Conscience in War Speakers Bureau Biographies

Daniel Baker — is from Stockton, CA. After graduating high school he enlisted in the Navy and completed training as a Naval Air crew man. As a flight crew member on P-3 aircraft he participated in reconnaissance and patrol missions over The Arabian Gulf, Iraq, and along the coast of Somalia in 2006. During the same deployment, he applied for separation as a conscientious objector and was honorably discharged seven months later in February 2007. Upon leaving the military, Daniel became a live-in volunteer at the South Bend Catholic Worker, which operates two houses of hospitality and a drop-in day center for the homeless. In 2009, he tested a vocation with the Capuchin Franciscans as a postulant in Berkeley, CA for nine months before deciding to leave. Upon returning to South Bend, he has split his time working at the local homeless shelter and doing home remodeling and repair. Daniel will begin studies at Holy Cross College in the Fall of 2011.

Camillo "Mac" Bica, Ph.D. — is a professor of philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His philosophical focus is in social and political philosophy and ethics, particularly as it applies to war. As a veteran recovering from his experiences as a Marine Corps Officer in Vietnam, he founded, and coordinated for five years, the Veterans Self-Help Initiative, AKA The HOOTCH Program, a therapeutic community of veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center Brooklyn. Dr. Bica is a long-time activist for peace and justice and the Coordinator of the Long Island Chapter of Veterans for Peace. In addition to being a regular contributor to Truthout.org, articles by Dr. Bica have appeared in numerous on-line alternative news sites and philosophical journals. There are no Flowers in a War Zone, his book of essays and poems are in the process of being published.

The Rev. Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph.D. — born in Fukuoka, Japan, is a Visiting Professor at the Starr King School for Ministry, Berkeley, California, and Director of Faith Voices for the Common Good. Her father, a veteran of WW II, was a U.S. Army enlisted man who served two tours in Vietnam as a medic. She was a college professor of religion for twenty years. From 1997 to 2001, she directed the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship Program, Harvard University. From 2001-2002, she was a Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School Center for Values in Public Life. Since 2002, she has been an independent scholar, in addition to her nonprofit volunteer work. She was a Convener of the Truth Commission on Conscience in War.

Tyler Boudreau — grew up in the Boston area and graduated high school in 1989. He served with the Marine Corps infantry from 1989 to 1993, got out to attend college, and then returned to the infantry in 1997. He deployed to Iraq in 2004. In 2005 he resigned after twelve years of active duty. In 2008 Boudreau published Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine, a memoir of his experiences in the Marine Corps and Iraq. He traveled to Jordan in the summer of 2008 to investigate the Iraq Refugee Crisis and in 2009 bicycled across the United States to meet with people and join discussions about the wars of our time. In addition to his book, he has written several articles for various publications including The New York Times, Boston Globe, Seattle Times, The Progressive, and others. He now lives in Western Massachusetts and continues to write and speak about the issues of war. Tyler testified at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War in March 2010.

Marinetta Cannito Hjort — is a scholar, trainer and consultant on Restorative Justice and Nonviolent Conflict Transformation, with experience in international academic, civil, religious and governmental settings. For ten years she served as the Baptist Chaplain at American University, in Washington, D.C.

In her role as a Commissioner for the Truth Commission on Conscience in War, Marinetta has highlighted the close connection between Truth Commission and Restorative Justice in the relevance given to both the components of healing and justice in those processes. Marinetta holds a Masters degree in Theology from Wesley Theological Seminary and a Masters degree in Conflict Transformation from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University.

Joshua Casteel — first enlisted in the US Army Reserves at the age of 17, received an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point at 18, but at 25 was honorably discharged from Active Duty as a conscientious objector. During his time in service, Joshua studied Philosophy and Literature at the University of Iowa and Keble College, Oxford. Less than 30 days after receiving his B.A., Joshua was called up from the Reserves to full Active Duty in the US Army. He trained first as an interrogator at Fort Huachuca, AZ and then spent one and a half years at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA studying Arabic. From June 2004 to January 2005, Joshua served at the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib, Iraq as a member of the interrogation units sent to overhaul the prison after the abuse scandal had become public.

Shortly after discharge from service, Joshua began writing and speaking widely in the US about his wartime experiences, serving on the board of directors of Iraq Veterans Against the War and chairing IVAW's Religious Dialogue committee. Joshua is currently a dual-MFA candidate at the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, where he teaches Theatre History and Rhetoric. In addition to two plays (Returns: A Meditation in Post-trauma and Ishmael and Isa) which chronicle his experiences in Iraq, Joshua is also writing a memoir entitled The Book of Joshua which narrates his eight years spent in the US Army and eventual conversion from nationalist Evangelical Christianity to Catholic pacifism.

Joshua is featured on the Soldiers of Conscience DVD and testified at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War.

Jake Diliberto — is a conservative Evangelical Christian. He was Marine Cpl. who served with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 and served on security forces for II Marine Expeditionary Brigade in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. After serving in the Marines, Jake has finished his B.S. in Political Science from Illinois State University and a M.Div. (Ethics and Theology) from Fuller Theological Seminary. Jake is a frequent commentator of Aljazeera and CNN on 21st century conflict. He is a blogger for Huffington Post, and is the Founder of Veterans For Rethinking Afghanistan. Recent publications include "Just Peacemaking in Afghanistan" and "Globalization and Post-modern Conflict." He resides in the Washington DC area. Jake testified at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War in March 2010.

India Drew — is an architectural engineer working in the Washington, DC area. She was in the Navy for eight years and was discharged a year and a half ago as a conscientious objector.

Larry Johnson — began working with young people in the 60s in the evangelistic milieu of what today gets labeled "Christian Right". He has spent his entire life working with children and young people, mainly teaching environment and social justice thru storytelling, but becoming a conscientious objector, based on the early Christians' refusal to participate in warfare, forced him to change organizational affiliation. Johnson's draft notice and University of Minnesota degree arrived in the same day's mail, and he served as an army medic, carrying no weapon, intent on getting soldiers back home where they belong. He was rejected at the time by former colleagues, because, though he served in the military, he was unwilling to "Kill Communists for God". He currently serves as President of Veterans for Peace Chapter 27 in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.

Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D. — became the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation/USA on March 1, 2007. A 1969 graduate of The College of Wooster in Ohio, and with a 1981 doctorate in sociology from Columbia University in the City of New York, he did his alternative service as a conscientious objector in Lebanon, living and teaching in Beirut for six years. He held various positions with the YMCA from 1981 to 2006. From 2002-2006,while employed by the YMCA of the USA, he was active with the emergent Alliance for Middle East Peace. He is married and has three adult children. He lives in Stony Point, New York near the Nyack, New York headquarters of FOR. Mark was a commissioner at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War in March 2010.

Herman Keizer, Jr. — a retired Army Chaplain Colonel, recently retired as the Director of Chaplaincy Ministries for the Christian Reformed Church in North America. He assumed that position in April 2002.

Chaplain Keizer has been a minister in the Christian Reformed Church in North America since his ordination in 1968. Commissioned as a Chaplain in 1968, his assignments include: service in Vietnam (He was wounded twice —: once in a rocket attack on a fire-base in Cambodia and once in a helicopter accident on An Khe); as Officer in Charge of the Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Training Center; GE; as faculty member at the Chaplain School; as Division Chaplain, 25th Infantry Division, Executive Director, Armed Forces Chaplains Board, Department of Defense; and as Command Chaplain, United States European Command, Stuttgart, GE. Chaplain (Colonel) Herman Keizer, Jr. reached mandatory retirement with 30 years in 1998. He was retired and was recalled to serve as Military Assistant for Leadership and Human Relations to the Assistant Secretary of the Army (ASAM&RA) In July 2000 he became the Military Advisor to the Ambassador for International Religious Freedom, Department of State. He has served as the chair of the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces (NCMAF).

Chaplain Keizer's awards and decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal (1OLC); Legion of Merit (4 OLC); Soldier's Medal; Bronze Star Medal (5OLC) and V Device; Purple Heart; Meritorious Service Medal 3OLC); and the Air Medal (3). He also received the Superior Honor Award from the Department of State.

In May 2000, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan named Chaplain Keizer a Distinguished Alumni and in May 2003, Calvin Theological Seminary named him a Distinguished Alumni. Chaplain Keizer is married Ardis. They have two adult sons, Bryan Jay and Randall Lee.

Ray McGovern — works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington; he leads the section "Speaking Truth to Power." Born in the Bronx and educated at Fordham, he served as an Army infantry/intelligence officer before working as a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990. His duties included morning briefings with the President's Daily Brief.

In early 2003, when it became clear that intelligence was being cooked to "justify" war on Iraq, a handful of intelligence community alumni, including Ray, created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Six weeks before the war, VIPS formally told the President that attacking Iraq could not be justified by intelligence and warned, "The unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

McGovern holds a Certificate in Theological Studies from Georgetown. He and his wife, Rita Kennedy, a native of Brooklyn, have 5 children and 8 grandchildren.

J.E. McNeil — recently retired as the Executive Director of the Center on Conscience & War, has been a practicing attorney for more than thirty years. Before becoming Executive Director, she worked with CCW/NISBCO on its legal committee, where she contributed to amicus briefs and represented conscientious objectors in court. She received the Alan Barth Service award of the National Capital ACLU in 1982 and the Washington Peace Center Peacemaker Award in 1987. McNeil has also represented military tax resistors and demonstrators. At the Center on Conscience & War, McNeil oversees the implementation of CCW's programs and is responsible for the fund raising. J.E. testified at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War in March 2010.

Logan Mehl-Laituri — spent over six years in the US Army at Fort Bragg, NC and Schofield Barracks, HI as an artillery forward observer. After a 14 month combat deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004, he applied to return to Iraq as a noncombatant conscientious objector. His request was disregarded and he was honorably discharged in November 2006, being refused the opportunity to serve without a personal firearm in combat. In 2008, Logan worked with other service members and veterans to form Centurion's Guild in order to "protect and defend prospective, current, and former service members while bearing true faith and allegiance to God." He is currently a student in the Master of Theological Studies program at Duke Divinity school, focusing particularly on moral agency, justice, and the virtues and how they inform the conduct of war. Logan testified at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War in March 2010.

Dr. Beverly Reader — completed her psychiatry residency training at Georgetown University Hospital after a transitional internship at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. She received her Doctorate of Medicine from The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Medical School in Bethesda, Maryland and graduated with distinction with a B.A. in Biology from San Diego State University in San Diego, California.

Dr. Reader is a clinical faculty member at The George Washington University Department of Psychiatry, and currently works as a psychiatrist at the Student Health Services at George Washington University, serving the mental health needs of the undergraduate, graduate, medical and law school students at GWU.

Dr. Reader also has extensive experience as a community psychiatrist, working with the chronically mentally ill, those struggling with addiction and medical illness, and the underserved.

On February 11, 2011, the Air Force notified Beverly Reader that it was discharging her as a conscientious objector. It was during a six-week medical school program in 2004 which brought her to the slums of South Africa that she began to make connections between the violence she witnessed there and the violence of war. She also began to question the role she would play as a physician in the Air Force. Shortly after she returned from South Africa, Beverly participated in "The Bushmaster," a military exercise designed to help future military doctors experience practicing medicine in a war zone. It was during that exercise that Beverly realized she would never be able to participate in war, even as a physician.

After the Air Force denied her first CO application, Beverly began to study Quaker history and the history of non-violence at the Friends Meeting of Washington, where she had been attending regularly for a number of years. She eventually applied for and was accepted as a member of the Meeting. Through this process, Beverly's beliefs continued to deepen. Josh Steiber - enlisted as an infantryman in the US Army after graduating from a conservative Evangelical high school. Amidst much internal conflict, Stieber deployed to Baghdad as part of "the Surge" from Feb 07-Apr 08 with the company depicted in the now infamous "Collateral Murder" video release by Wikileaks. Upon return from Iraq, Stieber applied for and, ten months later, was granted Conscientious Objector status. Determined to share his experiences and learn about peacemaking from others, Stieber then walked and biked across the US. Now a student in Kansas, he still writes, organizes, and speaks about his experiences and the assumptions about war that were reversed in the midst of it. Josh spoke at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War's teach-in in November 2011 in DC.

Dr. Stephen Xenakis — Retired Brigadier General, served 28 years in the United States Army as a medical corps officer. He held a wide of variety of assignments as a clinical psychiatrist, staff officer, and senior commander including Commanding General of the Southeast Army Regional Medical Command. Dr. Xenakis has been written widely on medical ethics, military medicine, and the treatment of detainees. He has published editorials in the Washington Post and a number of other national magazines and journals, including book chapters and legal reviews. Dr. Xenakis has an active clinical and consulting practice, and currently is working on the clinical applications of quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) to brain injury and other neurobehavioral conditions. Dr. Xenakis has spoken out against the use of torture while in the army and since. Has performed medical examinations of soldiers held in Guantanamo in coordination with their defense team.

Celeste Zappala — of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a member of Gold Star Families Speak Out, gsfso.org and Military Families Speak Out, MFSO.org. Celeste's son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker was killed in an explosion in Baghdad as he searched for the weapons of mass destruction on April 26, 2004. Sherwood, a social worker, was the first PA National Guardsman killed in combat since World War II; he leaves a wife and young son. Celeste, a United Methodist, is an active member of Military Families Speak Out and a founding member of Gold Star Families Speak Out, representing families who have lost a loved one in Iraq . Since losing Sherwood, she and her family have worked relentlessly to promote a peaceful end to the occupation of Iraq . She has spoken out in many US cities, was a featured speaker at a 2007 International Peace conference in Istanbul and at the 2008 Japan Mother's Conference.