Peacestock 2019: Military Service: Homeland Security or Empire Building? began early in the morning at Hobgoblin Farm, Red Wing, Minnesota, on Saturday July 20, 2019. Sponsored by Veterans For Peace, Chapter 115, Red Wing, and Chapter 27, Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Ann Wright served thirteen years in the U.S. Army and sixteen additional years in the Army Reserves, retiring as a Colonel. She is airborne-qualified.
In 1987, Ann joined the U.S. Foreign Service and served as U.S. Deputy Ambassador in Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. She received the State Department’s Award for Heroism for her actions during the evacuation of 2,500 people from the civil war in Sierra Leone, at the time the largest evacuation since Saigon. She was on the first State Department team to go to Afghanistan and helped reopen the Embassy there in December 2001. Her other overseas assignments include Somalia, Kyrgyzstan, Grenada, Micronesia, and Nicaragua.
On March 19, 2003, the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Ann Wright cabled a letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell, stating that without the authorization of the UN Security Council, the invasion and occupation of a Muslim, Arab, oil-rich country would be a violation of international law. She was one of only three persons who resigned from the U.S. government in opposition to the Iraq war.
Since then, she has been writing and speaking out for peace.