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Barricada Internacional: Vietnam Veterans Speaking From Experience

By VVAW

"Let this be the last American blood shed on Nicaraguan soil." With those words, the three Vietnam War veterans, their raised hands joined, slowly knelt to the ground and rubbed their pricked and bleeding fingers into the dusty Managua street in front of the U.S embassy.

The other U.S citizens gathered in front of the enormous, fenced-in embassy grounds for their weekly Thursday morning vigil, were visibly moved and broke into enthusiastic applause. The dramatic gesture of the three men and the words that had preceded it, recited in English and Spanish, were the type of tactics that the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) learned to use effectively in the late 1960's as a way to "bring the war home."

And indeed the visit by 13 members of that organization was timed to coincide with the 15th anniversary of one of its most significant early action Dewey Canyon III. Dewey Canyons I and II has been operations against Loas, first by the U.S military in 1969 and later by the South Vietnamese army in 1971; so the veterans group decided to hold a five-day limited incursion of Washington, D.C., also in 1971. On the last day of that action, some 1,500 veterans threw their medals on the Capitol steps. "We left a pile some three feet high and six feet across," says John Lindquist, former U.S. Marine who like most of the veterans, served a 13 month tour of duty in Vietnam. "Guys were pulling off their artificial arms, returning their medals and discharge papers, breaking their canes."

Those veterans were, in part, expressing their rage over what Lindquist described as a feeling "that we had been used and then thrown away." However, the U.S veterans found a different mood in the Nicaraguan military hospitals and rehabilitation centers they visited. "These people are heroes, we were not." Says Bill Curmano, a former U.S. paratrooper.

Since its founding in 1967 VVAW has had a total of 75,000 members, 15,000 of whom served during the height of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

DÉJÀ VU

"And now it's starting all over again," says Lindquist. The misinformation churned out by the current administration is one of the greatest similarities the group members see between Vietnam and Nicaragua. They explained that their most important task, as during the Vietnam War era, is to let the U.S. people know what is really happening. "We came to Nicaragua to talk to the people and government officials, see the country, and put it together in a film we can take to schools and neighborhoods. That's probably the only way information will get out," said Curmano.

"The contras are not freedom fighters," emphasized Lindquist refuting one of the Reagan administration's more obvious lies. "If it wasn't for our funding, they would have no support; they would dry up and blow away."

The U.S. people's unfamiliarity with the history of Third World nations is another factor that the government exploited on both occasions to whip up anti-communist fervor in the United States.

"I volunteered to go into the Marine Corps to kills Communists," says Lindquist. "I was brought up during the McCarthy era, with John Wayne movies, and now the kids have Rambo. Nobody knew the history of Vietnam and French involvement; now nobody knows that the U.S Marine Corps invaded Nicaragua three times and that we put Somoza in power."

Basically, the message that most of the veterans would like to get across to the U.S people is that the Nicaraguan people want to decide their own destiny. "I've never lived in a communist country, but I know that they violate rights in those countries. In Nicaragua, people just want to make their own decisions and their own mistakes without anyone telling them what to do. If this country is communist, then I wouldn't mind living in a communist country," remarked Manuel Martinez.

For Clarence Fitch, a Black American and former Marine Corps sergeant, U.S. foreign policy is racist and has traditionally oppressed people in the Third World. Fitch points out that during the Vietnam War 40 percent of the combat deaths were Blacks and Latinos, because they are joining the U.S army now due to the dim economic prospects for minorities. Fitch's VVAW chapter routinely visits schools in New York and New Jersey to do "counter recruiting" among the students and keep them from volunteering.

The war veterans also reiterated a fact, which, according to opinion polls, has not been lost on the U.S people. "We shouldn't aid the contras and we shouldn't invade Nicaragua, because they will fight us just like the Vietnamese. If they run out of weapons, they'll fight us with sticks. They are determined: I don't want to see American casualties, or the hurt and killing done to Nicaraguans," concluded John Lindquist.

However, the veterans are optimistic about what they perceive as important difference between Vietnam and Nicaragua: U.S public opinion. "We're not saying that this period is not dangerous, because it is and people are dying, but there is no comparison with the amount of war fever that existed during Vietnam." Says Curmano. Lindquist agrees. "It wasn't until 1969 that people started to protest the Vietnam War, and by then over 40,000 U.S. citizens had died."

Like the other veterans, Fitch feels that the U.S. population will not allow another Vietnam. "If Reagan had his way, the U.S Marines would be counting votes in Managua, just like they did over half a century ago. His is doing everything to start a war, but the American people will not give him the means, they will take to the streets first."