March At The Wall
Vietnam Vets & The New Protestors
By Thomas P. Evans. (Helmet tip: Smash)
March 13, 2007 -- MENTION Jane Fonda to any 10 Vietnam veterans, and at least seven of them will have some sort of conniption right on the spot. Spread the rumor that Hanoi Jane will be leading the anti-war protest march from the Vietnam Memorial Wall to the Pentagon on Saturday, and a battalion of 60-year-old Vietnam veterans is ready to do battle again.
Rumors are flying over the Internet.
The Vietnam Wall is sacred ground, how dare they stage their march in front of it? Didn't anti-war protestors recently spray-paint graffiti on the Capitol steps? We'll form a human wall in front of the Wall to protect it.
Cops should body-search every protestor, looking for spray-paint cans and chisels. Have the bail bondsmen ready.
We might be white-heads and chrome domes with bellies bigger than B-52 thousand pound bombs, but we know how to deal with people who protest policies set forth by our duly elected government officials.
And who's going to guard the Korean War and World War II Memorials? Our brothers from those wars are too old to do it. We have to organize like this is a military operation.
And on and on, the e-mails go.
St. Patrick's Day marks the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, and the 40th anniversary of the massive Vietnam era anti-war march on the Pentagon. Where were we on March 17, 1967? ...
We tend to remember only dates that were significant to us - the battles, the first impressions, the funny moments. All the other dates blend together. So it's hard to say exactly where we were or what my platoon was doing on March 17, 1967. Perhaps we were out on patrol in a rice paddy or a jungle - "beating the bush," as we called it. Perhaps we were on one of the firebases near the DMZ, a respite from the constant patrols - cleaning gear, getting a hot meal or a haircut or writing a letter home.
Not many Vietnam veterans were around for that march on the Pentagon 40 years ago. We were in a different world, a world few anti-war protesters could even imagine. Maybe because we missed all that four decades ago, we want to be there this time. ...
Re: Gathering Storm
By Greyhawk
Smash, that quote from the Vietnam vets preparing to make a stand reminds me of Philip Caputo's account of an Iwo Jima veteran's "visit" to Northwestern University in the wake of the Kent State shootings:
The scene could have been lifted from a Delacroix painting of the French revolution. A young man stood atop a barricade of furniture and cars and saw-horses, his long hair tousled by the Lake Michigan wind, one hand grasping a pole flying a red flag and an upside-down American flag (a distress signal) as he exhorted some twenty-five hundred students massed behind him to "Strike! Strike!"
Suddenly, he was interrupted by a burly, black-haired, middle-age man dressed in a workingman's khaki trousers and a flannel shirt. Mounting the barricade, he tried to wrest the flag pole from the student. "That's my flag!" he yelled. "I fought for it. You have no right to it." ...
