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Editorial

By VVAW

The VA has come up with a new tactic to deal with militant--kill them with kindness. A couple of recent examples of this new approach are reported in The Veteran; there have been stories of a vet wearing a VVAW button going right through a waiting room filled with 200 vets, confronting one of those bosses, and getting his problem dealt with immediately.

While we do not have access to the high-level memos being passed around the offices of VA chiefs, it does seem clear there has been a change in the way the VA will deal with VVAW. Nine months ago, the tactic was chemical mace--several demonstrations called by VVAW met with mace attacks from VA guards. Not only did that tactic get turned upside down (the guards ended up in worse shape than the vets) but it didn't stop a growing vets movement and in fact exposed the VA in front of thousands of veterans. Here was the VA attacking vets who demanded benefits, an dthat was an image that the VA sure didn't want out among the people.

So the change in approach. The VA figures that the easiest way to kill off a building vets movement is by taking individual cases (such as the Paul Allen case) around which there is militant action, and rushing them through; with the money the VA has to spend, they can easily afford to give in on a few cases, particularly when they think it's in their own interest.

VVAW is all in favor of thi new approach; when we demand decent benefits for vets, that's exactly what we men, and each vet who forces the VA to give him or her the benefits they have earned is another victory. At the same time, we recognize that this does not mark a change in the nature of the VA.

In fact what they hope is that by giving individual vets their promised benefits, they will keep them from fighting for decent benefits for all vets, for jobs or income now, and around the slogan we won't fight another rich man's war. Vets aren't brought off that easily; we know that these victories are the result of only one thing--militant actions of a growing veterans movement. Without that, none of these individual cases would have been settled; without the potential of the fighting vets movement, the VA would not have been scared into cutting some of the red tape for individual vets.

Neither are vets so affected with self-interest that they will fight only around their own individual cases. Vets see the need of winning those cases. Vets see the need of winning those cases--often it's a matter of survival. But we also see greater need of building the kind of veterans movement which will win even greater victories for all veterans.

The VA does not function in a vacuum; it is a part of an overall system which is in deep crisis. History teachers us that in its attempts to get out of the crisis, even temporarily, the system is headed toward another war. And the people who run that system see veterans as a powerful force. They know that vets who talk about their experiences in Vietnam and who point out whose interests that war was in, help to expose what the sort of obstacle to their plans is something that the people who control the country cannot afford. They will do whatever they can to keep the veterans movement from continuing to grow, whether it's FBI infiltrators, police repression, mace attacks, or giving in to the demands of veterans.

We of VVAW would much rather face "kindness" from the VA than mace, but whatever they use in an attempt to co-opt or disrupt the vets movement, we will not be stopped. We'll take the victories or the mace, and move forward.