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Letters to VVAW

By VVAW

Elena Schwolsky-Fitch letter

Steve Geiger letter

Ron Landsel letter

Hello friends in VVAW,

I am writing to give you some good news and ask for your help.

"Another Brother," the documentary about my late husband, VVAW member Clarence Fitch, will be shown on national TV - PBS - on February 11th during Black History Month. This is a wonderful opportunity to ensure that this film is seen by a broad audience, but we need VVAW's help in getting the word out in local communities.

There are several ways VVAW as an organization and individual members can help:
1) Contact local PBS affiliates to encourage them to pick up the program - it will be supplied via "hard feed" by national PBS to them at no cost, but they have to decide to show it.
2) Do a mailing to local contacts with the date and time of the local showing.
3) Contact local press to get them to review the film and/or do a story about it. We can provide press materials.
4) Organize an event like a community meeting in conjunction with the showing to draw attention to it and to explore the issues that the film raises.
5) Send us any contacts or ideas for fundraising - we desperately need money to distribute the film.

Additionally, we are looking for a veteran(s) with some name recognition to give us a quote about the film for our promotional materials.

I hope VVAW will see this as an important opportunity to advance the vital work that you are doing.

Please get in touch ASAP with ideas, contacts, plans, etc. or contact me with any questions either by e-mail or by phone at (617) 876-0984.

Thanks!

Elena Schwolsky-Fitch

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To VVAW,

Having grown up in central Ohio, I read with interest +/- 75% of the articles by Mike Harden in the Dispatch. It is not a perfect world, and perhaps I should be pleased that any coverage is given to the Vietnam wounds he portrays in the series of articles. Harden and the photographer are vets of the war and returned to Vietnam, and they seem to have what VVAW vets would see as an enlightened view, but his writing is laced throughout with racist stereotypes cloaked in the guise of the returning emotion-burdened vet. I'm wondering if anyone else is offended by some of the recurring themes in his writing. Is he blind to his prejudices or does his work fit a view perpetuated by ignorance and racism? To name a few, his work contains the familiar images of rats in the streets, language malaprops of the Vietnamese and venality seemingly steeped in the ancient culture as well as in the newly developed capitalism. His observations are universals of the human condition: you are never more than 30 feet from a rat in the NYC subway, everybody commits language malaprops when learning a new language and culture. But (he is not alone in this) when you read these articles they perpetuate the stereotypes we grew up with in a new audience. He is writing to a new generation of readers, most of whom have no idea of what Vietnam is. And the beat goes on.

Underlying all of this is the paternalist western capitalist view that everybody only wants what we have and are trying to assimilate U.S. culture and goods as fast as they can. One of my earliest observations, circa 1971, upon arrival in SEA, was that we take such great self-satisfaction from our domination of the culture when we import our war machine on a country. We assume the self-congratulating prophecy and pat ourselves on the back when we see Coke signs and Zippos being sold in the streets. "They're dying to be like us; they want our stuff, to have what we have. Blue jeans, rock 'n' roll and western capitalism are instinctive and will be indigenous to the culture wherever we go. Therefore we are right and it is our manifest destiny to dominate."

If I'm not too far off base here, and there is some consensus in VVAW, perhaps we could send him a critique. I will send my solo "letter to the editor," but first I thought I'd see if there is additional support. I am tired of seeing these stereotypes perpetuated in the mainstream press.

I'd welcome anyone else's comments.

Steve Geiger, U.S.A.F., '69-'73

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Dear Sisters and Brothers in VVAW,

I am grateful to so many for coming to stand with us at Operation 11th Hour. It moved us to hear so many speak from their hearts.

The morning of the 11th arrived heavy with rain and wind. By 9:00 a.m. a homeless vet said, "Look, there's a rainbow. God is healing us!" And so the rest of the day was like summer. The only drops that fell were tears of reconciliation and relief for the WWII, Korean, Vietnam and Gulf War veterans, mothers, and wives. It is healing prayer when we can gather and speak deeply from our hearts.

Accounts of many veterans and peace makers including Daniel Ellsberg, Le Ly Hayslip, the play by Thich Nhat Hanh, and the fine singing of Vietnam veteran Frank Bullard was well enjoyed by over 500 people that came in and out during the event.

At 11 a.m. we observed a silent vigil for the 100,000,000 people whose lives were taken in the wars of this century. Le Ly Hayslip rang the Bell of Mindfulness 11 times. Each time, Fr. Richard McSorley, WWII POW, and Jim Murphy of Vietnam Veterans Against the War lighted a joss stick for veterans and families to place in the grass along the memorial's powerful depiction of the untold costs of war and peace making.

I know the war is still very near to the children of Vietnam and Iraq. But I feel Operation 11th Hour was a small part of something beautiful to help bring war to an end - even if just for our families and ourselves. Peace has to start in each one's life - then hand to hand.

Many veterans were moved by the play. A huge Vietnam veteran came up to one of the cast and said tearfully, "You have no idea what you have done for my life today. It's as if the (Vietnamese) woman I killed came down from the stage and said, don't worry any more, I forgive you."

Ron Landsel
Maple Ridge Bruderhof

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