Vets explore the truth at Explore UT

This Saturday in Austin, the University of Texas held its annual open house called Explore UT. It's a great event that showcases university departments -- the arts, sciences, sports, music -- and draws families and bus-loads of high school students from all over Texas to get a look at the amazing facilities in our fair city.

However, the ROTC usually sponsors some kind of display directed to kids that doubles as a military recruitment tool. This year, it was a climbing wall and some chin-up bars. So, members of the UT student group, CAMEO (Campus Antiwar Movement to End Occupations) also had a table of literature next to the ROTC display and invited members of Iraq Veterans Against the War to join them to offer a reality check to kids drawn in by the military glamorization.

Reports from friends who were there indicated that the vets attracted a lot of interest from the kids, that teachers there with student groups encouraged their students to talk to the vets about the realities of war and that parents thanked the CAMEO group for bringing an alternative voice to the event.

Thanks to Heidi Turpin for the photos