Friends stand for peace on Armed Forces Day

Marketed as ‘family-friendly fun’, the day is really ‘a desperate recruitment drive with the 10,000+ annual military visits to schools and the increasing influence of arms company money in our education system’.

by Rebecca Hardy 30th June 2023

Quakers witnessed for peace last weekend as the annual Armed Forces Day (AFD) took place. Marketed as ‘family-friendly fun’, the day is really ‘a desperate recruitment drive with the 10,000+ annual military visits to schools and the increasing influence of arms company money in our education system’, said Lesley Chandler from Falmouth Meeting, which held a Meeting for Worship in the town on 24 June, when the national event took place. Two days earlier, the Meeting hosted a panel discussion with speakers from Quaker Peace & Social Witness, ForcesWatch and Demilitarise Education, and a showing of the film War School.