What's New
Success! President Obama Designates Fort Ord as a National Monument
April 20, 2012
Vet Voice Foundation thanks President Obama for designating Ft. Ord a Soldiers National Monument. The installation, which closed in 1994 has a long and storied tradition serving our nation from World War I through the end of the Cold War. Now, a piece of Army folklore, it is the second National Monument to be designated by President Obama.
Click here to read our press release.
Click here to read the Politco post about the National Monument designation.
VetVoice Foundation Op-Ed in The Seattle Times
March 28, 2012
Click here to read the editorial by Rick Hegdahl that was published in The Seattle Times.
Vet Voice Foundation meets with President Obama
March 07, 2012
On Friday, March 2, 2012, Mark Star, Program Director for Vet Voice Foundation, attended a meeting with President Obama at the White House Conference on Conservation to discuss designating Ft. Ord a National Monument.
Veterans Discuss the Importance of Public Lands and Preserving Fort Ord
February 29, 2012
Vet Voice Foundation has been working to share the stories of veterans on the importance of preserving public lands. Over 1200 people have signed our petition to Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, urging them to support National Monument status for Fort Ord.
Check out these interview with some of our veterans on this important issue.
Keith Jeffries
Vitali Mostovoj
Mario Rivas
Veterans Discuss the Importance of Public Lands
March 05, 2012
Vet Voice Foundation has been working to share the stories of veterans on the importance of preserving public lands. These are lands that veterans enjoy, and depend on after their time in war. These lands are under threat from development, and must be protected. We'll be adding videos right here with our veterans on this important issue.
Huffington Post: Gun Sales To Terrorist Suspects Would Be Halted By Bill Backed By Veterans
February 28, 2012
Huffington Post published this article about veterans supporting the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act. The article features quotes from some of our veterans.
WASHINGTON -- Under current U.S. law, there are several ways a person can fail the background check required to purchase a gun. Being on the FBI's terrorist watch list is not one of them.
A group of military veterans is hoping to fix that problem by reviving a long-stalled bill, the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act. The proposed law would allow the FBI to block gun sales to people on the watch list, closing what the veterans call the "terror gap."
"This is common-sense legislation that does not infringe on a gun-owner's rights, and will protect our troops and our nation," said Vet Voice Foundation in a press release. The group, founded by veteran and progressive activist Jon Soltz, recently formed a new working group to rally veterans and ramp up pressure on Congress to prohibit such gun sales.
The working group is led by Ruben Gallego and Jackie Rodgers, both veterans and gun owners. Gallego, a former Marine infantryman and now a Democratic member of the Arizona legislature, argued that closing the gap was a smart move. "You wouldn't allow a known terrorist to get an airplane," he said. "Why are we are going to allow known terrorists to go pick up weapons?"
Both men said they were motivated by the threat to men and women in uniform, who have been targeted by shooting attacks over the past few years. In addition to shootings at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, that same year a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., was fired upon. Terrorist suspects also attempted to purchase weapons to attack Fort Dix, N.J., in 2007.
Rodgers, who served in the Army, said that veterans are uniquely placed to understand the issue. "A lot of veterans are gun owners," said Rodgers, who served in the Army. "And if you have veteran gun owners supporting this, they are speaking from both sides, from an understanding of being a gun owner and from an understanding of the potential of terrorism."
A 2011 report by the Government Accounting Office found that from February 2004 to February 2010, "individuals on the terrorist watch list were involved in firearm or explosives background checks 1,228 times; 1,119 (about 91 percent) of these transactions were allowed to proceed because no prohibiting information was found."
Gallego said that such numbers represent "a clear and present danger."
For years, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) has introduced legislation in Congress to close the watch list loophole without success. "It goes to committee and just sits there," he told the New York Daily News in 2009. "It's been going on for a while."
Two years later, King is still waiting. He resubmitted the bill to the House in early 2011, with Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) submitting legislation to the Senate. But last year, as in 2009, the legislation never emerged from committee. Vet Voice plans to pressure members of Congress who voted against the bill in committee, a group that includes Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), who represents Fort Hood in his district.
Gallego believes that the inaction stems from a lack of information rather than widespread opposition. "A lot of congressmen just aren't well educated on the subject matter. I think they think this is some kind of anomaly, but it is a real threat," he said.
Gun lobbyists, however, disagree. The National Rifle Assocation is adamantly opposed to the law. The group posted a fact sheet online in April 2011 saying that the bill was "aimed primarily at law-abiding American gun owners." The NRA said that such gun owners could be in jeopardy of jail time if they were mistakenly or arbitrarily placed on the watch list. "Ninety-five percent of watchlisted persons are already prohibited from acquiring firearms in the U.S., because they are not U.S. citizens or legal resident aliens," they wrote.
An NRA spokesman confirmed to The Huffington Post that his organization's position has not changed since last year.
But some of the group's members appear to back the the proposal. In a 2009 poll of NRA members conducted for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, 82 percent said they would support measures to prevent those on the watch list from buying firearms. "If you look at prohibiting terrorists from buying guns, requiring background checks at gun shows, or other issues, you find widespread support for these measures," said pollster Frank Luntz, who ran the survey.
Gallego and Rodgers are both former NRA members. While they both left the group over disagreements with some of its positions, neither was surprised that most gun owners would agree with them on the terror gap. "NRA members are great Americans," Gallego said. "And they want to see the country protected as much as anybody else."
Fort Ord in Stars and Stripes
February 27, 2012
More great coverage on protecting Fort Ord. Starts and Stripes has published a guest column from one of our veterans, Vitali Mostovoj, on protecting Fort Ord.
Over 1000 Petition Signatures to Senators Feinstein and Boxer Backing National Monument Status for Fort Ord
February 23, 2012
Today we delivered 1200 petition signatures to Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, urging them to support National Monument status for Fort Ord.
"Recently, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar visited Fort Ord in Monterey, and expressed an interest in exploring ways to protect this historic site. As a veteran of the Iraq War, I strongly support the designation of Ft. Ord as a Soldiers National Monument, as do thousands of others," said Mark Starr, Program Director for the Vet Voice Foundation, and an Iraq War Veteran.
Check out this video from Vitali Mostovoj, a 25 year Air Force Veteran, who lives in California. In the video, he talks about the importance of Fort Ord to him as a veteran, and a Californian, and makes a personal appeal to the Senators.
Vet Voice Foundation Joins New Initiative to Employ America's Veterans - America Wants You.
February 21, 2012
Read our Huffington Post piece on it, here.
Our Western Leadership Conference A Success!
January 30, 2012
On January 21st and 22nd - Vet Voice Foundation met with a group of Veterans who traveled to Denver, CO for our first Western Leaders Conference.
Attendees heard from Jon Soltz, who had just returned from a deployment to Iraq, attended a media training and listened to a representative from the Mayor Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan coalition that seeks to prevent individuals on the FBI’s Terror Watch List from acquiring guns to commit terrorist attacks.
