Hi everyone. My name is Brock McIntosh. I’m an Army National Guard veteran who enlisted in May, 2006 while in high school. I was the Distinguished Honor Graduate of his basic training/AIT cycle and continued his development as a soldier with an Afghanistan deployment from November, 2008 to August, 2009. Following my redeployment home, I reflected deeply on my experiences and study of warfare and decided to act upon the Army value that meant the most to me: integrity.
I joined as a spokesperson for Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan, became active in Iraq Veterans Against the War and Operation Recovery, and am an applicant for conscientious objection. I also previously interned at Win Without War, where I worked primarily on the Veterans’ Trust Fund. My development from a warrior led me to determine that that the most elite class of fighting a soldier could master is that of nonviolence. I subsequently took a year off from undergrad to receive nonviolence/social movement training through the Highlander Folk School, SmartMeme, the Ruckus Society, the Midwest Academy, the Fletcher Summer Institute, Training for Change, and the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, where I am a certified Kingian nonviolence trainer. I studied under Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Rev. James Lawson, and Ivan Marovic.
Part of the training at the Ruckus Society was how to use social media during direct actions. At Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan, the bulk of our work is posting videos and documentary parts on a website, where we also send out action alerts; the same with Win Without War. A campaign I’m working on with IVAW called Operation Recovery uses all sorts of online tools to share documents and info, keep in contact, schedule meetings around everyone’s personal schedules, and do conference calls. The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, which hosts the Fletcher School, uses tons of tools to e-classrooms to post lectures, different social media to keep attendees in contact and to proliferate materials and videos from the school. The last week of July, I’ll be in Afghanistan as part of a peace delegation, and I plan to create a blog during my experience and to post videos using a hi def camera donated by the Sabi Company. I’m also writing a chapter for a pretty neat, online interactive book.
brmcint 