Swords to Plowshares

Michael Blecker, Executive Director

Dear Michael,

The other night I was reading some of the fine articles posted on the Swords to Plowshares website when I came across “Post 9/11 Veterans: Our turn to answer the call.” Some statistics from the article’s sidebar:

• An estimated 300,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression
• Over 810,000 servicemembers have been deployed more than once to combat theaters
• An estimated 320,000 veterans may have experienced TBI (traumatic brain injury)

I didn’t realize the tremendous strides your organization is making to support U.S. veterans, changing lives for the better, in many cases saving lives altogether. I was impressed by the stories of the Profiles in Courage honorees. I thought, what if the honorees could have served without suffering PTSD?

If the United States could reduce the need to deploy servicemembers to combat in the first place by reducing our zones of conflict in the world, we’d see fewer deployments, fewer cases of PTSD and TBI, and a welcome reduction in the painful fallout from combat and trauma.

In 2011, Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio reintroduced H.R. 808 (with 37 co-sponsors so far) to create an executive-level Department of Peace. Right now, Department of Peace grassroots activist groups exist in about 300 congressional districts in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. Working in tandem with the U.S. Military, the Department of Peace would conduct research and training on causal issues of violence, actively engage in dismantling violence, and build peace at the domestic and international levels.

The Department of Peace could be a veteran’s greatest defense against PTSD and TBI.

I hope you’ll accept this invitation to endorse the United States Department of Peace; Swords to Plowshares would be joining organizations such as Veterans for Peace, Amnesty International, and most recently the Marin County Board of Supervisors.

Wishing Swords to Plowshares a Happy New Year of the Water Dragon—wisdom, good fortune, and flexibility.