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Conference in Chicago: Our Strength Lies in our Unity and Struggle

By VVAW

It's time for vets to get together to discuss our common problems and, more important, to begin to see some of the things we can do to solve these problems, to fight together against the way we were used once and then thrown away. To get this process going, VVAW is holding a veterans conference in Chicago on the 25th and 26th of March, Easter weekend, to bring together veterans from across the country. We need to work out a program to give us direction for the future.

In addition to VVAW members VVAW has mailed out letters of invitation to vets clubs, veteran affairs directors, and individual vets at schools throughout the middle west. VVAW chapters, particularly in the Midwest, have begun to take out information about the conference to vets at unemployment offices, VA hospitals, and VA offices in order to bring together as many veterans with as many different ideas as possible.

Why use one of our valuable weekends sitting around and talking? What's the point?

This is the "Year of Vietnam" when the war gets discussed, the lies about the war get reviewed and expanded, the lessons of the war are more and more covered over. But what about the veterans of that war?

One thing is clear, not only from our own experience--that of Vietnam vets--but from the historical experience of the millions of veterans who have gone before us. We're not going to get any of the things we need--jobs, decent VA care, disability benefits that we can live on, or a GI Bill that will allow vets in school to survive--except through our own efforts. If we wait for the government to come up with these things on their own, we'll be waiting until Hell freezes over. If we wait until the "traditional" veterans organizations like the Legion or the VFW to come charging to the aid of the Vietnam vet, we'll all be dead and buried.

Huge numbers of Americans will agree with Vietnam vets when we say we're getting a raw deal. Even groups like the Legion (or at least many of its members) will agree with that. But when it comes to trying to change the way vets are treated, then it's a different tune they're singing. Our hope is an organization which is prepared to do battle with the class that runs this country in order to get the things we need. The battles are necessary because, as we've seen time after time, crawling through the halls of Congress, hats in hand, to beg for a few more crumbs only leads to our getting stepped on by our self-proclaimed "friends" in government.

JOBS--Vet's unemployment rates are high, partly because the overall economy is in sorry shape, but also because to the legends about Vietnam vets--we're all junkies, unreliable, troublemakers. This is one big topic for discussion at the conference. Government plans to eliminate vets preference is one part of this (see article on page 2).

DECENT BENEFITS--With a GI Bill about 300% below the version of the Bill at the end of World War II, we have to make plans about fighting to expand and extend the GI Bill. Soon, the majority of Vietnam and Vietnam-era veterans will no longer be eligible as a result of the restrictions on the Bill.

The Veterans Administration, despite the cover of a Vietnam veteran Max Cleland as director, has begun to talk a little more sweetly in response to the interest in how vets are treated. But there have been few changes. Vets are still getting disability payments sliced. Checks are still late. Red tape is, if anything, growing longer and harder to cut through. The VA hospital system in on the rocks, one reason why there is much talk in Congress about scrapping the whole system.

But vets don't need to make plans just around the issues that put bread and butter on the table (or in many cases, don't). The point behind the way the country's rulers are pushing the Year of Vietnam is not to give us a better break--it's to get people ready to go off again to fight their wars for them. As a result, WAR, both in terms of what we learned from our own experience, and what we can do to make it more difficult for the government and its rich backers to drag our younger brothers or sons into their next war.

Specifically, Panama presents a situation where Carter has already threatened to "defend the Canal with 100,000 troops if necessary." South Africa, where the people are rising up and U.S. corporations are trying to help keep them in chains, is another volatile and explosive situation.

As veterans we have a particular perspective on war and on struggles for liberation. Based on our experience we have something to offer the American people so that others can learn from our experience. But we need common direction and common organization. And, while Vietnam vets have some particular problems, and this is the year when Vietnam gets reviewed, in fact veterans of all eras face many of the same problems and have a common interest in reaching solutions to them.

VVAW will be proposing the following agenda for the conference: on Saturday, March 25, from noon until early evening the discussion should center on the specific problems vets face--jobs, GI Bill, VA--some of the ways people have struggled against these problems, and how we can organize to deal with the problems in the future. Vietnam Veterans Day will be one proposal--see the article on the first page of the supplement/centerfold.

After some partying on Saturday night, Sunday should be spent working around some of the larger issues, including a speaker to talk about the Iranian Students Association's battle against the repression of the Shah, and a representative of the Pan Africanist Congress to talk about that country's turmoil and struggle. The campaign to provide "Fatigues for Freedom Fighters" and to build support for African Liberation Day will be one proposal.

The conference has to look forward. There's much to learn from the past, but the conference has to arrive at concrete plans for the future--we have to have these plans and a program in order to fight.

VETERANS: CLOSE RANKS!