Opinion Forum

Winning Hearts and Minds

January 27th, 2013

By Jan Barry Fifty years ago, I turned 20 in Saigon, a very drunk and slap happy soldier in the service of the US Military Assistance Command Vietnam. We were making war, when we weren’t doing Happy Hours in every bar from Soc Trang to Da Nang, under slick counter-insurgency slogans like “Winning Hearts and […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Agent Orange, anniversary, poetry, PTSD, suicide, veterans, war, WHAM
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Obama’s Peace

January 25th, 2013

By Jan Barry Should President Barack Obama return his Nobel Peace Prize? That’s the sobering question posed in a stunningly serious satire posted on the online humor site TFE. “Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, said today that President Obama ‘really ought to consider’ returning his Nobel Peace Prize Medal immediately, including […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, bin Laden, drones, Nobel Peace Prize, Obama, satire, war
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From Waging War to Waging Peace

January 17th, 2013

By Jan Barry Talk by Jan Barry Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, Teaneck, NJ Sunday, January 13, 2013 When I was 21, I made the most crucial decision of my life—whether to return to Vietnam as a soldier or to resign from a military career. In a life focused on nonviolent conflict resolution, I’ve […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, anti-war, Chappell, Iraq, peace, suicide, veterans, VVAW, war
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A Call to Action

September 19th, 2012

By Jan Barry Veterans For Peace held its 27th national convention last month in Miami, Florida. Among the highlights were a tribute to the organization by former TV talk-show host Phil Donahue and a call by novelist and poet Alice Walker for a new wave of outreach to enlist veterans on the verge of suicide […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Alice Walker, Donahue, human rights, suicide, veterans, VFP, war
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Military Suicide Watch

September 9th, 2012

By Jan Barry What do you do when even war heroes can’t take it any more? A year after surviving a fierce battle in Afghanistan, Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. He was shocked that it didn’t fire, the highly decorated Marine wrote in a […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, combat, Dakota Meyer, Iraq, suicide, veterans, war
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