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450 Rally in Cleveland and on West Coast: Veterans Demand Free Ashby Leach

By VVAW

On the weekend of March 12-13 over 350 veterans, workers and others demonstrated in Cleveland, while more than a hundred more demonstrated in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego demanding FREE ASHBY LEACH and MAKE CHESSIE HONOR THE GIL BILL FOR ALL VETS.

Ashby Leach, a former Vietnam Navy medic, took over the offices of the Chessie Railroad system in Cleveland last August 26th. This action culminated five years of trying to work through the system to get the Chessie bosses to participate in the GI Bill for Vietnam vets working on the railroad. Ashby's action not only brought attention to the rotten conditions facing vets today, but also pointed to the cause of those conditions: the rich, fat cats who run this system for their own profits.

In January 1977, Vietnam Veterans Against the War took up the campaign to Free Ashby Leach as its primary area of work, sponsoring Leach on a nationwide speaking tour that took him from coast to coast. VVAW passed out thousands of leaflets, collected signatures on petitions, held pickets at local Chessie offices System on the spot. Two dozen uniformed vets and others took to the Chessie railroad tracks, announcing: "Chessie owners have been interfering with the lives of Vietnam vets and Ashby by denying the GI Bill and putting Ashby on trial. As a consequence we are putting Chessie on notice: No business as usual! We're taking the tracks today and we will take them again in the future until our brother Ashby is free and the GI Bill honored." The tracks were held for two hours but Chessie officials put a hold on trains in the yard. There were no arrests--and no business as usual for Chessie!

On March 5, the Cleveland Worker newspaper and the Organizing Committee for a National workers Organization sponsored a dinner at which 85 workers joined together to support Ashby. Support resolutions were fought for in two steel union locals, though they lost. One worker talked about the support he had seen in his plant at Brook Park: "Free Ashby Leach" stickers had gone up on the walls, and under one of them a worker at the Ford plant had written that Ashby is a crazy hillbilly." The next day, more messages were written under the first one: "If he's crazy, so am I" (signed) a Yugoslavian hillbilly, and under that another one saying, "Me too! (signed) A Black hillbilly."

Starting the Monday before the demonstration, Cleveland VVAW members set up a vets encampment in the center of the city, displaying the real fighting history of veterans and the facts about the case of Ashby Leach. The encampment continued daily under a countdown banner that announced "5 Days Until the Vets Arrive." As the time of the demonstration grew near cars would stop in the middle of traffic as people jumped out of their cars, grabbed leaflets, and ran back to their cars, taking leaflets to distribute to their friends. One retired lady returned after taking literature on the case, made a donation and apologized for not having change the first time by.

On March 13th, Saturday, people began arriving in the morning. At 2 o'clock, 60 vets and supporters marched through the pouring rain to the center of Cleveland to announce that, "The Vets Have Arrived." That night 300 people turned out for a Peoples; Tribunal designed to expose the real criminal--the rich ruling class that made billions off our blood in wars like Vietnam, and now deny benefits to the vets who made it home.

During the Tribunal indictments were leveled on Chessie officials: robbery in the 1st Degree, to wit, knowingly and intentionally denying GI Bill benefits to Ashby Leach and countless thousands of Vietnam veterans employed by Chessie. During the trial, veterans and workers testified to their actual experiences, from rotten VA hospitals to the profits wrung from our sweat and blood. The people found what no court controlled by the rich would ever find: Guilty on all counts.

Representatives of workers organization from across the country came forward to speak, bringing out the fact that Ashby's case was not one of a single vet against a railroad, but of millions of vets and workers against Chessie and the whole system behind it. Rounding off the night, a working class couple from San Francisco, "Prairie Fire," brought the house to its feet with a verse from their song:

"Millions of us hate the system, every outrage, every lie.
Got to rally vets and every body,
Free Ashby Leach is our battle cry!"

Sunday morning, March 13, veterans took part in a meeting called by VVAW, while others went on a car caravan announcing the demonstration later in the day. During the meeting, VVAW talked about the necessity to build organization, to turn every struggle against every abuse into a battle, and recruit new members. The VVAW National Office pointed out the real history of the vets movement, citing example after example about how everything we've got was fought for by vets in the past, and the necessity for us to fight not only to hold on to what we've got but gain what we need for a decent life. Vet after vet brought out personal experiences of being used by the system in their wars and then thrown away like an empty Dixie cup.

At 1 o'clock, more than 350 people, led by about 100 uniformed, medaled veterans marched through the center of Cleveland's downtown, site both the Soldiers and Sailors Monument and the Terminal tower. At Public Square, a steelworker, president of Local 3059 of the United Steelworkers of American and spokesman for the Organizing committee for a National Workers Organization, stated: "Ashby Leach is one of our own, a son of the working class. If the ruling class puts him in jail they will be declaring war on the whole working class."

Following the rally, the demonstrators moved to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, where veterans climbed atop and plastered the statues with stickers and posters reading FREE ASHBY LEACH! At the same time, a disabled vet pointed our how the rich would gladly spend large sums of money to glorify wars in their own interests but would not spend a dime on the vets who made it home alive. He continued about how the rich use vets to promote future wars, but that from now on, "We'll Fight the Rich, Not Their Wars."

On Monday morning as the trial began, 80 people marched through the streets to the Justice Center. A militant picket line was set up, and Chessie and the big-business controlled courts were told that this demonstration was not the end of our activities or our fight, but only the beginning.

The ruling class recognized the success of the demonstrations and the growing support that the campaign was winning. As the picket line was coming to and end, police showed up to issue and injunction from the judge which banned demonstrations near the courthouse, "loitering" in the hall around the courtroom, mandated body searches of spectators entering the court, and forbade persons involved in the case from talking to the media or making public statements. This tactic blew up in their faces as people saw just how much "freedom" there really is and how "impartial" the courts are. One vet stated "I didn't really see how much the courts and everything else really do serve the rich until this." A few days later, the judge was forced to put his injunction aside.

VVAW took a step forward coming off this demonstration. Not only have thousands taken up the campaign to Free Ashby Leach as their own, but a solid chapter of VVAW has been formed Cleveland where the vets will continue to build the fight around freedom for Ashby Leach.