We Need Peaceful People

The Traverse City chapter of Veterans for Peace wants the public to know more about the cost of war

By Al Parker | June 29, 2024

With body counts rising in war-torn Gaza and Ukraine, the prospect of any type of global peace is pretty dim.

But that doesn’t deter members of the Traverse City-based Chapter 50 of Veterans for Peace from working to increase public awareness of the causes—and the costs—of war.

“I think everyone is against war,” says 77-year-old Tim Keenan, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran who has served as the group’s president for two decades. “As a combat veteran, I really don’t believe in war. I just think we can avoid some of these wars.”

We Are Patriots

The national Veterans for Peace (VFP) organization was founded in 1985 by 10 vets in response to the global nuclear arms race and U.S. military interventions in Central America. The group grew to more than 8,000 members in the buildup to the U.S. Invasion of Iraq in 2003. 

According to veteransforpeace.org, VFP now has veteran and associate members in every U.S. state and several countries. Its advisory board includes several celebrities, including Jackson Browne, Phil Donahue, Daniel Ellsberg, Jane Fonda, Tom Morello, Cornel West, and Ralph Nader. 

VFP has authorized more than 120 chapters, including three in Michigan—Traverse City, Detroit, and Ypsilanti—and there are international chapters in Vietnam, Japan, and Ireland. 

Keenan estimates that the northern Michigan chapter has about “40 members, 20 who are semi-active and about seven or eight who are really active.”

He’d like to see more younger veterans involved in his organization. “I think there were a lot of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq who might be interested in what we do,” he says. “We’re not an anti-American group; we are patriots who love our country.”

The local VFP chapter has compiled an impressive resume of peace-related activities over the years. Since 2012, they have presented annual $1,000 scholarships for Northwestern Michigan College to a veteran or child of a veteran; this year there were 79 applicants for the scholarship. The chapter provides Christmas gifts to families of veterans, has donated $3,000 to World Central Kitchen, and has planted trees and peace poles at Traverse City parks and schools.

They also march in downtown Traverse City events, hold Memorial Day events honoring Michigan KIA in Afghanistan and Iraq and veteran suicide victims, and celebrate the International Day of Peace on Sept. 21. 

Ongoing efforts include working to place a large sign at the Cherry Capital Airport welcoming home troops and building a peace wall.

“One of our current projects is working to have a peace wall erected at Hull Park, behind the library,” says Keenan. “It would honor those who worked for peace and justice and have peace quotes from people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.”

On a personal basis, the energetic Keenan hiked the full length of the Appalachian Trail—2,178 miles from Georgia to Maine—and raised $5,000 from donations which went toward the NMC scholarship fund.

A Calming Experience

Army veteran Bob Nichols, 74, is a long-time member of the TC chapter and another supporter of the peace wall. “You need places like that to stop and reflect on things,” he says. “It would be a place to sit calmly and think. It could be a really peaceful place along the [Boardman] lake.” 

Another of his favorite VFP projects was having Traverse City declared as an International City of Peace. Signs recognizing the designation are posted near city limits, but Nichols thinks that city officials should be more vocal in spreading the word about the Peace City status. 

“I feel the city misses an opportunity when they don’t promote that,” he says. “They really should promote that more.”

Nichols admits he was a lackluster student before dropping out of the University of Michigan and enlisting in the Army in 1969. His year-long deployment to Vietnam began in July 1970, where he was part of the 11th Armored Cavalry in Vietnam. The famed “Black Horse Regiment” has been involved in many high-profile military actions, ranging from chasing Pancho Villa to fighting in Iraq. 

After getting out of the Army, Nichols enrolled at Western Michigan University on the GI Bill and earned a degree with a strong math background. He eventually moved north to Traverse City and worked as a product manager at Cone Drive for many years before retiring in 2013. 

Nichols was invited to a VFP meeting and felt an immediate kinship with the fellow veterans. “It was a great group of peaceful people,” he recalls. “There’s so much polarization and, well, hate in the world. These meetings are just a calming experience.” 

Peace Is a Nebulous Concept

On the national scale, the organization holds a permanent non-governmental organization seat at the United Nations. VFP is also the first military veterans’ organization invited to be a member of the International Peace Bureau based in Geneva Switzerland.   

VFP’s national statement of purpose says it aims “To increase public awareness of the causes and costs of war; To restrain our governments from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations; To resist racism and repression in our home communities; To oppose the militarization of law enforcement; To end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons; To seek justice for veterans and victims of war; To abolish war as an instrument of national policy.”

“Peace is a nebulous concept,” Nichols concludes. “It’s hard to wrap your brain around it. It’s hard to get across sometimes. But we need peaceful people…. Anything we can do to move the needle toward peace, we try to do.”