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VVAW-WSO Discharge Upgrading

By VVAW

(For about 6 months the members of the Oakland-East Bay chapter of VVAW/WSO have been operating a comprehensive discharge upgrading project or DUP. In addition to providing the service of appealing bad discharges, the DUP staff is working with N. Calif. VVAW/WSO to organize a grassroots political movement for a single-type discharge as part of VVAW/WSO's amnesty campaign. The following is an interview with Jeanie Dolly, a project worker in the East Bay office.)

Winter Soldier: What is the DUP?

Jeanie Dolly: First of all, the DUP is a service project. We offer counciling, legal assistance and prepare appeals for vets with less-than-honorable discharges. Secondly, it is an outreach tool where we can make contact with badly discharged veterans and help them organize a political movement for a single type discharge.

WS: How does the project work?

Jeanie: Right now we have 3 staff workers and 2 law students working basically full-time. We have various skills and knowledge of military law and counciling. We are all learning the legal stuff. We just started having group counseling sessions, where 1 or 2 project workers help up to 10 vets at a time fill out forms, and write chronologies of their military careers. This saves time and helps the brothers see that what they might have viewed as personal problems are really very common political problems. So far, our lawyer in Washington DC has won 80% of the cases he has handled. It's not a bad track record.

WS: What is a typical case?

Jeanie: Actually, no two cases are alike. However, the theme that runs through every record I have seen is getting harassed by the military to the point that a GI will accept a bad discharge just to get out. Many vets got administrative discharges instead of facing a court martial. For sure most of the charges were trumped up, but the average GI just doesn't have the resources to fight the case. About 80% of the cases I've seen should have been discharged 'honorably' under provisions for hardship, medical or psychological problems. But they get forced out with less-than-honorable discharges by the military anyway.

Separation codes or SPNs are another form of discrimination used by the military to brand vets. One brother came into our office recently because a friend had told him about SPNs. We discovered that the SPN of his 'honorable' discharge labeled him with a character disorder. There are hundreds of these SPN code numbers...some of them are incredible: inadequate personality, apathy, etc. Most employers have a list of what the SPNs stand for, while 9 out of 10 GIs and vets don't even know they exist.

WS: How does the DUP fit into the amnesty issue?

Jeanie: The first thing we tell a badly discharged vet who walks into our office is that DUP is part of VVAW/WSO's campaign for amnesty. We demand universal and unconditional amnesty for all war resisters. The conditions which lead to being badly discharged are a direct result of resistance to the war and the racism and repression of the military. There are 560,000 badly discharged veterans from the Vietnam-era. They cannot receive any VA benefits, the GI Bill or medical care, even if they still suffer from war related disabilities. They have one hell of a hard time getting good jobs. It's like being branded for life. Any demand for amnesty has to include badly discharged veterans. They are the largest single group of people in need of amnesty. Unfortunately people still only associate the issue of amnesty with exiles.

We think the only fair and realistic way of clearing these veteran's records is for the military to issue a single-type discharge to all vets, past and future. The discharge system works like a type of double jeopardy or double punishment... you are always being punished again for the same thing. It's going to be a long struggle because granting the kind of amnesty we are demanding is to force the government to admit that the Indochina War was wrong. It's admitting that we were justified in resisting it.

WS: How do you see this happening?

Jeanie: Every month the Bay Area DUPs have a general meeting. Project workers and vets whose appeals we are working on get together to discuss the political aspects of the project, as well as to coordinate the organizing work going on. This consists of contacting community groups, political figures, GIs, and media in trying to drum up support for a single-type discharge, while at the same time explaining to them how these discharges and military codes are used to discriminate against badly discharged vets. Naturally, we think demonstrations and direct actions, like visiting the VA are part of this educational process.

Locally we are beginning to meet with some success. Every month more vets become involved with the work, several have joined our VVAW/WSO chapter. Our local work will be almost meaningless, however, without coordinating a national campaign for amnesty which includes discharge upgrading as one of its primary projects. At the rate the discharge review boards handle cases, it would take thousands of years to hear some 560,00 of them; this is where the demand for a single-type discharge and VVAW/WSO's amnesty campaign come in. With the work VVAW/WSO is doing around amnesty and setting up discharge upgrading projects around the country, it looks like the brass is going to be hearing a lot about us before long.

UNIVERSAL & UNCONDITIONAL AMNESTY FOR ALL WAR RESISTERS!

A SINGLE-TYPE DISCHARGE FOR ALL VETERANS!