WHINSEC has trained Latin American soldiers
since 1946, including many of the region’s worst human rights abusers.
This photo was taken in November 2001, at the annual protest held at Fort Benning, GA,
which since 1984 has been home to SOA/WHINSEC. McNulty’s shirt reads
“Smedley Butler was right.” Photo is used with
permission of Liz Quirin.
Read what Major General Smedley Butler had to say in 1933 about U.S. interventionism.
He knew what he was talking about: he had served 33 years as a U.S. Marine and
conducted many interventions himself.
McNulty is one of many “Smedleys”–warriors-turned-resisters who believe that “War is
just a racket”–who are working to close SOA/WHINSEC and to stop the war in Iraq.
He recounts his personal awakening in “Naming Reality.”
_____________________________________
Roy Bourgeois, a priest with the Maryknoll Order, began raising awareness
about the training of Latin American troops at Fort Benning in the early 1980s.
His personal witness has grown into the grassroots movement that is now
called SOA Watch.
As a very young man, Bourgeois believed what he was told about the U.S. intervention in
Vietnam, and he joined the U.S. Navy in order to serve there.
While still a Navy warrior, Bourgeois was moved by the suffering of the Vietnamese
people, and he volunteered at an orphanage on his days off.
Every November at Fort Benning, GA, Fr. Bourgeois leads thousands in a mock funeral
procession for all the Latin Americans who have died as a result of SOA/WHINSEC
training. Read his “Waging Peace.”
_____________________________________
Charlie Liteky
Charlie Liteky was a rather hawkish Catholic chaplain during the Vietnam War. He was
awarded the prestigious Congressional Medal of Honor in 1968, for his
exceptional valor in saving lives while under fire.
Liteky changed from decorated pro-war priest to nonviolent resister; he has served
prison terms for civil disobedience. Read his “Resisting the War against the Poor.”
Liteky and his fellow SOA-10 defendants gather in front of the Columbus, GA
courthouse after their sentencing in 2000.
_____________________________________
Jack Gilroy
Jack Gilroy first served in the Naval Reserve, and then in the Army as part of a combat
infantry team. He returned to the United States and became a teacher;
he still mourns five students who died in Vietnam.
Gilroy and a friend dig in a machine gun near the Czech border. Read Gilroy’s
“The Making of a War Resister.”
_____________________________________
Laura Slattery
Laura Slattery graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY in 1988.
Slattery served with the Medical Service Corps; she left the military in 1991. She now works with Pace e Bene,
an organization dedicated to the practice of active nonviolence as a process for cultural transformation.
Slattery’s “Betrayal” explains her very difficult decision to hang her battle dress uniform
on the fence of Fort Benning, GA in November 2001. Photo is used with permission of
Linda Panetta of SOA Watch/NE and Optical Realities.
_____________________________________
Wayne Wittman
Wayne Wittman was a Navy hospital corpsman in 1950 when he posed with his mother
and sisters.
Wittman had hopes that his experience as hospital corpsman would give him a “feel” for
the medical profession, but he also longed to make the Navy his career.
In “Refusing Complicity, Choosing Service,” Wittman explains how his career and
perspective changed. He is active now with Veterans for Peace and SOA Watch.
_____________________________________
Lil & Bill Corrigan
Lillian Kamack joined the Navy WAVES at the age of 20.
Kamack met Bill Corrigan, the man she would marry, when they were
both in Radio School for the Navy.
The Corrigans tell of their evolution into peacemakers—including the influence Dr. Martin
Luther King had on them—in “For a Mother Who Lost Five Sons in El Salvador.”
Bill and Lil Corrigan protested the Iraq War from its beginning. When Bill became too weak
to stand at the weekly protests, he sat on a park bench with his sign, “Support the
troops, not the policy." Bill died in February 2005; the second edition of
From Warriors to Resisters is dedicated to him.
_____________________________________
Jeff Moebus
Jeff Moebus served in the U.S. Army for 28 years, including two tours of duty in Vietnam.
In “Keeping Vigil at The Gate,” he explains how he came to do a 52-day
fast and vigil at the main gate of Fort Benning.
Moebus was visited during his vigil by Maj. Joe Blair (U.S. Army retired). A former
instructor at the SOA, Blair joins Moebus and many others in calling for the
SOA/WHINSEC’s closure.
_____________________________________
Ellen Barfield
Ellen Barfield joined the Army so that she’d be able to finish her college education. While serving
in Germany and Korea, she got an education about U.S. policy she never expected.
Read her account in “Why Was I a Soldier? Why Am I Now a Peace Activist?”
In October 2001, Barfield is arrested at the Maryland Air National Guard Base
for protesting the war against Afghanistan. Photo by Greg Boertje-Obed.
_____________________________________
Peter J. De Mott
Peter De Mott served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam and later with the U.S. Army in Turkey.
After his return to civilian life, he became involved with the Catholic Worker
movement and his peacemaking “process of conversion” began.
De Mott is now a steadfast nonviolent activist and has been arrested numerous times at
the Pentagon, the White House, and various military bases and
weapons-manufacturing plants. Read his “Finding My Way.”
_____________________________________
Diedra Cobb
Diedra Cobb is an Iraq War resister who told her Army superiors that, for moral and ethical
reasons, she would not fire a weapon in Iraq. This photo is used with the
permission of Charles Jenks of traprockpeace.org.
Cobb carries a mock coffin at an anti-war demonstration. In one of her poems, she declares:
“This is my history, this is my story/ My people, my land, my culture/ Full of
pain, love and glory.” Read her “In War, There Is No End.”
_____________________________________
Stephen Funk
Stephen Funk was the first conscientious objector imprisoned for refusing to fight in the
Iraq War. This photo is used with the permission of Jeff Paterson of
Not in Our Name (NION).
Read about Funk’s journey from U.S. Marine Corps reservist to outspoken peace activist
in his “No Conscience Left Behind.” This photo is used with the permission of
Charles Jenks of traprockpeace.org.
_____________________________________
Camilo Mejía
Camilo Mejía served seven months as a National Guard reservist in the Middle East, including
five months in Iraq. He then filed for discharge as a conscientious objector and refused
to re-deploy to Iraq in the meantime. He was court-martialed in 2004; here he
is with his attorneys and family members after one day’s proceedings.
Mejía is surrounded by members of his extended family at the Peace Abbey,
just prior to his surrender to U.S. military authorities.
Mejía addresses a rally on the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. This photo
is used with the permission of Charles Jenks of traprockpeace.org.
Read Mejía’s “Regaining My Humanity.” And check out his 2007 book, Road from ar Ramadi:
The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía. This photo is used
with the permission of Charles Jenks of traprockpeace.org.
_____________________________________
Jimmy Massey
Jimmy Massey served 12 years of active duty with the U.S. Marine Corps, including
the Iraq invasion. He also served as a recruiter for three years.
In his “Warrior to War Protester,” Massey details two particular events that caused
a seismic shift in his awareness.
Massey says, “I sold my soul to the Marine Corps a long time ago, but every time I tell my story, I get
a little piece of it back.” His wife Jackie has been a strong ally in his activism.
_____________________________________
Michael Blake
Michael Blake had been in Iraq for only a few weeks when he “started to see the Army
for what it really was—a brutal killing machine.” Not wanting to continue as “another
cog in that machine,” he filed for conscientious objector status—and got it.
Read Blake’s “My Story.” He has been very active with Iraq Veterans Against the War
(IVAW) since March 2005.
_____________________________________
Joan Baez
Singer and longtime peace activist Joan Baez visited Camp Casey in support of Cindy
Sheehan’s efforts to discuss the Iraq War with G. W. Bush. Baez left with a copy of
From Warriors to Resisters: U.S. Veterans on Terrorism.
_____________________________________