Veterans For America - Background

Background

In 1980 Co-Founders Bobby Muller and John Terzano came together with a goal to transform the American experience of the Vietnam War into a mission of compassion and justice. This idea became the heart of Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, which later became Veterans for America.

The first major initiative was a journey back to Vietnam in 1981 to make peace with America’s former enemy. Because of that life-altering experience, VVAF began to lead reconciliation efforts that would ultimately result in lifting the U.S. trade embargo and normalizing relations with Vietnam. It is because of this advocacy that VVAF began a unique friendship with the Vietnamese that endures today.

Nearly a decade later, a 1991 trip to the horrific "Killing Fields" of Cambodia inspired VVAF to co-found and coordinate the phenomenal global campaign to ban landmines, called Campaign for A Landmine Free World, which was awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to galvanize nearly a third of the world’s countries to sign a treaty eradicating the use of antipersonnel landmines.

Currently, VFA is focused on the consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, marked by roadside bombs, a large inhospitable battlefield, inadequate dwell time, and the repeated deployment of a large number of troops.