Patriotism can manifest in many forms and has for Mary Ann Wright. She has been a career military woman, a State Department diplomat, and an influential spokesperson in the antiwar movement.

Wright grew up in Bentonville, Arkansas, and attended the University of Arkansas, where she earned a master’s and a law degree. She also has a master’s degree in national security affairs from the U.S. Naval War College. In her junior year at the University of Arkansas, after meeting with a visiting Army recruiter, she attended a three-week Army training program. That experience helped inform her decision to join the service.

For thirteen years, Wright was an active duty soldier. She spent another sixteen years in the U.S. Army Reserves, retiring as a colonel. Part of her army work was special operations in civil affairs. In the event of invasions into other countries, Wright helped to develop “plans about how you interact with the civilian population, how you protect the facilities – sewage, water, electrical grids, libraries. . . . It’s our obligation under the law of land warfare.” After Wright was released from active duty, she joined the State Department. For the next sixteen years, she served as a foreign diplomat in many countries, including Nicaragua, Somalia, Uzbekistan, and Sierra Leone. She was on the team that reopened the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in December, 2001, after the fall of the Taliban to U.S. forces.

In all those years, Wright was proud to represent America. However, on March 13, 2003, the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Col. Ann Wright sent a letter of resignation to then Secretary of State Colin Powell. She felt that without the authorization of the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. invasion and occupation of an oil-rich Arab Muslim country would be a disaster. Only two other State Department officials resigned at that time in protest of the imminent invasion. In an interview, Wright explained that, in the Foreign Service, “[y]our job is to implement the policies of an administration. . . . If you strongly disagree with any administration’s policies, and wish to speak out, your only option is to resign. I understood that and that’s one of the reasons I resigned – to give myself the freedom to talk out.”

Talk out she has. Her sense of patriotism called her to become an antiwar activist. She worked with Cindy Sheehan organizing Camp Casey and appeared in the documentary Uncovered: The Truth About the Iraq War. She travels and lectures on foreign policy issues. She has been arrested many times for protesting Bush’s policies and has referred to herself cheerfully as a “felon for peace.” This retired Army Colonel has been temporarily banned from two military bases for placing postcards there announcing a showing of the documentary Sir, No Sir, from the U.S. capitol area, and from the National Press Club for voicing opinions and questions concerning Bush Administration policies and the Iraq war. Her antiwar efforts also include work with the Gaza Freedom March and opposition to Israel’s 2023 invasion of Gaza. In 2017, Wright received the U.S. Peace Prize from the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation “for courageous antiwar activism, inspirational peace leadership, and selfless citizen diplomacy.”