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Statement from IVAW Executive Director

By Jose Vasquez

A lot has happened in IVAW since the last issue of The Veteran. Our VVAW supported Field Organizing Team is busy conducting sustained active duty outreach at Fort Hood and developing leaders from around the country. We've reached hundreds of service members and their families on base and the movement to support our troops' right to heal is growing! A special thanks to VVAW for your sustained and substantial support of the Field Organizing Program, and to everyone who has contributed to this important effort. You can follow the campaign at ivaw.org/operation-recovery.

We also held our 7th annual National Convention in Portland, OR in conjunction with Veterans for Peace. This year's convention was a big success that included workshops on leadership development, connecting with Iraqi organizations, media mobilizing, and a fantastic panel of allies imparting lessons from other movements. Plans for the 2012 convention are underway and will likely take place on the East Coast. Stay tuned for updates at ivawconvention.org.

A new crop of eager board members was elected this summer and we had our first quarterly meeting on October 1-2 in NYC. Our current board is Garett Reppenhagen, Joyce Wagner, Bryan Reinholdt, Jennifer Blain, Wendy Barranco, Brock McIntosh, Scott Kimball and Jorge Gonzalez. Marty Webster, a VVAW National Coordinator, attended the meeting and participated in a planning session for mentoring between IVAW board members and our advisory committee members.

At the time of this writing, we are gearing up for our jointly planned War Voices (warvoices.org) event in DC to mark the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan invasion. And as thousands descend on Freedom Plaza to call for Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed (october2011.org) we are doing our part to highlight the voices of Afghan civilians, veterans and military families, as well as make the connections to the domestic crisis.

This Veterans' Day we are focusing on women service members and vets. Look for upcoming events and opportunities to support our sisters in uniform and in our community at ivaw.org.

In solidarity,

Jose N. Vasquez
Executive Director
Iraq Veterans Against the War