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Editorial: In Step with the Working Class

By VVAW

The July 1-4 demonstrations were a real first for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Many of us had demonstrated before--had marched with students before in hundreds of antiwar demonstrations, had joined with thousands of other vets to throw away our medals in Washington DC, had demonstrated for decent benefits for all vets--but never before had we seen the power and the determination that the working class brought into Philadelphia on July 1st through 4th. The real heart and soul of these demonstrations was the thousands of workers from rank-and-file causes, trade unions and the city-wide workers organizations who came from every section of the country to say, "We've Carried the Rich for 200 Years, Let's Get Them Off Our Backs," and to expose the lies of the rich with demands of Jobs or Income and We Won't Fight Another Rich Man's War.

VVAW has been one of the first callers of the demonstrations and we certainly understood the importance of having a militant and disciplined demonstration. We took up our tasks seriously. Our contingent, multi-national and with vets from every branch of the service, marched in step and sand out our political slogans with military cadence. Wherever we went we were met with cheers from VVAW brought out, "In the military we hated to march. But today we were proud because we march with fellow workers from around the country."

We veterans brought added strength to the working people marching in Philadelphia. And it was not just out commitment to maintain a high degree of discipline in the face of police tricks and provocation, nor was it just our ability to stay in step, marching down the street in formation, nor our willingness to teach others how to march. It was because of who we were--the simple fact that were veterans was a blow to the power of the ruling rich in this country. Because we were--veterans--the boys they had sent off to "serve the country" at home and overseas the guys who did the shooting and fighting in such places as Santo Domingo, Vietnam, or Korea, and we were marching on July 4th, Independence Day. But we were not marching with them, the rich, on their great day for patriotism.

The politicians and capitalists in this country were hoping to have the stage all to themselves on July 4th. They were hoping to get over with their schemes to use the Bicentennial to push their "national unity," heal the wounds of the Vietnam war and of Watergate. Unite again, they were preaching, to go forward the next 200 years as "one nation, indivisible," with the same patriotic tranquility of the 1950's happy and united. Of course this unity, this patriotism, meant with them on top, profiting from our misery, and preparing again to send us off to war to protect their system and rule over us.

And while the rich hope that all vets would rally behind the American Legion--in faithful servitude to their blood-soaked rule--we were saying that we had learned better. We learned from the rice paddies in Vietnam, from the run-down inadequate VA hospitals, from the long and despair-filled unemployment lines; we knew better from bitter experience. And we said it loud: "Rich man, Rich man. We Won't fight your wars no more. Rich man, Rich man. It's the working class we're fighting for. Rich man--your day is done.

On July 4th, 1976, the rich didn't get the "stage" all to themselves. The working class gathered its forces and stood up to them, nothing in common except a battlefield. And we Vietnam veterans were proud to be on the right side.