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Jersey City's Secret Memorial

By Dave Cline

I spent the better part of my twentieth year behind an M-16 rifle or an M-60 machine gun with the 25th Infantry Division at Cu Chi and Tay Ninh provinces in Vietnam. When I was med-evaced out at the start of the '68 Tet Offensive, I thought the war was over for me. I knew that I was injured physically from gunshot wounds to my back and right knee. What I didn't know was that I had been wounded emotionally as well.

When I got back to the States, while still on active duty, I took a stand against the war and military oppression. After my discharge, I joined VVAW first in Texas and then in New York City. But inspite of my antiwar activism, I was still one of the walking wounded inside. Some nights I would have nightmares of my last battle when we were overrun by North Vietnamese regulars. I would wake up suddenly, soaked in sweat and afraid. I couldn't forgive myself for having taken other people's lives and for being naive enough to believe the US government's lies and winding up in the war zone to begin with. I thought that if others knew my story, they would shun me as a murderer. Sometimes when I was alone I would cry and I never talked to anyone about what was going on inside my head. I heard about Post-Vietnam Syndrome (now called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD) but didn't understand that I was experiencing it.

I learned that if I drank enough booze before I went to bed, I didn't have dreams. If I got stoned enough, I didn't have to think about my feelings, much less anyone else's. You might know the story: Attitude Check - Fuck It. I wasn't just getting high, I was self-medicating. I didn't (and I still don't) trust VA doctors. I saw too many guys turned into zombies with government-issue tranquilizers and antidepressants. So I wrote my own prescription: beer, marijuana, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

That worked for a while, but somewhere along the way I crossed that invisible line from use to abuse and dependency. Now I had another problem. During the 80s I joined a combat vets' rap group at the local Vet Center. I went into several detoxes and rehabs. I stayed clean and sober for long periods of time and remained an active organizer for the veterans' and labor movements. But things still weren't going right. By the early 90s, my personal life was a mess and I "picked up" again. The alcohol and drugs got harder and so did my life. Things kept going from bad to worse and I was miserable. For a long time I was MIA - Missing In America.

By the end of 1996 I was "sick & tired of being sick & tired" and started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings again. One Sunday morning I found myself at a meeting in Pershing Field, a park about ten blocks from my home. I had never been in the building before and didn't know what it was. There was no sign identifying it and the place was usually locked up. When I entered the building, I was surprised to see a bronze plaque identifying it as the "Heights Vietnam Veterans Memorial Community Center" since its dedication in 1986. A second plaque bore sixty names: the young men from Jersey City who lost their lives in Vietnam. I was glad these dead brothers were remembered but wondered why hardly anyone knew of this memorial's existence.

I kept going to that AA meeting and would often reread the plaques. One of the guys was Bradford Hippie and I'd laugh to myself, thinking about how his name must have driven some lifers nuts. After a while, I started getting angry. Why the hell was this memorial being kept a secret? I talked to other vets about it. Some responded cynically, saying what do you expect? no one cares. Others felt the politicians wouldn't do anything so why bother? Sometimes I wondered if I was making a mountain out of a molehill. A few people encouraged me to do something about it. Instead of letting my anger eat me up, I decided to take action.

First I wrote a letter to the Mayor and the members of the City Council asking "Why the secret?" Then I got it printed in two local newpapers under the title "The Secret Memorial." Within a week, I got a response. Councilman Jamie Vasquez, himself a Marine Corps vet who was wounded during his tour of duty, wrote the director of the Department of Public Works in support of my efforts. Then the DPW head wrote to say there were plans to put up a plaque and renovate the building, "but for now we will certainly show the respect deserved by erecting a sign idenifying its name." By the end of June (and coincidentally several days before a hotly contested mayoral runoff election) the sign was put up. Twenty-two years after the end of the war and eleven years after its dedication, the public was finally told that it was the Heights Vietnam Veterans Memorial Community Center. By the middle of August, the Mayor's office wrote to assure me that the "failure to have a dedication plaque placed on the front of this building was nothing more than a mere oversight."

It turned out that I wasn't the only one who was riled up about Jersey City's failure to maintain veteran memorials. The July 3 edition of The Jersey Journal ran a lead story titled "Faded Memories: Vets See Personal Slight In Decaying War Memorial." It turns out that Pershing Field was the location of a training camp during World War I, "the war to end all wars." The park was named after General "Black Jack" Pershing, the commander of the American Expiditionary Force in Europe. On July 4, 1922, a crowd of ten thousand people showed up to dedicate a statue of Lady Liberty holding a sword and olive branches. In front of her is a shield with the inscription: "Erected by the people of this community in grateful remembrance of the labor, sacrifices and suffering of those who suffered and died in the World War that the blessings of free government might live. April 6, 1917-November 11, 1918".

Over the years, the statue has been painted over many times and the inscription is barely legible. The dedication plaque is missing. Throughout this section of the park are also numerous markers bearing the names of Jersey City residents who lost their lives in World War II and the Korean War. Some of these are broken, missing nameplates or pulled out of the ground. The vets quoted in the newspaper article are members of the Pershing Field Neighborhood Association. I have been asked to come to their next meeting and hope to help build a broader effort to demand the municipal government restore and properly maintain this whole area as a fitting veterans (not war) memorial.

One of VVAW's action slogans has long been "Honor The Dead & Fight For The Living." Creating and maintaining memorials is one way of doing this. If these deaths are not to be in vain, we must remember them and learn the lessons of those wars. That is our responsibility. If we don't do it, who will?

Dave Cline is a 100% disabled Vietnam vet and a former National Coordinator of VVAW.