150 U.S. Military Veterans Occupy Congressional Building To Protest Iran War

April 22—One-hundred and fifty military veterans and family members occupied the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill April 20, in protest of the Iran war. The veterans stood at attention in the center of the rotunda holding red tulips honoring those Iranians who have been killed by U.S. bombs. Large signs flanked the group reading “End the War on Iran” and “We Can’t Afford Another War.” A flag-folding ceremony, complete with Taps, was performed in honor of those U.S. service members who have been killed in the war.

The group demanded that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La) come out to accept the folded flag and pledge to not continue funding for the war.

Johnson did not appear, and instead, 60 of the veterans were arrested by Capitol Police. Among those arrested was Executive Director of the Center on Conscience and War (CCW) Mike Prysnor, who said: “The war I was sent to senselessly claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and a million Iraqis. Like the other veterans here with me today, I have spent the last two decades wishing I could turn back the hands of time and refuse to go.” Prysnor was accompanied in his arrest by Tyler Romero, a client of CCW who filed for conscientious objector status in 2025. “As someone who was a participant in a war machine that is responsible for untold suffering around the world,” Romero said, “it is my duty to help put an end to it.”

Former Army Ranger and Congressional candidate in Texas Greg Stoker, who, along with Josephine Guilbeau, disrupted Hegseth’s confirmation hearing in January 2024 and was detained by Israeli authorities as part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, said, “So begins the largest veteran and military family act of civil disobedience since the Iraq war began, occupying the Cannon building Rotunda—protesting yet another forever…. Whatever violence we do overseas always comes back home.”

The protest was organized by a coalition of organizations, including About Face, Veterans For Peace, Common Defense, Center on Conscience and War, Fayetteville Resistance Coalition, Military Families Speak Out, and 50501 Veterans.