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GIs Continue The StruggleBy VVAWBlack G.I. Railroaded (Chicago) Melvin Smith, a 24-year-old black Vietnam veteran is facing murder charges in connection with a 1971 killing of a white sergeant in Vietnam. Smith has already been court-martialed and convicted once on the charges; right now he is sitting in Fort Leavenworth awaiting a second trial. If he doesn't get support, and lots of it, soon, he will spend the rest of his life in prison -- for a killing that happened because Smith got hurt in Quang Tri. Smith was with the 54th Ord. Co., 26th Gen. Support Group at Quang Tri in 1971. He was a quiet, easygoing man who was generally well-liked and who had no record of any kind of troublemaking or militancy. In April of 1971, a dear friend of his died at Quant Tri, and Smith was badly shaken up; when he saw the body, he tried to revive his friend, giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and begging his friend to wake up. Later that day, Smith fell off a 30-foot observation tower onto his head, suffering grave head injuries. He went to the dispensary, but somehow they never got around to X-raying his head. They gave him first aid and sent him back to duty. But on May 7, 1971, Smith walked into the mess hall at 12 noon and shot and killed a white first sergeant and wounded two other men. He then went into his hooch; shots were heard, and he was found with multiple bullet wounds. He was evacuated back to the States, where eventually doctors at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital found him to be suffering from extreme schizophrenia and brain damage. So he gets a discharge for a service-connected disability and is put in a VA hospital, right? No, not for a black man. He was yanked out of Fitzsimmons, against his doctor's orders, and sent to Da Nang, where he spent five months in a 4' x 6' isolation cell, without decent medical care. He was dragged through a sham sanity board, who decided there wasn't anything wrong with him to prevent trial, and court-martialed in 1972. He was found guilty, despite the testimony of psychiatrists and psychologists, and sentenced to life at Leavenworth. He has been there all this time; his wounds have never healed completely, and at the moment he is suffering from a massive re-infection and osteomyelitis (in plain terms, his ribs are disintegrating. If he doesn't have surgery, it will kill him in time.) Smith won a re-trial on a technicality in September. His lawyers are desperately trying to get a new sanity board hearing, in the hopes of reversing the original ruling. If that fails, he will be tried again in Leavenworth in December or January. This brother is one of eight children from a poor black family in Chicago. He has a young wife and a two-year-old son whom he has barely met. He is sick. And he doesn't have any money to pay for his defense. The Army wants to get him. It is up to his friends fellow GIs and Vietnam vets, and other people who want to see justice done, to stop the Army. Melvin X. Smith needs three things: (1) Petitions demanding his release, back pay, and disability payments; (2) Publicity to scare off the Army; (3) Money to pay for tracking down witnesses, getting new psychiatric evidence, and legal fees. NOSCAM-Chicago is coordinating the defense campaign. If you can give money or time, let us know. Without it, the war will claim another victim. FREE MELVIN X. SMITH!!!! G.I. Resigns in Germany (Baumhalder, West Germany) On Oct. 17, 1973, PV2 Tom Steinhelper decided he had had enough and resigned from the Army. In his statement, he gave some of his reasons: "I do not feel that the man who has been placed in charge of the American people, that is, President Nixon, is capable of exercising that power in an honest way. Therefore, I do not think it right to work, even indirectly, with a dishonest man who, I think, only wishes to use the American people. I cannot support a government that supplies weapons, ammunition, and funds to the Portuguese for the genocide of thousands of innocent Black people in Mozambique. This is outright racism and I could not live with myself if I was to support the organization or government that is responsible for genocide." Tom has been threatened with punishment, but nothing has happened so far, despite the fact that he has refused to wear his uniform shave, or work since he quit. He has been involved in some organizing work. At Patten Barracks, also in Germany, he reported that "Four of our black comrades had been beaten up by about 10 armed MPs with nightsticks. It almost caused a riot between Black and white brothers and sisters, but just when fighting was about to explode, about 150 brothers and sisters got together and chose a delegation to see Gen. Michael Davison, commander of US Army Europe. We demanded to see him; about 2 hours later we were allowed to talk to him. We told him that we wanted race relations and drug problems to be in the hands of the EMs, because they are the only people affected by these programs and therefore are the best equipped to deal with them. After about 45 minutes, Davison finally gave in and told us that if we could write up a program that would be acceptable to him and his staff, he would consider it. Although we don't see much chance of anything being acceptable to him, we do consider it a major victory in forcing him at least to talk to us. The real victors are the people who proved that, combined, their minds are stronger than all the brass could hand out! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!" FLAREUPS IN THE FLEET Brothers in the Navy are starting to fight back against the unbelievably bad conditions they are forced to work in. VVAW/WSO chapters are springing up all over the fleet, and there have been som really good actions. Listen to what the brothers are saying: (From a brother on the DULUTH)-- "About 3 months ago the mess cooks staged a sitdown strike in protest of all the bullshit they had been getting from the brass in the past. The claims of the brass were that the mess decks weren't clean enough and that the men were doing a lousy job. So they secured the mess cooks' liberty. So the cooks went on strike because: (1) How can you keep the mess decks spotless when they are the work center of the ship? (2) We have a "green" crew, and every man seems to work for 6 different bosses and gets a new order every time he turns around, so nothing gets done and then they get the blame; (3) We had just gotten some Marines on board and their attitude did not aid morale with their griping and throwing of food on the decks and the plates As soon as the mess cooks formed a "union," the Executive Officer (who speaks with very forked tongue) came down and "promised' cooperation if the men would go back to work and clean the place up as much as possible. (USS KENNEDY)-- "Well, the pigs are really coming down hard on us now. After we held our 1st meeting of the VVAW/WSO chapter here, someone went and told the Chief Master at Arms all out it and now they know who the organizers are. The Master at Arms and his sidekick interrogated me for over 3 1/2 hours about VVAW/WSO and tried to scare me by threatening to fine us $100 for everyone who got caught at a meeting. The Executive Officer called me into his office and said that if we hold another meeting with the commanding officer's permission, he will personally bust us good. UNITY IS WHAT WE NEED!!" UNITY-STRUGGLE-VICTORY News on these pages was complied by NOSCAM, the VVAW/WSO National Office GI Project. This office coordinates active-duty chapters, new VVAW/WSO members and chapters, GI news, and all other GI Movement activities. Contact one of the NOSCAM offices for more information: NOSCAM-Chicago NOSCAM-Dayton
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