Last Saturday, the Civilian-Soldier Alliance  and Iraq Veterans Against the War organized an event called "Refusing to Fight: Iraq War Resisters Tell Their Stories" a talk and meet and greet with former soldiers turned anti-war activists at 2640, a cooperative events venue in Baltimore.  I did not have the pleasure of attending the event, but I heard that it was a success and believe it.  I did have the opportunity to meet two of the men who spoke at the event and even though we did not talk about their experiences in war, it made me think about how great it was to have an event like this. I missed the talk because my parents were in town, I told them about it, but they did not want to go, in fact they seemed quite appalled that a soldier would choose not to fight. It is a shame that we didn't go because it is exactly for this reason that more events like this need to happen. The mass media loves to report on war, but we always get stories of the enemy, of our heroes, and how we are "winning", but what about the voices of the men and women who have served in our wars? What about the voices of those that have gone and don't want to go back, those that have gone and don't go back? These are the stories that also need to be told. These are the people that need platforms to tell their stories so that the public can begin to understand why they made these decisions, that there are people that do make these decisions, that these decisions are not made lightly, but made for specific reasons. It is not an easy choice to refuse to fight, it is a choice that will change a person's life and one that will put them under intense scrutiny and judgement. I imagine that depending on a person's circumstance, it might be very hard to find sympathetic ears to tell about why one chooses to stop being a soldier and start being an anti-war activist. In order to support the people that do, we must find spaces and places for them to talk and for us to listen. Thank you Civilian-Soldier Alliance and Iraq Veterans Against the War and all the individuals that made last week's event happen. It is a beautiful moment when space is made for voices that are not often heard.