Speakers

Herb Reed

Herb served in Iraq and Vietnam, was a military police investigator and became contaminated with depleted uranium exploded munitions’ toxins and radioactivity in 2003. According to him, he was exposed while helping set up a military prison in Al Samawa in southern Iraq.

While there, Dutch Marines who were vacating the area told Herb they were doing so because the region was contaminated with depleted uranium (U238) munitions fallout. It was here that he believes he became exposed. Most likely, the nanoparticles of toxic and radioactive ceramic uranium oxide were either inhaled, ingested or both. Mass spectrometer urinalysis tests in Germany confirmed his contamination with the U238 isotope, tests that veterans say the Department Department of Defense’s Veterans Affairs are unwilling to give.

Chris Lugo

Chris Lugo is a peace activist who has been involved in the movement for peace and global justice for twenty years. He began his work as an advocate for peace in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1989 where he was active with the organization Women Against Military Madness and the American Friends Service Committee. Originally drawn into the social justice community through the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980’s, Lugo participated in actions dedicated to the dismantling of nuclear weapons and drawback from the cold war arsenals of the Reagan administration.

In 1996 Chris moved to Nashville, Tennessee and became involved in the Nashville community with the Nashville Peace and Justice Center, began a business and established residency in Nashville. Since living in Nashville Chris has been an active member and supporter of the Nashville Peace and Justice Center, having served on the board for ten years. Since 2001 Chris has been involved in the Nashville Peace Coalition, an organization dedicated to ending the war in Iraq.

In 2008 after considering an independent run for the US Senate in Tennessee again to advocate for peace and social justice issue Lugo stepped into the race as a Democrat, feeling that the Democratic Party would be a better party to advocate for the social justice issues that he feels are being ignored by the mainstream media, Republicans, and political insiders including the crisis of poverty in Tennessee, the lack of adequate health care for hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans, the need to end the war in Iraq and a myriad of other progressive social justice issues who Chris feels have long been ignored by the wealthy and powerful administrators of Congress and the White House.