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Bad Discharge for Senator

By VVAW

Using the "authority vested in them" by Vietnam veterans, the Los Angeles Chapter of VVAW issued a dishonorable discharge to Senator Allen Cranston, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Cranston, along with Reserve Major General Strom Thurmond, sponsored the bill to deny veterans benefits to vets who got their discharges upgraded through the Special Discharge Review Program (see article on this page).

In response to this latest attack on veterans, the VVAW chapter picketed outside the L.A. office of the Senator. After 15 minutes they went in and announced to the Senator's aide that they were dishonorably discharging the Senator from the committee for derilection of duty, cowardice, and desertion under fire. Cranston sits in his fancy office, they said, while in reality he is slashing vets benefits all to hell.

The Senator's aide responded by saying this was a "contemptible and insulting action." He would not stand, he said, for VVAW insulting the Senator who had fought for vets for the last 8 years. VVAW was wrong about the bill--the organization just didn't have the facts. Angry vets called him a liar, when VVAW members pulled out a copy of the bill and said that they suffered the results of bills like this one everyday, the aide changed his tune. Instead, he came up with the point that the Senator only supported this bill to avoid a worse one (this for a bill that he in fact sponsored)!

What's the difference between one pile of garbage and another--garbage is garbage, said VVAW. But, the aide stammered, the bill was passed 87-2. VVAW responded--that "just shows we were right to dishonorably discharge him--they're all crooks up there. Cranston, his flunkies, and their wealthy backers will even lie to cover themselves."

With that, VVAW left the office, determined to keep building the fight for decent benefits for all vets, regardless of discharge.