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VVAW Joins March: One Million Hit Nuclear Arms Race

By Pete Mahoney

Over one million people marched in the streets of New York City on June 12th to protest against the nuclear arms race, making it the largest political demonstration in the history of this country. The demands of the demonstration were: Zero Nuclear Weapons, ban the neutron bomb; Stop the Arms Race, abolish nuclear weapons now; No Military Intervention, U.S. out of El Salvador; Meet Human Needs, feed the people not the war machine.

The main march started from in front of the United Nations and was joined by feeder marches from other parts of the city along the route to the Great Lawn in Central Park. There, the crowd listened to political speeches and were entertained by the likes of James Taylor, Joan Baez, Jackson Brown, Linda Ronstadt, and Bruce Springsteen.

A VVAW contingent of about 40 people participated in the demonstration. The group was made up mostly of people from the re-emerging New York City chapter of VVAW who were joined by veterans and supporters from Ohio, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Delaware. Numerous vets jumped out of the crowd along the way, and joined the VVAW group. Some of them said, "Hey, I was in VVAW ten years ago, I didn't know you guys were still around." Others said they had never been in a political demonstration before in their lives.

The response to the VVAW contingent was fantastic. By standers along the route of the march continually broke into spontaneous applause as the VVAW banner went by. A woman yelled over the loudspeaker from one of the secondary states along the route, "Here comes VVAW. Welcome back!"

Everyone who participated agreed the event was an extra-ordinary experience. Despite the huge numbers—the march started at eleven in the morning and people were still filing past the UN at 4:30 in the afternoon—the people in the crowd were orderly, friendly, respectful of one another and most importantly, serious about their commitment to end the nuclear arms race. This spirit of common courtesy and political concern created a bond of unity among the people there that had more potential energy than anything released by splitting atoms. We were all glad to be there.

Pete Mahoney
New York VVAW