Crystal Kim is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was on active duty from 2013 to 2019 and is now a PhD student in physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. During her military service, she was briefly stationed in Jerusalem and witnessed the Israeli government’s abhorrent treatment of Palestinians, setting her on a journey toward education and to her current position as a member of Ventura County’s VFP 112. Crystal is an active organizer with UCSB’s Researchers Against War, a group working to dismantle the ties between militarism and higher education, particularly in regard to the university’s war research.