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Bucklin & Johnson Cases: Amnesty Campaign

By VVAW

Robert Johnson and Richard Bucklin are two war resisters whose cases have been singled out for special focus by the National Council for Universal and Unconditional Amnesty (NCUUA), a coalition of organizations working for amnesty for all war resisters. They are two of the hundreds of thousands of resisters for whom VVAW/WSO demands universal and unconditional amnesty. Their cases differ, their backgrounds differ, but both men resisted the U.S. government in their attack on the people of Indochina.

Bob Johnson was a black community organizer in Grenada, Mississippi. His all-white draft board made a special request to draft him early because of his civil rights work. As a black man from a poor family, with no stake whatever in the Vietnam war, Johnson fought for and won status as a conscientious objector. He was drafted and began his alternative service washing pots and pans in a nearby hospital.

After 16 months of hospital work, Johnson was transferred for the third times; no provision was made for his accommodation at or transportation to his new post. In part because becomes from a large and poor family, Johnson did not go; later, he voluntarily surrendered to authorities.

Johnson had been fighting the racist Mississippi courts most of his life, and had won an injunction against systematic exclusion of blacks from local juries before being drafted. Now he was faced with that same racist legal system and, despite a strong defense, was convicted and sentenced to the maximum five years in prison. Although an appeal for reduction of sentence was begun, Johnson was sent to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida to begin his sentence.

But he had only been sent from the racist legal system to the racist military. At Eglin he was accused of "shouting obscenities at a white woman," and "fighting with another prisoner," both trumped-up charges. The Air Force concocted a quick military trial, found Johnson guilty, and took away all his good time (time served toward completion of his sentence). They also threatened to transfer him to the Federal Prison at Texarkana, once again taking him away from his wife and family. Johnson is now in the Pensacola county jail; the appeal for reduction of the original five-year sentence is still pending (before the same judge who passed sentence in the first place), and these newest charges will be used to show why the outrageous sentence should not be reduced.

Like the case of Bob Johnson, the resistance of Richard Bucklin is getting special attention from NCUUA. Although Bucklin was in the Army in Germany, he realized that being part of the U.S. military tool which the government was using in Vietnam was wrong, and went to Sweden. After 4 1/2 years--and after the U.S. had signed the Paris Agreements--he turned himself in. He refused the offer of the military to let him serve out the remainder of his term despite the promise of an honorable discharge, and went to trial. The judge prohibited the defense from mentioning the Vietnam War; Bucklin was found guilty and sentenced to 15 months at hard labor at the Ft Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks, plus a Bad Conduct Discharge. An appeal is being planned.

Both men resisted the Vietnam War and the repressive military; both men are now in prison--prisons supposedly built to protect society from people who are a danger to society. Meanwhile, the people we need to be protected from--the real criminals of the Vietnam War--sit comfortably in Washington, in the Pentagon, in the corporate board rooms, counting their profits and planning the next war.

Bucklin and Johnson are only tow of the hundreds of thousands of reasons why VVAW/WSO will demonstrate in Washington, DC, on the 1st through the 4th of July. The military and civilian prisons of the country are crowded with people who resisted the war in Indochina; hundreds of thousands more are branded with less-than-honorable discharges and prison records. Support all those who resisted the war. Come to Washington.