On September 28, 2023, NC Peace Action held a dessert & coffee social for the 42nd Anniversary Peacemaker Celebration. Activist Ray McGovern was the featured speaker, and veteran Matthew Hoh was 2023’s Peacemaker.
Matthew is the associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN) and an emeritus senior fellow with the Center for International Policy. He is a disabled Marine combat veteran and, in 2009, Matthew resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan with the State Department over the US escalation of the war. Ever since, he has been an outspoken critic of the US war machine and speaks and writes about veteran suicide, moral injury, and PTSD. He was the Green Party candidate for the NC Senate in 2022, campaigning against overseas wars, and injustices and inequities that diminish and hold back our entire country.
Ray McGovern is a super activist who writes and lectures about war and the role of the CIA. It was his analysis of the 2003 Iraq war, and the CIA’s role in bringing about the war, that made McGovern one of the country’s most powerful anti-war voices.
His intelligence work began in the US Army and continued at the CIA from the Kennedy administration to the Bush administration. His responsibility to speak truth to power included giving daily briefings to the President. Although retired from the CIA, Ray has never stopped speaking truth to power and continues his advocacy to this day.
Event photos courtesy of Jerry Markatos.
2022 Peacemaker Celebration
Our 2022 celebration was held on Zoom. Members & friends gathered virtually to listen to featured speaker George Martin, from Campaign Nonviolence, and to honor 2022 Peacemaker recipients Dave & Debbie Biesack.
You can watch the recorded celebration on YouTube.