This Day in History

Dec. 20, 1990: Dr. Yolanda Huet-Vaughn Refused Service in First Gulf War

Time Periods: 1975
Themes: Democracy & Citizenship, US Foreign Policy, Wars & Related Anti-War Movements
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The issue was not whether I belonged in the military but whether the military belonged in the Middle East waging war. I did not want to focus on the personal decision. I was trying to focus on the decision for which each and every American would have to be responsible. — Dr. Yolanda Huet-Vaughn

Dr Yolanda Huet-Vaughn.

Dr. Yolanda Huet-Vaughn.

On Dec. 20, 1990, Kansas reservist Dr. Yolanda Huet-Vaughn refused orders to serve in the first Gulf War (Desert Storm) and was later sentenced to prison.

Learn more from this interview, From Kansas City to Ireland: A Response to the So-Called Transfer of Power in Iraq on Democracy Now!  

See a clip of Rosario Dawson reading a statement by Huet-Vaughn for Voices of a People’s History of the United States. 

Related Resources
Teaching Guides

Panama, the 1991 Gulf War, and the War at Home

Teaching Activity. By Robert Standish.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 22 of Voices of a People’s History of the United States on Panama, the 1991 Gulf War, and the War on the Poor in the United States.

Teaching Activities (Free)

Greed as a Weapon: Teaching the Other Iraq War

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools. 14 pages.
A role play investigating the economic consequences of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Two men carry children blinded by the Union Carbide chemical pesticide leak to a hospital in Bhopal, India, Dec. 5, 1984.
Teaching Activities (Free)

Whose “Terrorism”?

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 11 pages.
Using scenarios based on real situations, this lesson helps middle and high school students examine the definition of terrorism and the use of the term terrorism in the media and U.S. foreign policy.

Books: Non-Fiction

Some Truths Are Not Self-Evident: Essays in The Nation on Civil Rights, Vietnam, and “The War on Terror”

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn, edited by Richard Kreitner. 2014. 215 pages.
A collection of articles spanning 50 years, by and about Howard Zinn, originally published in The Nation magazine.

Books: Non-Fiction

Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq

Book — Non-fiction. By Stephen Kinzer. 2007. 416 pages.
A history of U.S. government supported (often initiated) regime change around the world.

News

Teaching Against War, for Humanity

The latest issue of the War Resisters League magazine (Winter 2011), Living the Lesson, features an article by Rethinking Schools editor Bill Bigelow called “Teaching Against War, for Humanity.” Here is an excerpt: . . . As columnist Gary Younge commented in The Nation, “The American people, it seems, are bored with war. Like a… Read more »