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Conferences Unite Vets For Struggle

By VVAW

In late September and early November VVAW held regional conferences to initiate the national campaign around extending and expanding the GI Bill. The conferences were built so broadly and taken out to veterans at schools, VA hospitals and offices, plants, and unemployment lines. As a result, vets who had never heard of VVAW came into contact with the organization. At one school in southern California, a VVAW member went to the local junior college vets club to invite them to attend the conference. He got there just as the club was deciding to disband because a lack of direction and program. The invitation to the conference sparked discussion and a new enthusiasm, and some of the vets attended the conference in Los Angeles. On the East Coast, 10,000 handouts in English and Spanish were handed out, bringing out the need not only to take up the Extend and Expand the GI Bill campaign, but also the importance of building the veterans movement broadly, including the need to take up the issues of war and jobs, and to stand firmly with the working class against this rotten system.

The first conference to be held was in the Midwest in Milwaukee. It began with a rousing demonstration of 50 people through a shopping district and ending at a local military recruiter's office. The Milwaukee VVAW chapter put on a skit exposing how and why we went into the military in the first place, how we were used by the rich, and the life facing vets upon returning to the world.

The conference followed the demonstration and covered the need to build the extend and expand the GI Bill campaign, the role that vets play in society, and the need to build VVAW organizationally. Discussion around the possibility of a new world war between the US and the Soviet Union was especially good as vet after vet talked about the fact that if a new world war did start, there was no way we'd be siding with out rulers to defend their rotten rule. One vet from Chicago put it well when he said, "The way I look at it, you can either fight for a cause or just because. If you fight because the capitalists tell you to, or because there is someone threatening the rule of the rich, you would be throwing your life away. But if you were to fight for a cause, for your family of friends, well that's a reason to fight."

And that is about it. When we say we won't fight another rich man's war, that is what we are saying: we won't fight for the capitalists, for their banks, their estates, their yachts, their good times. We won't shed our blood so that after a war, with all the terribleness that we know it means for us, they can still be on top of us grinding profit out of our sweat and blood. It does mean that we will fight! But our fight will be against them, their rotten system, and for our friends, our families and our class.

The East Coast conference took place of the weekend of October 2 and 3 in New York City. On the 2nd, vets from all over the East Coast joined in a march starting at the VA and marching through the streets to Times Square where they held a rally. Enthusiastic response from onlookers added to the militancy and spirit of the demonstration.

On the 3rd the conference took up the questions facing vets and began with a good discussion of why the conference and VVAW are small at this time. Discussion was at first one-sided as vets tried to say we are strong and growing but did not speak to the real fact that numerically we are small; as the discussion continued, peoples' understanding grew. It became clear that there were not as many vets around as during the anti-war days, that VVAW was small, and that the conference was small compared to the number of vets on the whole East Coast. What also came out was that VVAW was making mistakes in building the struggle of vets. But more important, this is a new and different period of time. There is the beginning of a new spiral upward as peoples' struggles are on the rise, and downward spiral in the economy. The system of capitalism is in deep crisis with no way out. The rich are trying to throw that crisis on the backs of working people while, at the same time, preparing to go to war as a "solution" to their problem. That's a solution we aren't going to accept. The storm is beginning, clouds are overhead, and the struggle of the working class as seen in recent strikes as well as the upsurge of vets--shown in the resistance of Ashby Leach--is moving. In fact this is a sign of our strength--VVAW must take its bearings and begin in earnest to gather this resistance of vets, concentrate it, help to direct it and build for new battles ahead.

The West Coast conference was held a week later in Los Angeles. There was no demonstration but there was also no lack of enthusiasm. The conference began with a slide show put together by the LA Chapter of VVAW showing the history of vets' struggles and putting it in the context of what is going on today. This was followed by vet after vet testifying about their experiences at the hands of the military and the VA, and laying the blame directly at the feet of the rich who use us and then throw us away. One vet talked about coming back from Nam with a buddy hooked on drugs, and how they had sought help from a psychiatrist--who only told them to blame themselves for their problems and then tried to put them on more drugs. Eventually, his friend killed himself. Another vet answered that that was how the system worked: blame yourself for the problems of the system. If you don't have a job, it's your own fault. If the GI Bill doesn't come, it's your fault. But it isn't our fault--it's the fault of a system run for the profit of a few at the expense of the many. He added that, as far as he could see, we had to take on that system and that meant building organization--and that organization was VVAW, "the only national veterans organization that really stood for the interests of vets. If you don't belong to VVAW, why not?"

All of the conferences took up the possibility of another war, the need to build the campaign to Free Ashby Leach, and the need to build VVAW into a powerful organization. There were successes in that new vets were brought into VVAW, gaining a deeper understanding of the system we all face along with the necessity to fight against it. And, to re-quote the vet from California, "If you don't belong to VVAW, why not?"