For the Generation of War Activism week, YAL at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa hosted a table at the campus center, and had our routine meeting with a guest speaker named Dr. Brien Hallett, author of The Lost Art of Declaring War.

We ran our table two days in a row from morning till midafternoon in order to reach students on all schedules. We made a large banner for our table that read "NO MORE WAR" with a statistic about US drone attacks in Pakistan. Our banner made a strong visual statement, and caught the eye of many students passing by. The Generations of War flyers that came with the Activism kit were very well done, and the white area on the flyer provided us with a space to advertise for our meeting that Friday.

Our goal with the Generation of War Activism week was to recruit new members and bring new people to our meeting, and to do this we used some of our activism grant on pizza for the meeting, knowing that food is always good bait and most college students eat a lot of pizza. To advertise for our meeting we made an announcement on our college radio station, and members of our group also made announcements in their Poli Sci classes advertising the free pizza and the opportunity to see to Dr. Hallett's presentation on declaring war.

Above is an inspiring letter received while I was deployed to Iraq. As I read it today, I am reminded that the sad thing about the letter is that more active-duty soldiers and Marines are giving their lives up by their own hands than they are in combat. It is being considered an epidemic of suicide with 349 deaths in 2012 alone.

The story for soldiers and Marines who escape the war machine, it is even more dire. Every 65 minutes, a veteran commits suicide. About 22 a day which is a gruesome record. Veterans make up 21% of all suicides in America. Think about that for a second: veterans make up a little more than 12% of the population, yet account for 21% of all suicides in 2010.

Their deaths should be—no, must be—considered and added to the war body counts. They are as much casualties of war as those who were blown up senselessly by Barack Obama's drones. The mental anguish of killing and being part of something so unjust that it permeates the essence of who you are and your identity. There is blood in our hands and some of us can see it.

Within the last week, SUNY Albany YAL has had two highly successful and well attended events!

On March 30th, in conjunction with the Capitol Region Campaign for Liberty, hosted a Political Leadership School that ran all day and was attended by over 100 people!  The speaker that led the all day seminar was Kirk Shelly, a prominent Liberty activist who was the Chairman of the Ron Paul campaign in Oklahoma. 

This was a fantastic event where everybody involved learned a great deal about political advocacy.  SUNY Albany YAL was sure to utilize this opportunity to not only learn how to be more efficient in political activity, but network and attempt to raise funds from the Capitol Region Liberty Movement.  We were very successful, using the large crowd to sell copies of After the Welfare State and other liberty minded educational materials to raise $500 for our club!