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VFP Scholarship Essay Contest Open to Students in Six Rural Southwestern Wisconsin Schools

Since 2006, Veterans for Peace Chapter 25 has offered $500 scholarships to a growing number of graduating seniors in rural high schools in Southwestern Wisconsin. To apply for the scholarship, senior students are required to write a 500- to 700-word essay on the topic: “Why I Believe War Is Not the Answer.”

In each of the six rural schools where scholarships are offered, a member of Chapter 25 provides information to students about the cost of wars – both human and monetary – and alternatives to the military. Veterans for Peace counter-recruiting takes place during lunch hours in the school cafeterias, where military recruiters often visit. Guidance counselors in the high schools list the Veterans for Peace scholarships each year along with dozens of other community scholarships available to the students.

Since the scholarship program began nearly a decade ago, the number of participating rural schools has grown, as has the number of students entering the essay contest. In some cases, 15 percent or more of a high school senior class has written an essay on the peace topic.

In addition to the scholarships in six rural Southwestern Wisconsin schools, Chapter 25 also offers a scholarship for students attending a high school in the City of Madison. (See this page).

This year, schools outside the City of Madison participating in the essay contest include: Baraboo, Boscobel, Dodgeville, Richland Center, Riverdale (Muscoda), and River Valley (Spring Green).

Essays are judged by the VFP scholarship committee, and awarded at honors ceremonies conducted annually at each high school and attended by hundreds of parents, family members, and friends. When awarding the scholarships, a Veterans for Peace representative briefly describes the peaceful mission of our organization to the crowd.

The scholarships are funded solely with donations to Veterans for Peace Chapter 25. While the scholarship/essay program includes only a fraction of the 425 school districts in Wisconsin, it represents an important effort to educate students and citizens about the unbearable costs of war.

After the scholarships are awarded, some of the essays will be made available on this website: madisonvfp.org.

2015 Madison College Scholarship Application

A $1,200 scholarship will be offered for the upcoming 2015-2016 academic year to a Madison High School student who writes the best original essay on the peace topic “Why I Believe War and Violence Are Not the Answer”.     (See scholarship application for more details.)

This scholarship is open to any senior student at a Madison public high school who will graduate in 2015.  Applicants must plan to enroll at Madison Area Technical College (Madison College)–full-time or part-time–beginning the fall semester 2015, to be eligible to receive this award.

Applications must be postmarked no later than Saturday May 2, 2015.

Veterans for Peace College Scholarship

Is the Ferguson (MO) Issue Embraced by Our Statement of Purpose?

(Editorial note: Following the Ferguson, Missouri shooting in November 2014 and subsequent public outcry and demonstrations, there was wide debate within the VFP community about whether it was germane to take a stand on the those issues raised given our normal organizational focus on international peace. Madison Chapter25, which begins its meetings with a reading and reaffirmation of the national “Statement of Purpose,” discussed and approved the following statement. It was authored by member Lincoln Grahlfs, a veteran of WW II.)

A terse answer to this question is simply to note that one should not make a distinction between international peace and domestic peace. Certainly, any hostility along ethnic, racial or religious lines is inimical to domestic peace.

It should be noted, further, that at one time in this country policemen were frequently referred to as “peace officers.” Americans have consistently had a negative response when police in other nations assume the role of “enforcers.”

Certainly, it can be argued today that some of the most serious breaches of the peace results from exacerbation of racial, ethnic or religious differences. To ignore them is to turn ones back on any efforts for peace.

Finally, let it be noted that every one of us, as American veterans, took an oath to support and defend the Constitution; the thirteenth amendment to that constitution contains the statement: “nor shall any state deny any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws.”