Brian Willson

S. Brian Willson (born July 4, 1941) is a U.S. American Vietnam veteran, peace activist, and attorney. Willson served in the US Air Force from 1966 to 1970, including several months as a combat security officer in Vietnam. He left the air force as a captain. He subsequently became a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace. Upon completion of law school at American University in Washington, D.C., he became a member of the District of Columbia Bar. Willson has had a variety of jobs, including penal consultant, prisoner rights advocate, dairy farmer, legislative aide, town tax assessor and building inspector, veteran's advocate, and small businessman. As a trained lawyer and writer, he has documented U.S. policy in nearly two dozen countries. Since 1986, Willson has studied on-site policies in a number of countries, among them Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Cuba, Haiti, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Japan, and North and South Korea. Documenting the pattern of policies that he says "violate U.S. Constitutional and international laws prohibiting aggression and war crimes," Willson has been an educator and activist, teaching about the dangers of these policies. He has participated in lengthy fasts, actions of nonviolent civil disobedience, and tax refusal along with voluntary simplicity. In 1987 he was seriously injured while blocking railroad tracks in protest against US weapons shipments to Central America. Willson was hit by a train, ultimately losing both legs below the knee.