For Immediate Release Contact: David Couper
Monday, Sept. 14, 2026 PHONE: 608-444-7207
Billboard at Truax Tells Service Members to Refuse Illegal Orders!
Press Conference, Thursday September 17, 2026
MADISON — On Thursday, September 17, at 10:00 a.m., Madison Veterans for Peace Chapter 25 will hold a press conference on Stoughton Road at Orin Road [near Planned Parenthood] to highlight the billboard it has put up outside Truax Air National Guard base. The billboard has Uncle Sam saying, “U.S. Troops: I want you to refuse illegal orders”.
Upon joining the U.S. military, service members swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution and are bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). It states that all orders from superiors are assumed to be legal, but that this assumption “does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.”
In the spring 2025, Veterans for Peace began a national billboard campaign to remind U.S. military service members of the obligation to refuse illegal orders. Over two dozen billboards have gone up around the U.S. and Puerto Rico near military bases.
Previously, Madison Veterans for Peace Chapter 25 has installed billboards at Volk Field on US90/94 as well as on WIS21 near Ft. McCoy.
Veterans For Peace is an organization of military veterans and allies who aim to build a culture of peace by using our experiences and lifting our voices. We inform the public of the true causes of war and the enormous costs of wars, with an obligation to heal the wounds of wars, and working to end all wars. Madison Chapter 25 meets monthly and welcomes all interested people. https://www.veteransforpeace.org/
SERVICE MEMBER SUPPORT – Duty and Conscience
REFUSE ILLEGAL ORDERS – Veterans For Peace has launched a campaign to remind our brothers and sisters, sons and daughter and grandchildren who have joined the military that they have the right and the responsibility to refuse illegal orders, and that we will support them when they do.
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Orders to unconstitutionally deploy to US cities in support of racist ICE attacks or to suppress peaceful protests;
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Orders to participate in illegal regime-change wars, such as against Venezuela and Iran;
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Orders to ship weapons to Israel while it is conducting a genocide of Palestinians.
- Order to attack civilians or to torture and kill prisoners of war.
