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Bob Waddell (1952-2004)

By Gerald Nicosia

On December 22, 2003, another early member of VVAW passed on: Robert Charles "Bobby" Waddell. Bob was best known as the handsome sidekick and lifelong friend of Ron Kovic, but Bob was an unflagging peace activist in his own right, and gave unstintingly of his time and boundless energy over the years.

Born in 1952, he was a self-described "Army brat" who grew up at numerous military bases, though Indiana eventually became his home. Encouraged by his career Army father to serve his country, Bob joined the Air Force in 1970, and soon found himself working in the mail room in Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base. Bob was wounded by an incoming rocket, which left him with a permanent hearing loss. But two things quickly radicalized him there. One was reading the Berkeley Barb, which was being mailed in from the States. The other was sampling the pure heroin that was available for incredibly cheap prices. Bob soon got into drug trouble; and in early 1971, he went through Nixon's military drug-rehabilitation and discharge program, which, by his own account, was being locked up and left to "jones" for a week with nothing but a minimum of food and water.

Bob Wadell (right) in a familiar role: pushing Ron Kovic's wheelchair to a peace demonstration during the first Gulf War, 1991.

Soon after his discharge, Bob joined VVAW in Indianapolis, and quickly became a leader along with Jim Pechin. A year or so later, Bob and his girlfriend Shannon (later his first wife) hitchhiked to California, where he began caring for paraplegic veterans both at the Long Beach VA Hospital — where he was hired as a physical therapist — and in his own home. It was at the Long Beach VA that he met Ron Kovic, and Kovic enlisted him into the Los Angeles VVAW. Later, when Kovic left to form his own American Veterans Movement (AVM), Bob loyally followed him, and took part with Ron in the 17-day hunger strike in Senator Cranston's office in Westwood in 1974, which brought down Donald Johnson, the incredibly inept head of the VA under Nixon. Bob, however, remained a proud VVAW member till his death.

Bob was an incredibly giving person, who often housed down-and-out vets in his own home, but he was left with a substance-abuse problem from his military days that wouldn't quit. He got into trouble in the mid-1980s and did about three years at the penitentiary in Tehachapi, California. Afterward, Bob remarried briefly, and continued his work as an activist for peace and veterans' rights, including Gulf War protests with Ron Kovic. Ever ready to contribute, he went to the Oakland Museum in 2000 to take part in a panel, along with old friend Barry Romo, on the history of veterans' activism.

But in 2001, his girlfriend called the police after a drunken fight, and the Ventura DA went after Bob, supposedly a "crazed Vietnam vet," with the full wrath of the law. No mitigating evidence was presented by Bob's apathetic public defender, and the judge gave Bob ten years in prison because it was a "second strike." No mention was made either that Bob's liver (like that of a lot of Vietnam vets) was nearly destroyed by hepatitis C, that he had at best three years to live without a transplant, and that he was suffering from other major health problems as well, such as diabetes.

At his sentencing, Shad Meshad, John Keaveny and other vet experts on PTSD tried to make a case that Bob should be remanded to a rehab program, rather than state prison, but the judge ignored them. Bob was sent first to the supermax prison in Delano, then to the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo, where he did not get the medications, diet, and other special healthcare needs that he required. He got sick in mid-December, and it quickly turned into pneumonia, which took his life.

Bob is survived by his son Zephyr Waddell and many loyal friends. Plans are being made to cast his ashes, as per his wishes, off the Golden Gate Bridge — because of his love for San Francisco and its Beat artists and poets.