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Letters to VVAW

By VVAW

THE VETERAN welcomes letters, comments, and criticisms. Please write. Also, send along any poetry, drawings, photos or stories you would like to see in the paper.

P.O. Box 20184
Chicago, ILL. 60620
(312) 651-1583

"I am not a Vietnam Veteran"

From a Bay Area VVAW Member:

There were talks, at our National Meeting, about some members of VVAW who felt somehow uneasy being in the organization without having been in Vietnam or seen combat there. Vietnam Veterans Against the War: the name is pretty clear and many a time lots of us have thought about changing the name to something more appropriate under which veterans of all eras could unite.

I don't personally think that the name should be changed at this time. It was decided at our Conference in Milwaukee that for various good reasons we should for now keep our name. It's a name of proud history. From our everyday work in the organization, we learned that VVAW is in fact an organization for veterans of all eras, completely dedicated the struggle against the attacks that everyday are coming down on us, attacks coming from a system that used us to protect its interests around the world, and then threw us back in the streets to join the thousands of unemployed in their everyday struggle to survive.

Many times while joining the brothers in some action, I was approached by someone who asked, "What war are you against?" "The war is over." "How can you talk about war if you never fought one?" From my experience I've noticed that many times such individuals who challenged me this way are trying to make fun of us or make us feel like some kind of walking fraud. Those individuals are often reactionaries trying to be funny, not realizing what fools they are making of themselves.

Honest people, also, often ask us about our name and the contradictions that it seems to have. But our past and present work helps to clear any doubt about who we are and what we are doing. We must be prepared to meet this challenge and to educate those who for too long have been kept in ignorance about the lies and affronts that we are now facing.

To all of you brothers who, like me, did not serve in 'Nam, I say that we more than others can understand the horrors of war. We had our share of abuse, In the service we had to fight racism, V.D.. drug addiction, alcoholism, ever-present harassment by the brass, unsafe working conditions. Everyday while in the service we had to fight to keep ourselves together in order not to lose our self-respect. Every bit of resistance we showed in the military is now one of the reasons why we joined VVAW and why VVAW exists. The system that kept us down then, and that sent our brothers to die, is the same that now is trying to drive us to starvation. Therefore I hope that you, as I, are proud and happy to be members of an organization that will not take it and shut up, but stand up and fights for what is ours.

"Can not support" VVAW African Campaign

(The two letters were in response to a VVAW mailing ask for support; the mailing included a brochure about "Fatigues for Freedom Fighters, "a VVAW campaign to provide fatigues and boots for a company of the soldiers of the Pan Africanist Congress in their struggle against the racist government of South Africa.)

Dear Friends,

I am an aggressive pacifist and cannot support any project to achieve justice by killing people—even if most are sinful, evil, misguided so & so's.

There are a number of instances in history where a measure of justice has been achieved non-violently. I'm sending a dollar in token, inspired by the throwing away of medals incident.

Dear Vietnam Veterans,

I read your latest letter about Defoliant Agent Orange and sat down to write you another check. I've supported VVAW since I first heard about it, perhaps when you threw your medals on the steps of the Capitol in your efforts to end the war, fighting, and killing in Vietnam. I sent extra support when Nixon and his agents had your leaders arrested at the convention, and have continued ever since.

After writing out the check yesterday, I read at breakfast this morning your appeal for Southern African Fatigues (VVAW's "Fatigues for Freedom Fighters" campaign) to outfit a company of freedom fighters who would shoot, kill, and seek and destroy as you were trained to do, and some of you did, in Vietnam. I thought you had learned from that experience that fighting and killing are wrong when carried out with physical weapons. That was the position I came to after my service in the Navy in WWII.

It seems to me there are enough U.S. problems to keep you busy, and we need you here at home: your attack on Agent Orange; to cut back the 54% of the U.S. budget spent on the military while civilian needs pile up; to end political oppression such as the political prisoners Ambassador Young referred to (Ben Chaves and the Wilmington 10, etc); help in employment for veterans, etc. I share your abhorance of apartheid, but not your belief that killing and helping to kill makes right your objection to the white they're killing. Please remove my name from your mailing list.

Sincerely, but regretfully.