'Our duty is to refuse': Veterans mobilize against Trump

An Iraq war veteran protests near a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on the day U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would send troops to Portland, in Portland, Oregon, U.S., September 27,

Veterans are joining forces to oppose President Donald Trump and the United States’ involvement in the Iran War. During the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations this summer, Philadelphia canceled its official parade because of extreme heat. But Michael McPhearson, a 62-year-old Gulf War veteran, marched anyway. In a Mother Jones profile, McPhearson explained that he wasn’t marching to celebrate. Instead, he and other participants used the occasion to highlight what they see as a stark contradiction between America’s founding ideals and the current administration’s actions. Protesters made their message clear by unfurling a banner that read, “Veterans Against Fascism.”

Since the Fourth of July, the veterans’ resistance movement is expanding, with no intention to slow down as the war continues. As Marcus Green notes in Mother Jones, veterans feel that “their duty to this country may no longer be to fight, but to refuse.”

McPhearson leads Veterans For Peace, a St. Louis-based nonprofit dedicated to exposing the realities of war. Founded in 1985, the organization has grown into a global network of veterans and allies with more than 140 chapters. While the group has been popular since its inception, there has been rapid expansion and concern since Trump’s second term.

McPhearson estimates that 1,000 of VFP’s 3,500 active members have joined since Trump took office again last year. returned to office in early 2025. He says veterans view war as a generational obsession, and he insists, “We can’t go back to the way it was.”

Active-duty troops are also involved in other global support groups. Both active-duty troops and veterans are joining forces, pushing back against many of Trump’s task forces, including Trump’s war on immigration. Lenore Yarger has spent 25 years counseling service members through the GI Rights Hotline with Quaker House. She says calls surged last June after Trump announced he was deploying National Guard troops to Los Angeles to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Since Trump’s strikes in Iran, calls have continued to spike. Many callers question whether these actions are legal, and want to know what can be done.

“We can’t promise them that they won’t be accused of doing something illegal” if they follow military orders, Yarger says, adding, “and we also can’t promise them that they won’t be punished if they refuse. It’s a really hard time to be in the military right now.”

The Iran war and Trump’s immigration tactics, along with rising costs associated with the fallout from the war, were a driving force in many voters choosing Democratic candidates in the 2026 midterm elections. According to Mother Jones research, the war has cost an estimated $47 billion, while U.S. and Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Iran, many of them civilians. The Pentagon now reports that 21 U.S. service members have been killed and 865 wounded. Those figures have been repeatedly revised upward without public announcements.

McPhearson, who comes from a legacy of military men, believes Trump is blind to the realities of how impactful these decisions have been on everyone affected on both sides. He left active duty as a captain in 1992 after serving in the Gulf War, but says his son would later be deployed to Iraq a little over a decade later. Those months were “some of the worst times in [his] life,” he noted, referencing that across four generations, his family had gone to war. Furthermore, he says the wars are non-stop. “We’re talking about 36 years of the U.S. being constantly at war [in the Middle East],” McPhearson says. “We’re constantly killing people.”

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