Vietnam antiwar movement in the military and among veterans

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers*, which confirmed that U.S. leaders lied about the Vietnam War and sent American troops to fight a war they knew was unwinnable and that many considered unjust. A number of articles have appeared examining the antiwar movement that emerged in the military and among veterans during the Vietnam War and reflecting on some of the lessons of that movement for today.

Turning against war

In April 1971, more than a thousand Vietnam veterans descended on Washington, DC, for a series of antiwar actions dubbed Dewey Canyon III, “a limited incursion into the land of Congress.” For a week the veterans demonstrated and lobbied government officials to end the war, culminating in a dramatic ceremony at the steps of the Capitol on April 23 in which hundreds of veterans threw back their war medals. Few Americans realized then or remember now that the pervasive antiwar movement that convulsed American society 50 years ago also pulsed through the armed forces....

Why social movement scholars should study the GI Movement

The ignominies of the U.S. war in Vietnam are well known, as recounted in Chuck Searcy’s essay. Less well known is the rebellion in the ranks known as “the GI Movement,” which David Cortright discusses in his article. Active duty servicepersons circulated dissident newspapers at military bases, refused to engage in combat, and rejected orders to deploy. Some of these rebels formed a highly-organized movement, while others acted more spontaneously. Taken together, the various forms of soldier rebellion contested the war and institutionalized racism and crippled the U.S. government’s efforts to keep boots on the ground...

Healing the wounds of war and seeking reconciliation

It is ironic, after all the suffering our country caused in Viet Nam, that American veterans of the war are welcomed back to the country with grace, warmth, and forgiveness. Sometimes that’s coupled with humor. At a wedding in the countryside one day, the group of Vietnamese veterans with whom I was seated asked me about my wartime experience. When I replied that I was very lucky that I was not injured or wounded, the veteran seated next to me grabbed my hand and began to move it around on his head, his shoulder, and his arm so I could feel the shrapnel embedded under the skin. I shook my head, imagining how many years he had carried those metal shards around in his body. He pulled me close and in a conspiratorial whisper, but loud enough for others to hear, said, “Gift from America!” The whole group whooped in laughter. I have seen American veterans encounter North Vietnamese, Viet Cong or South Vietnamese veterans for the first time, and weep in their arms as they tell us, “It’s over, it was a long time ago. It was a tragedy and mistake by the U.S. government, but you did not make those decisions. It’s not your fault. Today we are friends, brothers”...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

Fifty years ... seems almost like yesterday, though my connection to the War began even earlier.

I spent my last year of military service at Fort Benning, Ga ... as an integral part of the new Air Assault Division, then being organized and trained. This was in 1963-64, at a time when the only American forces in Vietnam were "advisers", there to help train South Vietnamese soldiers.

Of course we weren't told why the AADivision was being organized, but I quickly put 2 and 2 together ... and began posting gruesome photos from LIFE magazine articles on Vietnam ...on the barracks bulletin board ... to let fellow soldiers know where we might be headed.*

My job was as a Guided Missile gunner aboard Huey Helicopters ... There were just two of us gunners in training ... the other fellow was R. Marx ... related to Daniel Ellsberg's wife, Patricia.

As a draftee, I was fortunate to have been honourably discharged in February 1964, but later that year, when the new Johnson Administration announced the Gulf of Tonkin incident, as a reason for the US to enter the war ... I said to myself: Johnson, you're making a Big Mistake ... a tragic mistake that you'll live to regret. I think it was then that I learned to distrust people in government, except why do our leaders continue to make the same mistakes?

*Note: One of the fellows who got the message was a First Lieutenant ... Huey helicopter pilot. He stopped me one day, to tell me he was leaving the service ... because of me, which puzzled me, because I never spoke to anyone about my feelings. Never heard from him, again, but it's entirely possible I saved his life.

Also, later in the 1970's, I was privileged to meet Daniel Ellsberg in Phoenix ... then on a speaking tour of the country.

>2 Rood: I'm just young enough to have missed the war...I can still remember watching the final meltdown in real time in 1975 and thinking "goodbye to bad rubbish."

It has always struck me that there was great friction from the start vis-a-vis American boots on the ground in Vietnam, more so than you might have thought, I supposed that the example of Korea was still fresh in the public's mind.

The saga of Vietnam started when the French inserted themselves in Indochina after WWII, mostly because the Anglo-French empires were falling apart and Indochina was free for the taking. The Vietnamese never cared for foreign masters, always wanted them out from the beginning and the rest is history.

A generation after the Vietnam War, I spent some time in the Australian Army. At that time Australia had only just come to terms with its participation in the Vietnam War. Most of the Vietnam Veterans still in the Australian Army were senior officers and warrant officers, and whilst "Defence of Australia" was the doctrine of the time, the majority of the training we undertook was still geared to counterinsurgency and small unit action in hot tropical climates. Whether that later helped us in Afghanistan another generation on, who knows.

Outside of the army at that time, veterans were beginning to show more pride in their Vietnam service, and that service was being more widely recognised in the community. It was finally realised more broadly, I think, that we had a responsibility towards those veterans, regardless of what was thought of the war.

As for me, I formed the view that veterans who had fought in that war had earned a right to speak whatever opinion they chose, and the most respectful thing I could do was shut up and listen.

I saw many "Aussies" in Vietnam, always friendly with us and looked like real tough kids, as a soldier I spent a little time in Sydney and was treated with respect, my son as a Marine trained with them in the 90's and my father spoke well of them in the So. Pacific during WWII.....