> When I first read postings from Joe McDonald that contained his
> enthusiastic support for Vietnam vets I was a bit surprised. After
> all, who more than Joe was a visible and vocal opponent to the
> insanity, illegality and immorality of that war?
>
> Out of my respect for Joe, not only professionally, but personally
> and politically (from the little I know), I kind of rolled his
> position around in my head each time he contributed a post regarding
> vet issues.
>
> Now, with your latest post Joe, I really need say, "I just don't get
> it!"
>
> As an organizer/activist during the 60's and 70's, I knew and worked
> with many brothers from VVAW and "having seen the light" they were,
> for the most part, fine people with their heads and hearts in the
> right place. However, VVAW were hardly representative of rank and
> file vets.
I would have to disagree here. Many of the GIs I worked with as a
high school student and later were rank and file GIs and against the
war. Of course, I suppose this depended on those one ran into.
Having been a military dependent at the time, however, I ran into a
fair share of GIs--hanging out with them, etc.
>
> The war in Vietnam, as we said then and is still true today, was an
> abomination and a crime against humanity. It was not merely a
> mistake, it was a calculated political move which was misconceived
> politically, militarily, morally and culturally. And, like it or
> not with this recent trend toward revisionism, the U.S. soldiers who
> fought in that war were all, to one degree or another, compliant
> accomplices to this crime.
>
> Certainly, nothing can be said in defense of those GI's who
> enlisted. For the most part they were real, born-again believers in
> Amerika and they went off willingly to kill the "slope-head
> commie-gooks".
This smacks of elitism. Early Weatherman thought this way too in
when they labeled those service folks unwilling to join the
revolution as pigs. I have to disagree vehemently with the
characterization of enlistees as primarily "born again beleivers in
Amerika...". Most were working class guys-black , white, brown,
etc.- who had fewer choices than those who avoided the military.
Often times enlisting was done with the misguided hope (encouraged by
recruiters) that those who enlisted were less likely to go into the
jungle. Those friends of mine who enlisted did so with this in
mind--they usually joined the Navy or Air Force and ended up getting
tscrewed just the same. They also were very opposed to the war and
military when they got out as well. The Panthers and RYM 2
organizations (along with many other smaller anti-imperialist groups)
recognized this "economic draft" and encouraged dissension and
antiwar/antiracist organizing among the ranks without regard as to
how the men eneded up in the military.
>
> How come no one is building a monument, holding a memorial concert,
> or waxing poetically for the War Resisters. Were they not the real
> heroes!
They were the heroes, but a greater legacy is remembering their
actions, not the individuals. Look what they do to Martin Luther
King Jr every year in terms of memorial.
>
-
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