Download PDF of this full issue: v7n2.pdf (8 MB)

West Coast Actions

By VVAW

While vets and other supporters from the East and Midwest were in Cleveland demonstrating their support for the campaign to Free Ashby Leach, there were three actions going on in California.

LOS ANGELES

In Los Angeles on Sunday, March 13, VVAW set up pup tents and ten banners at a street corner--the busiest intersection in the county--near the Regional VA Office. Handing out leaflets and talking through megaphones, the vets got a tremendous response from people driving by, with countless fists raised in support and horns honking. People dug the fact that vets were fighting back.

After nine hours of action, the 25 vets went to a nearby house to see the film "Only the Beginning" (which shows veterans fighting against the war in Indochina--see article on page 16) and to talk about building the struggle of veterans. As one World War II vet, who came for just a little while and ended up staying for the whole nine hours said, "This is the first time I've come to something like this and really felt a part of it, felt like I had something to contribute." Vets were so enthused about the actions, that they discussed a week of actions during the spring break from school.

On Monday a picket line was set up on the same corner; later it moved to the front of the VA. Vets leafleted the VA parking lot as well as busses and cars stopped at the busy corner. Thirty vets and supporters were joined by vets passing by excited to see the picket in front of the VA Office and wanting to join with the demands to Free Ashby Leach, Extend and Expand the GI Bill, and the statement that We Won't Fight Another Rich Man's War.

While the militant picket line continued in front of the VA, a delegation of three vets went into the building demanding to speak to the head of the VA. He was busy, they were told, but the head of the special services division, Richard K. Sorenson and two of his assistants met with the delegation. As one of the vets put it, "Now, normally, it takes 2 months to see this guy, and then only with a petition signed by the President. It took us all of 2 minutes. We presented them with a letter (demanding that the VA meet VVAW in public forum) and told them we wanted it sent to Max Cleland (new VA director), and that VVAW and other vets were putting them on notice that we were going to fight any and all attacks that the VA and this system comes down with."

The success of the encampment was closely tied to building the speaking tour for Ashby Leach several weeks earlier. VVAW went back to the main campuses where Ashby had spoken. Because of the earlier struggle around Leach, the media picked up on the encampment, spreading the word about the struggle of vets and the Free Ashby Leach campaign: one radio station ran hourly announcements for three days and 5 TV stations covered the encampment at one time or another during the weekend.

New vets were particularly impressed by the multi-national character of the action. As one vet put it, "You know we're told we can't ever get together. But just look at this: we got every color of the rainbow here, man, if we can build this kind of unity, can't nothing stop us."

BAY AREA

Two actions in the Bay Area supported and built the campaign to Free Ashby Leach. On Friday, March 11, vets and supporters picketed the local office of Senator Alan Cranston, taking with them an open letter to the Senator demanding that he talk to Carter and that charges against Leach be dropped.

For 45 minutes one of Cranston's aides talked with the vets; by the time VVAW and others were back on Monday in support of the demonstration in Cleveland, there was a response to their letter. While the Senator "understood" and "sympathized" with the problems of veterans and with Ashby Leach, there was "nothing he could do." Leach, according to Senator Cranston, had used the "wrong tactics" and the Senator could do no more--almost an exact duplicate of the stacks of letters which Ashby Leach had gotten for five years, all saying "we support you but there's nothing we can do."

During the Monday picket line, several vets spoke, showing that the slogan "Use Once and Throw Away," which is a summary of the story of Ashby Leach, also applies to millions of other veterans.

One veteran, a Muni bus driver, talked about how he had been hurt in high school, had nevertheless been drafted into the military, and had now been fighting for twelve years to get the VA to give him disability for the injury aggravated by military service. The VA, whose rich bosses are constantly trying to squeeze every penny, tells him that the injury was "pre-service," though it was clearly not enough to keep him out.

Another vet who came to the US from Guatamala, spent two years in the military. But, because he had been arrested for drugs--a habit picked up in the military--he is now threatened with deportation, a stark example of how the rich use vets once and then throw us away.

And another vet who was in Saigon when the US ambassador and his flunkies scurried out of the country in the face of advancing NLF soldiers, talked about why vets say that We Won't Fight Another Rich Man's War.

SAN DIEGO

The new VVAW chapter in San Diego held a picket line in support of the campaign to Free Ashby Leach on Friday, March 11th. The picket was held in front of the VA Regional Office in San Diego.

There were fifteen people including vets dressed in jungle fatigues--vets around the country are ready to take up the war against the rich instead of for them. VA workers came out of the office to get copies of the VVAW leaflet so that they could take it back inside and pass it out to their co-workers.

Local radio covered the action, helping to get out the word about the Leach campaign and the vets struggle, but more there were vets at the picket line who had not been involved in the past, and who are now joining VVAW to stay in and build the fight against the rich and their rotten system.