A five-year employee at private defense contracting corporation General Dynamics publicly resigned Tuesday in protest of the company's arming of US-led wars, declaring: "I have always believed that if every foot soldier threw down his rifle war would end. I hereby throw mine down."Brandon Toy's General Dynamics employee badge (Photo: Brandon Toy)
Brandon Toy sent his resignation letter in an email to his immediate supervisors, coworkers, and the corporate chain of command, as well as to Common Dreams, who published the statement Tuesday.
The letter has since gone viral, racketing tens of thousands of views on social media sites as attention continues to climb.
Toy—who penned the letter in May and sat on it for months—says that when he pressed send and walked out of his office, he felt that a "giant weight had been lifted from [his] shoulders."
"I feel fantastic," he told Common Dreams. "I did the right thing. I am a little concerned about what I will do for work, but I know I will be working for the good of the world."
Robert Doolittle, General Dynamics spokesperson, told Common Dreams he was aware of Toy's resignation but had no comment.
The Detroit-based Army veteran, who had worked as an engineering project manager for General Dynamics, says that as a paper-pusher for this arms industry giant, he was ethically implicated in its role arming and fighting US-led wars.
"I felt a lot of cognitive dissonance for last two or three years," he explains. "I knew what the truth was and what the consequences of our actions were. But I needed to make a living."
One of the top 'defense' companies in the world, General Dynamics has been mired in controversy for its over 100 years of war profiteering, with profit windfalls from the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, thanks to extensive US contracts. The company has been met with harsh criticism for supplying weapons, including Stryker armored vehicles, tanks and guns, to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while operating behind a veil of secrecy.
Yet, General Dynamics was not Toy's first taste of US-led wars. He had formerly served in the Army as a military police machine gunner in Iraq during a 2004 deployment. Having joined as a fervent believer in the US-led war in Iraq, Toy says the experience turned him against a war that wasn't helping anyone and was just "killing civilians" and "destroying cities."
He became further disillusioned with the US role in the world when President Obama failed to bring the "hope and change everyone was hoping for." He says that 'courageous' journalists and advocates, including Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks who exposed US war crimes, "showed him the truth" and filled him with anger as he worked his General Dynamics job following his honorable discharge from the Army.
Toy says that when Edward Snowden blew the whistle on NSA warrantless spying, he was deeply moved.
"When [Edward Snowden] talked about how he had believed in the mission, joined after the Iraq war, and found out it was false, it was like my words coming out," he said. "It gave me hope that he took the chance and risked his life to do what he was doing."
When asked if he has any advice for people in similar positions, he simply stated, "My actions speak louder than any words I could say. You don't have to continue doing what you're doing."
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Dear Jennifer: I really enjoy your writing and thanks for the many ascension updates, which have been so helpful to me. I’ve never decreed so much in my life as the last few years, anchoring light so that the earth’s vibration will shift for the better. It’s been good work, if hard much of the time, but now I feel done… like there is nothing I want to do. I wrote a book from 2011 to 2012 and it’s published. Now I just feel done, finished, but I’m still here. Every time I ask the Higher Powers what my next mission is, they say ‘enjoy your life’ I’m not sure what that means, do you have any suggestions? What is next for those of us who do this work?
♡ Waves of love are rushing in. Coursing over this beloved planet, a storm of love washes over everyone and everything, leaving nary a blade of grass untouched by it’s transfiguring effect. Waves of love, topped off by dainty whitecaps, constructed not of foam but of brilliant crystalline white Christ Light. This energy is ever so pure and it is profoundly healing by nature. Oh, how very dearly is our Earth in need of healing! Our Earth-indeed, as this was not written in error. For Earth is every bit as much our planet as it is yours. Not only because, as well you know, we are all created as One. But because we have been intimately and creatively tied in with the original conception, seeding and eventual progression of the Human Race. So yes, your destiny is our destiny, and thus we soldier on as one diverse, and yet highly functional family; one team, one Sacred Heart, interlaced.
- Sarah Lazare, staff writer
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