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Carter's "Pardon" Falls Short: Universal, Unconditional Amnesty

By VVAW

640,000 veterans of the Vietnam-era have "bad" discharges. Many of these are "general" discharges, often given to GIs who spent only a couple of weeks in the military. Even by the military's rules and regulations they did nothing wrong. Still, when trying to find one of the scarce jobs around these days, they have to show their employer what he considers a "less then honorable" discharge.

Worse off are vets with "undesirable" discharges (UD's). Often the military coerced men into signing statements to get a UD by threatening them with the court martial and prison. Because of the injustice of the military "justice" system, these GIs knew they had little chance of getting off charges even when they were innocent. In few cases did the military brass tell GIs that their vets benefits--including disability payments--could be refused if they had a UD. And these vets, as well as those with "bad conduct" or "dishonorable" discharges, have little chance at a good job and no GI Bill benefits to improve their chances for work.

The discharge system was set up by the military as one more tool for them to control their troops; the threat of a bad discharge has again and again been used by the brass to try to keep their men in line. GIs who protested the Indochina war, and especially those whose protests took the form of refusing to carry out military orders in Vietnam, were often hit with bad discharges. GIs who organized against the racism in the military or any of the other repressive regulations were often sentenced to bad discharges. What the military could least afford was exposure--GIs seeing that the military was forcing them to fight against their own interests and for the interests of the rich and powerful few who sent us off to Indochina to fight their war for profit. Resistance was met by branding a GI with a bad discharge and throwing him or her out of the military in hopes that the veteran would then shut up.

The tactic didn't work. Just as GIs organized to right military repression and to fight against the war, vets also organized one of the issues they have been fighting around has been the struggle for a single type discharge. Individual vets have flooded the discharge review boards with paperwork to get their discharges upgraded (so much so that the out-molded boards are running years behind) and the government was forced to decentralize: instead of one central group of review boards (one of each branch of the service located in Washington) boards now spend time in various places around the country, meaning that vets no longer have to travel to DC in order to appear before the board.

The fight to get discharges upgraded, and to get the whole discharge system abolished, is part of the struggle for universal and unconditional amnesty for war resisters Once again this issue has jumped onto the front pages when Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, speaking to the American Legion, said: "Amnesty means that what you did was right; pardon means that what you did, right or wrong, is forgiven. So pardon, yes, amnesty no." Carter, the smooth and oily politician knew that the loud boo's from the Legion leadership would help his position sound stronger and win him some of the "liberal" Democratic backing that he wants. Meanwhile, during the first of the "debates," Ford tried to weasel around the question of the Nixon pardon by saying that he was trying to heal the wound of the Vietnam War."

All the politicians, the servants of the ruling class are trying to persuade the American people to forget about Vietnam and the defeat dealt to the American military machine there. They want the American people to forget the lessons of the war in Indochina--that the determination and political strength of a small country can defeat whatever a larger country has to throw at it. And whether it's the kind of "pardon" that Carter's talking about or the "earned re-entry" that Ford tried a year and a half ago, the people of the US, and especially the Veterans of the Vietnam era will not forget.

War resisters who went to Canada or military deserters who went to Sweden of veterans with bad discharges should be given amnesty because what they did was right. It should not be a selective pardon to squeeze out a few more votes for some politician. Only because millions of Americans believe that the Indochina War was wrong is Carter forced into a position of supporting even a limited pardon, and as the struggle grows against future rich man's wars, more and more people will demand a single-type discharge made retroactive for all vets, and universal and unconditional amnesty.