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Memorial Day: A Day To Remember; A Day To Fight!

By VVAW

Confrontation with the "traditional" veterans groups marked Memorial Day for VVAW chapters in several cities. In Chicago, where the American Legion has been sponsoring Memorial day ceremonies at the City's Eternal Flame since sometime before dinosaurs died, the Legion joined the dinosaurs in 1980 and left the ceremony up to VVAW, the Veterans Leadership Council and Veterans for Peace. As late as 11 o'clock the night before a Legion representative was telling the Chicago media that they would be there to join in a ceremony which would bring together a wide range of groups, but they clearly had no intention of appearing.

In Milwaukee, ceremonies at the Woods VA Center, where officially joined in for years, were the topic of a letter from the State American Legion Commander to his various underlings. After complaining about previous Memorial Days being turned into propaganda displays for Agent Orange, he goes on to say, "Memorial Day is not a day to recognize a group of malcontents and dissidents who are using a just cause to draw attention to themselves. For many years, this so-called veterans group has visited bonifide (sic) veterans ceremonies and disrupted them with bull horns and loudspeakers. Is that why we give in to them? Is that why we let an organization that is directly opposed to our beliefs manipulate us? They don't believe in our flag, our nation; are opposed to draft registration and will take up any radical cause to be noticed."

Legion opposition or no-shows didn't stop VVAW's participation. In Chicago, though the event was smaller than it would have been with Legion participation, it went on as scheduled, even though the City waffled on its co-sponsorship of the event and finally would not send a city representative or provide city services. In Milwaukee, VVAW was part of two ceremonies—a wreath-laying ceremony at the VA Hospital in the morning, where they were introduced by a World War I vet who drew the comparisons between gas in World War I and the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam.

In the afternoon, Milwaukee VVAW marched in the Memorial Day parade. Twenty-five VVAW members joined the contingent using the cadences rewritten from those we used to use in the military.

In the Twin Cities, VVAW made its by-now traditional appearance at the official ceremony at the National Cemetary. In Madison, Wisconsin, after the MAC-V National Convention backed off on its promise of a wreath for the ceremony (MACV was holding a national meeting in Madison over Memorial Day weekend), the local chapter used wildflowers as a tribute to those who died in battle. When nurses at the V.A. Hospital in Madison refused to help vets in wheelchairs outside where they could see the ceremony, VVAW went inside where a child, the probably victim of agent Orange, passed out flowers while her father, a Vietnam vet with Agent Orange symptoms, sang.

Memorial Day, when the rich have traditionally trotted out their vets' organizations to trumpet their patriotic lies, didn't quite make it in 1980. Instead, Vietnam vets had the chance to remember their friends who died or were wounded fighting a rich man's war, and join in a vow to fight the effects of that war, and prevent such a war from taking place again.