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Vet's May Day Speech: Lessons of Indochina War Brought Home

By VVAW

May 1st is International Worker's Day, a working class holiday celebrated the world over. Here in the US, thousands of workers and other people, including veterans, united in militant marches, rallies and programs to celebrate May Day. VVAW/WSO chapters in cities across the country helped build for May Day demonstrations, including one of the largest and most successful actions, held in New York City and attended by 1200 people. Following is the text of the speech given by a VVAW/WSO member of the NYC demonstration--a speech bringing out the lessons of the Indochina war and the fact that veterans and other working people who rule this country that we won't fight another of their rich man's war.

The Vietnam War is over. Everywhere you go you hear people asking the same questions. What the hell was it all about? Why did we get into the war in the first place? What's going to happen now? People all over are saying the same things, like what a waste of 65,000 American and millions of Vietnamese lives. WHY?

Ford, the Congress and the news media are all throwing out different answers and pointing the finger in every direction except where it belongs, at themselves, the ruling class. The fact is the revolutionary forces won the war.

To those of us who fought the war, this comes as no surprise. In 1965, after I got out of High School, like so many other working class kids, I found myself unable to make a living and fell victim to the recruiter's lies of join the Army and learn a trade. I would up spending two years in Vietnam with the 1st Air Cav. Div. as a helicopter door gunner. When I got back to the states, right after the 1968 Tet offensive, I had a lot of questions too. So I, like many of my brother veterans, did a lot of thinking and investigation. I realized it wasn't a war between North and South Vietnam, but a war of National Liberation between the Vietnamese on the one side, and the US and a hand full of traitors on the other side. The National Liberation Front were able to recruit rank-and-file workers and peasants, got their food, money and shelter from the people. They could move large numbers of troops through the villages and provinces without being detected by US forces because they came form the people and had the support of the people.

On the other hand, the US had to rely on the most barbaric tactics, napalm, free fire zones, concentration camps in order to wage the war. The ARVN, the Saigon army, was an army of draftees, with no interest in fighting to protect the interest of US monopoly capitalists; they were bound from beginning to fall apart.

Now the news media freaks are rattling their cages about a blood bath, just like they did about the battle Hue during 1968 Tet offensive. Those of us who, like myself, fought in the battle of Hue know that the blood bath was caused by the US Air Force bombing the working class sections of the city, setting the city on fire. They scream about a blood bath, but the blood bath is over. The Vietnamese people have been victorious. They have liberated their country and kicked the ass of the US ruling class.

This victory is not only a victory for the Vietnamese but also for the American people as well. We've come to realize that the US system of monopoly capitalism is what caused the war. The ruling class, the handful of rich at the top, which causes wars like Korea and Vietnam is the same class of people are faced with. The drive for greater profit, the first law of imperialism, forces the ruling class to expand their control both at home and absorb- - or die. This law of expand or die, governs all capitalists countries and is the real cause of war. Wherever they can make their greatest profit...that's where they send the working class to fight and die.

Long before the Vietnam war ended, the US was preparing for the next war. The military switched from jungle training to desert training, and Ford is trying to unite us behind him and the class he serves with his speeches about closing ranks...avoid recrimination and working together on the so-called great tasks that remain to be accomplished. Every worker here knows we are on the threshold of a depression, and just like the 1930's their answer to depression and crisis is WAR. This new car can take one of several forms: it can be a war like Vietnam--a war against a Third World country, fighting for independence and freedom, but more likely it will be a war fought over control of Europe. Both superpowers, the US and Russia are governed by the laws of capitalists development. They look to dominating Europe as the answer to their problems and the threat of a world war between these two imperialist countries is very well. Everyone knows that the two superpowers are at each other's throats over who gets the oil from the Middle East. Whoever controls the Mid-East oil has a strategic advantage over the whole capitilsts world, especially in case of war.

Here at home there has been a big push in recruitment into the armed forces. Last month, the Dept. of Defense released figures that the enlistment quota for all branches of the service had been filled 101% Because of the economic crisis more and more people are forced into the military just to keep food on their tables. But the people who are going in the military go in with an understanding that the US ain't what it's cracked up to be. Vietnam, Watergate, inflation, the current world situation have given us a deeper understanding of where out interests lie... not with the ruling class... but with the working class of all the counties. The Russian workers and the American workers face the same class enemies--our task is to fight against that class, not our fellow workers. They may get us to enlist, but they will have one hell of a hard time getting us to fight their imperialist wars. Already, the military is a hotbed of resistance with struggles being waged against forms of oppression and for democratic rights, in military based all around the world.

As the threat of war become more real and the danger of a new world war gets closer, fewer workers will pick the military as the answer to their problems. The slogan FIGHT, DON'T STARVE will become more of a living thing. The ruling class will be forced to return to the draft in order to get workers to fight their wars, they will be forced to resort to press-ganging workers, like they had to do in South Vietnam. Well, we've got a few surprises for them.

We learned our lessons well during the old anti-war period of 60's. This time the draft board honchos won't be able to pick us off one at time. When we veterans returned from Vietnam, we took up the struggle against the war and held many different types of actions. At one of the actions, Drew Canyon III, we threw our medals back at the capitol--one of the veterans summed it up real well when he said, "If they want us to fight another rich man's war, we'll fight, but we'll do our fighting right there, ta-king the Capitol steps!" We won't fight a rich man's war, it's the working class we're fighting for!