Each Valentine’s Day for the past six years, a group of grannies dressed in red can be seen on the streets of the Capital District carrying broken hearts, physical representations of their feelings.
“What Grannies for Peace want is no more wars, no more wounded. So our hearts are broken today (Valentine’s Day) by the horrible physical and emotional damage to vets of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the inadequate treatment they receive,” said Dot Richards, a member of the group and a Delmar resident. “We call today for greatly strengthened healthcare for our wounded warriors.”
Barbara Cooley, a co-founder of the group Grannies for Peace and also a Delmar resident, said the organization originally formed in 2006 as an offshoot of the Capital District Women Against War group.
“We are a focused group of the older women in the organization that wanted to be more positive,” she said. “Instead of being against something, like Women Against War, we wanted to be for something.”
The Capital District Woman Against War began in 2002 and is an anti-war activist group that believes women can develop alternatives to violence. The organization focuses on the cost of war to women and children and lobbies for peaceful negotiations.
In contrast, members of the Grannies for Peace group focus their efforts on working on improved healthcare for returning veterans and reform to recruitments in area high schools.
According to their website, some are actually grannies and some “are just women of a certain age who could be grannies and care about creating a more peaceful world for our young people.” The group is about 80 members strong.
Each Valentine’s Day the group stages a small demonstration at one of their places of interest in hopes of drawing attention to their cause. Past demonstrations have been held at the military recruiting office in Colonie Center, and this year’s demonstration was outside of the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center.
According to Cooley, soldiers have had a deep connection with Valentine’s Day for generations.
She said during the times when women weren’t allowed in the military, women began to use the holiday as a way to spread peace and love to their husbands and sons when they were away from home. The day is still especially meaningful for those in the military away from their loved ones, so the group thought the day was an appropriate one on which to spread their message.
“We feel these veterans may not have given their life, but in many cases have given their quality of their life in battle and the rest of their lives will be a battle to try to survive and lead a normal life,” Cooley said. “For that reason we don’t think their healthcare should be compromised.”
The group is lobbying to get veterans the same type of health care that members of Congress are entitled to. They are also seeking increased home healthcare for severely wounded veterans, increased mental health support for returning soldiers and increased support for women soldiers who may have been sexually assaulted during their time in the military.
“We’ve also heard it’s hard for soldiers to get a second opinion on their condition without paying out of pocket and we would like that to change,” said Cooley.
Cooley added officials from the hospital have been supportive of the group’s efforts and asked the to continue lobbying, as the VA system has been affected by budget cuts.
“There was a young veteran there waiting for the bus when we were setting up,” said Cooley. “He said that he would like to emphasize the fact that unless a war vet is labeled ‘disabled’ their medical care beyond the normal health care only lasts two years.”
Housing and employment for soldiers upon their return is also an issue Grannies for Peace focuses on.
The group holds other events throughout the year to bring attention to their cause.
They can often be found at the Albany Tulip Festival walking silently through the crowd carrying a coffin with names of all of the counties who have lost civilians to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan written on it. They also hold events at the Capitol building and are hoping to hold creative writing events at local libraries.
“Our message is important because we need to start using diplomacy instead of going to war,” said Maude Easter, another founding member from Delmar. “We just ended a horrible decade of war, but not all of our soldiers are home and safe yet. And many are coming home with disabling injuries that need to be taken care of.”
The group wants to remind the public of the consequences of war, especially with current tensions escalating with Iran. “If we provoke them into warfare the problem only increases,” said Easter.
“We just feel we owe (returning soldiers) a huge debt because often times their lives are permanently changed,” said Cooley.