Rasmussen, Gorin and the VFW leadership "were wary of presiding over a strictly antiwar organization or being branded as leftists or pacifists." The VFW leadership refused to support the Oxford Pledge or to lend the group's support to peace marches, student strikes, or other forms of direct action. As the 1935–36 school year came to a close in June 1936, the Veterans of Future Wars reached the peak of its membership and activity; by the fall of 1936 and the resumption of college classes, indecision about how to proceed next froze local activity. As a result of its political hesitancy, the most active and radical supporters of the VFW quickly moved from the parody organization to more serious efforts to keep America out of the coming European war, such as the American Student Union. VFW founder Lewis Gorin graduated from Princeton in June 1936 and enrolled at Harvard Law School for the coming year, further contributing to the VFW's organizational paralysis. Amidst this leadership vacuum and programmatic uncertainty, the Veterans of Future Wars atrophied as rapidly as it had arisen, dissolving by the end of the 1936–37 academic year. The group's somewhat cynical view of the inevitability of American participation in a new European conflagration proved to be prescient, with Gorin and the entire governing National Council of the VFW, except for one member paralyzed in a car crash, ultimately joining the United States Armed Forces. Gorin served in the 6th Field Artillery Regiment on the European front, rising to the rank of colonel and ironically becoming eligible for a host of military benefits and a pension at the end of World War II. Footnotes Further reading April C. Armstrong, War Is Imminent': The Veterans of Future Wars", Mudd Manuscript Library Blog, Princeton University, Sept. 30, 2015. Richard D. Challener, "VFW: A New Look by a History Professor at an Old Princeton Satire", Princeton Alumni Weekly, Oct. 19, 1956, pp. 13–16. "Future Veterans, Unite!" Daily Princetonian, March 14, 1936, p. 2. Lewis Jefferson Gorin, Patriotism Prepaid. Drawings by Albert M. Barbieri. Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott Company, 1936. Donald W. Whisenhunt, Veterans of Future Wars: A Study of Student Activism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011. External links Veterans of Future Wars Papers online finding aid, Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University. Advocacy groups in the United States Culture jamming Princeton University 1936 in American politics Student organizations in the United States Student organizations