WAR-REFORM.COM

MISSION STATEMENT:

A group of concerned veterans, mothers, war widows, business people, artists and activists started war-reform.com because we got tired of seeing 19 year old kids coming home in body bags, permanently maimed, or blowing their brains out from PTSD for years after these conflicts. Some studies claim the suicide rate after both Iraq and Afghanistan will far exceed the number of soldiers who actually die in the conflict. Partly this is due to reduced casualty rates in modern war, but mostly due to the young soldiers’ inability to reconcile the surreal nature and violence of their wartime experience with the insulated, pampered, and ignorant mindset of modern civilian life.

Our practice of sending children to fight and die in wars older men start is disgusting, barbaric, cowardly, and unnecessary, even if it’s been going on from time eternal. It’s infanticide (which has the same root as infantry – the exploitation of children). Even if most veterans who make it out of war unscathed, consider their wartime experience a good thing, a growth experience, the elevated rate of homelessness, divorce, suicide and mental illness in veterans compared to the civilian population is unacceptable and not a burden which should fall on the young.

In addition, they’re simply too young to be making the decision whether or not to go to war, and far too young to be paying the price for it. We hope veterans who lived to tell the tale to be amongst our most active and vocal members, whether they choose to serve again or not. It’s not necessary to be willing to serve to be an active member of war-reform.com. We accept everyone and have a role for everyone, male or female, young or old, black, brown or white, from left-wing pacifists to far-right soldier of fortune enthusiasts.

How feasible is it you ask, to have an armed forces composed entirely of 40 plus year olds? Well, I can only speak for myself: I’m over 40. I can easily surpass the entrance exam physical fitness requirements for 17 year olds, and there’s nothing special about me. If I can do it, anyone can do it, you just have to want to and commit to making it a value and a goal. And the rewards for doing so are great, it’s an honor and a pleasure, not a burden.

Military training is actually a great and hugely enjoyable thing. Most Americans are alienated from our military because we don’t trust the commander-in-chief, left or right, to make wise and politically uncompromised decisions in war. Well, we’re going to take that power away from him (and no President who should have it wants that power anyway) and put it back where it belongs – with the American people.

I’m not a veteran, but the veterans in our movement assure me there’s no mystique to being a soldier. There are things to learn but they’re not difficult to learn. The biggest part of it is, or should be, a profound moral decision by adults, who accept the consequences and will pay the steepest price of that decision, not a job application by children who have no idea of the cost or consequences. You need to know what you would fight and die for, and you need to put yourself in a position where you can only be used for good, not for harm. Our movement allows this, the current structure of our society and the military does not.

-- Mark Toma, CEO, war-reform.com