Students for Peace
“We had Jean Athey come speak about the costs of the militarization of America, and we also did a flag display showing the amount of additional money needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals vs. Military Spending for one year. Each flag represented a billion dollars, so we used close to 2 thousand flags! We gave out fliers with more info on the display, a graph on discretionary spending, and websites for War Resisters International and National Priorities Project. Many people stopped to talk. The majority of those people asked questions, thanked us for doing the display, and agreed with what we were doing. A few people stopped who were offended and felt that we were insulting the military and America. We engaged these passerby, gave them facts, and listened to their opinions. One woman who had stopped at the display asked one particularly angry guy if he had ever served in the military. He admitted that he had not. She revealed that she had served for 5 years and had seen first hand the waste and misdirection of funds. She spent the next 30 minutes calmly listening to the angry man, sympathizing with his feelings, but standing firmly in support of the display and message.”