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A Different Kind of Rolling Thunder: VVAW's West Coast Tour

By Horace Coleman

Marty Webster

This was no reunion tour.

VVAW rolled through coastal California five deep.

In Long Beach, National Coordinators Barry Romo and Marty Webster, joined by Willie Hager, George Johnson and Jan Ruhman were hosted by Pat Alviso and Jeff Merrick, from the local MFSO chapter. Jack Finley,VFP chapter president, photographed the event and arranged videotaping. Webster and Romo spoke to an enthusiastic crowd. A lively Q&A session with the five followed.

There were also events in Berkeley (the musical group Johnson's part of, Annie and the Vets, and Country Joe McDonald performed), San Francisco (Annie and the Vets performed) and Camarillo.

In San Diego, Webster talked about organizing and Romo about the Afghanistan war, another item on Obama's overloaded plate. In a rump session led by Ruhman, goals, cooperation, coordination, tactics and techniques were discussed.

"Patriots" today wave the flag while doing little else, applaud themselves while failing veterans. This makes the people who do positive things more important: pilots who reunite military members recuperating from war injuries with their families, groups that aid homeless vets, have standdowns, help military families, and hold camps where the children of deployed or KIA parents can decompress.

Having a professional Army pleased the general public, and caused multiple tours in the war zone, high PTSD and suicide rates. Having no war taxes kept the financial costs of war invisible. Banning photos of flag draped coffins covered up the ultimate cost while wounded warriors were housed in moldy rooms at Walter Reed hospital. Poorly supervised no bid contractors produced work that electrocuted troops in shower rooms, built dilapidated facilities Iraqis refused to use and let Blackwater operatives act like Blackwater operatives.

Even after no Iraqi WMDs, 9/11 connections or al Qaeda relationships were found, not enough effort was put into Afghanistan where the Taliban regained strength, war lords flourished, the new government stumbled, purer heroin flowed from the country and the war of error about terror spread to Pakistan. Meanwhile, VVAW helped people upgrade their discharges, counseled about VA hassles, held standdowns, worked with Iraq and Afghanistan vets and IVAW and fielded information requests from researchers, documentary makers and students.

Is a smaller segment of today's population bearing a heavier burden while a larger majority bears less? If the nation is over extended, is it because of unnecessary "adventures," inadequate utilization, inept preparation or execution?

Things like "culture wars," ecology / global warming, fundamentalist religiosity, excessively partisan domestic politics, increased international economic and political interaction and competition can require new, or adapted, strategies. That's what VVAW's tour offered and looked for.

Horace Coleman was an Air Force air traffic controller / intercept director in Vietnam (1967-68).
He also served in Tactical Air Command, Pacific Air Command and North American Air Defense.
He speaks at grade schools, high schools and churches and lives in Long Beach, CA.

The West Coast Tour

Chukia Lawton and Barry Romo

Marty Webster, Washington DC, March 21, 2009