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May 03, 2026 / Joy Damiani / We Are Not Your Soldiers -“How do veterans become homeless?” is a question that should not have to be asked in a healthy society. When addressed to me by a teenager in a school in the heart of Manhattan, it spoke volumes of the world students are about to inherit. Not only are they witnessing and experiencing horrors in every direction, but they’ve got frighteningly little information about what the future is going to hold for them, and even less about the military.

They don’t know that even if you “volunteer,” the military is a job one does not simply quit – hearing that caused one student to turn to the teacher and tell him they’d decided against enlisting. They don’t know that military members are government property, or that every first enlistment contract is an eight-year contract. A couple of students asked about the possibility of a draft – which could affect nearly all of them – as they had no idea what to expect. Many had questions about the average day in the life of a soldier, or my “best” and “worst” experiences on active duty. Most of the students were actively engaged in the discussion and had more questions than there was time to answer. It clearly demonstrated for me the gravity of this work, and the deep need for it in our communities.

A Letter We Wish Someone Would have Written to Us

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Apr 24, 2026 / Rubicon & Griobhtha, and Juan Idalgo / Crossing Rubicons - World War 1, the “War to end all wars” killed 30-40 million people. Version 2.0 of the “War to end all wars” killed double that. Since 1945, the United States has killed approximately 20 million people around the globe through direct slaughter. Korea killed millions, mostly innocent civilians, Vietnam killed millions more, mostly innocent civilians. When you add in proxy wars, sanctions, deliberate starvation of populations and withholding of medicine and care (“to teach them a lesson”), the number conservatively reaches 45-50 million aggressively culled. When you add in the other Western colonial powers, the figures double again.

We’re writing to you because nobody else will — not like this.

Not your recruiter. Not your coach who “served.” Not the teacher who told you the military would “make a man out of you.” Not the influencer with the sponsorship deal and the gun she’s never fired at a living thing. Not the politician who’ll send you to die and then stand at your funeral with a flag and a speech full of words he stole from better men.

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March 20, 2026 / Emily Graham  - For busy parents tracking Middle East issues while juggling work, school schedules, and everyday responsibilities, it can be hard to notice when concern turns into parental anxiety that follows everyone into the room. The core tension is real: staying informed can feel responsible, yet the stress can quietly color conversations, patience, and routines in ways kids absorb. Anxiety effects on children often show up indirectly, so even “normal” days can carry a heavier emotional tone than intended. Recognizing the parental anxiety impact is the first step toward protecting children’s emotional well-being and supporting family mental health.

How Parent Stress Becomes Kid Stress

Kids don’t just hear what you say about scary events. They also pick up what your body and tone are communicating, then adjust their own behavior to match the emotional “weather” at home. Over time, that transmission can turn ongoing worry into kid-sized signals like irritability, clinginess, stomachaches, or trouble settling at night.

This matters because children often can’t name what’s wrong, but they can show it through sleep, mood, and school focus. A meta-analysis revealed an association between parental stress and both emotional and behavioral problems in children, which helps explain why small changes at home can have outsized effects.

Imagine you’re scrolling headlines while making dinner, shoulders tight, snapping at small delays. Your child may not understand the news, but they can feel the tension and start melting down at bedtime or zoning out in class.

How counter‑recruitment is evolving to meet a new generation of youth facing economic precarity, digital militarism, and the search for meaningful, peaceful futures. 

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April 18, 2026 / NNOMY Staff / National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY) - For more than two decades, counter‑military recruitment has been one of the most persistent forms of peace activism in the United States. It has survived political cycles, funding droughts, shifting school policies, and the rise of digital recruitment. Yet the heart of the work has remained constant: protecting young people’s right to a future that is not defined by economic desperation or military necessity. What has changed is the world young people are inheriting — and the strategies required to meet them where they are.

Today’s youth are navigating a landscape shaped by climate anxiety, economic precarity, racial injustice, digital surveillance, and a profound distrust of institutions. They are not indifferent to the future; they are acutely aware that the systems around them are unstable. In this context, counter‑recruitment cannot simply warn students away from enlistment. It must offer a narrative of possibility — one that affirms their dignity, names the pressures they face, and opens pathways toward meaningful, peaceful work.

At the center of this narrative is a simple truth: young people deserve a future that doesn’t require enlistment. This is not a slogan; it is a moral and structural claim. It acknowledges that military recruitment in the United States does not target opportunity. It targets inequality. It seeks out students whose communities have been stripped of resources, whose schools are underfunded, whose families face economic strain, and whose futures feel uncertain. Recruiters do not appear randomly. They appear where the state has failed to provide alternatives.

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Tuesday, April 14, 2026 / yes! Solutions Journalism -  A bolder antiwar movement is desperately needed at this moment to prevent the US-Israeli war in the Middle East from escalating further. While slogans against militarism were heard at the historic No Kings protests, we also need to build something more enduring, localized, and concrete to bring the genocidal attacks on Lebanon and Iran to a halt.

Veteran organizing was key to ending the U.S. war on Vietnam. While the movement against the Iraq war did not succeed in preventing the U.S. operation, veteran organizing planted the seeds for long-term efforts to turn youth against war. Writing for YES! in 2023 on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Ruben Abrahams Brosbe reported on efforts by veterans "to counter both the narrative and incentives that military recruiters offer young people" and "share the truth about traumatic personal experiences as well as practical information":

"I think it's super trippy, that there are children who are old enough to be in the military and being deployed to Iraq, who were not born when the war started. That is something that is just devastating and tragic to me," Damiani says. "It fuels my fire to keep talking to the kids, because they need to know." – Ruben Abrahams Brosbe