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Hilgendorf Responds

By Kurt Hilgendorf

My review of Gerry Nicosia's "Home to War" in the Spring 2004 Veteran offered three main critiques:

1. The book suffers from numerous historical inaccuracies.

2. Through his tone, use of language, and narratives of events, Nicosia positions himself as the enlightened liberal observer who is intellectually superior to the more radical VVAW leadership of the early 1970s. As a result, every VVAW action after Dewey Canyon III, driven by leaders whose sole motivation was dogmatic political ideology, is made to appear ineffective at best and doomed to failure at worst.

3. As a history of a movement, the book focuses far too much on the major individual actors and not enough on the intricacies of building and sustaining an organized effort for social change.

It should also be noted that my original review was premised (and given potential book sales and Nicosia's response here I doubt that he would dispute this premise) on the book's reputation as the defining treatise on the Vietnam veteran movement. It logically follows that such a text should be held to the most rigorous standards of research and argumentation. In my opinion, "Home to War" does not meet those standards, nor does Nicosia's response satisfactorily address any of my original arguments.

With regard to historical inaccuracy, the real issue in creating a defining work is being airtight on important, relevant details. Historians are free to reach different conclusions based on the verifiable facts, but one's credibility is severely challenged when the facts are up for debate. For precisely this reason VVAW worked diligently to verify members' ranks and stories during the Winter Soldier Investigation. When it was later discovered that Al Hubbard had exaggerated his rank, VVAW was forced to undertake a serious damage-control effort, spending valuable time and money that could have gone toward protesting an unjust war, and Hubbard was forced out of the National Office. Similarly, Nicosia's historical inaccuracies leave his account open to interpretation and attack. I am not the first person to level these charges against "Home to War." In addition to Michael Uhl's review in The Nation (cited in my review), Jan Barry, one of VVAW's founding members and a person Nicosia obviously respects, questioned Nicosia's account. In his 2001 review of "Home to War" for the War Resisters League, Barry writes, "Regrettably, like too much of his book, it is rife with errors. The 1967 event that inducted me into antiwar action was April 15." Nicosia incorrectly pegged the march a week earlier, on April 7. In other words, Nicosia even got VVAW's founding date wrong.

As for my second primary argument, Nicosia makes no direct response. He does, however, reference several events, which I will address here. First, Nicosia questions my interpretation of an exchange between Barry Romo and Richard Boyle at the 1972 Republican convention, arguing that he does justice to VVAW leadership. I agree with Nicosia that Boyle's fine journalistic work in Southeast Asia is indeed worthy of accolades. But my point was that Boyle was not part of organizing the event; by Nicosia's logic, because Seymour Hersh broke the stories of My Lai and Abu Ghraib he should have had a prominent role in shaping the United for Peace and Justice protest at the 2004 Republican convention. More to the point, my use of this exchange exemplifies Nicosia's wider pattern of critiquing the leadership of radicals while routinely omitting criticism of the roles of liberals. Nicosia portrays the radicals as undisciplined and spur-of-the-moment during Dewey Canyon III. Now this same group is criticized for being disciplined tactical leaders. The same amount of space is afforded both sides, but Nicosia's narrative up to this event paints Romo as irrational and even dangerous. As a result, Boyle's far-fetched idea of forcing a meeting with Nixon seems completely logical and justified, and a disciplined decision based on a democratic group process appears ill-conceived.

Second, my primary critique of Nicosia's coverage of the Gainesville Eight trial was his soap opera-esque narrative, a critique applicable to much of the rest of the book. Yes, Nicosia does explain the heavy toll the trial took on the organization. However, a reader unfamiliar with the history of VVAW would likely identify the informants' roles and personal lives, the Miami federal agents' scandalous connections to the highest levels of the federal government, and Scott Camil's ideas about self-defense more important than the long-term organizational implications of the conspiracy trial. The trial's historical substance — the U.S. government's continuing willingness to do everything in its power to suppress dissent — is overshadowed by these tangential subplots.

Third, Nicosia refutes my take on the American Veterans Movement and its Second Bonus March and its relationship to Dewey Canyon IV. AVM, as I understand, grew out of a building takeover in California. The group did not exist, except as an idea in Ron Kovic's head, until the event was several days old. Kovic called the group the American Veterans Movement and credited the organization with a victory when in reality it had no structure or membership and couldn't be considered anything other than a highly grandiose plan. AVM's Second Bonus March drew a small fraction of the anticipated crowd and, from what I can tell, was an event of relatively minor historical importance. VVAW's Dewey Canyon IV was organized by an actual group, was actually held, and was attended by four thousand. I agree that the event was violent, but my real critique was that Nicosia painted AVM as the next great hope for veterans because it was more moderate and demanded better treatment for veterans. VVAW was demanding the same things, but because it also pushed a radical critique of exploitative American social and economic conditions, VVAW had no legitimate role in the public discourse.

In response to my final argument, Nicosia makes two main assertions: (1) he wrote about regular people, and (2) a history of a movement must include individuals. I agree, and I made such a statement in my review. However, merely presenting a laundry list of names does not address my critique of how Nicosia's narrative employed their stories. "Home to War" repeatedly emphasizes dramatic storylines while downplaying the nuts and bolts of organizing efforts. I utilized two examples: PTSD and Agent Orange. My original point about PTSD was that without vets' courageous attempts to understand their experiences in Vietnam via rap groups and their active struggle to get treatment, vets' allies in the medical community would not have addressed the issue and the DSM would not have been changed. Likewise, had Maude DeVictor not stepped forward and had VVAW members not supported her, the horrific impact of Agent Orange might not have been exposed and no class-action lawsuit would have been possible. I believe a more effective history of the movement would have focused on the ways in which veterans' organizations employed different techniques for social change, how they learned from collective struggle, and how the struggle could have been more successful. Did Nicosia spend a few pages on VVAW's role in Agent Orange? Yes. Did he also spend perhaps a hundred pages on Victor Yannaconne and make his story seem the central issue in the lawsuit? Yes. Do people reading the book consequently believe that the specific details of the trial are much more vital to the movement than the day-to-day work of sustaining a movement for veterans' rights? Yes. Do the historical lessons in "Home to War" consequently suffer from this approach? I think you know my answer.

Nicosia, in the opening paragraphs of his response, uses a quote from my review out of context. I believe the narrative to be highly flawed, but I do not believe that his book does no justice to the history of the veterans' movement; it does some. In fact, I encourage anyone willing to invest the hefty time commitment required to take on the task of reading the seven-hundred-page volume that is "Home to War." However, beware of the potentially dramatic rise in blood pressure that may occur in the process.

Finally, while I agree with the sentiment, I cannot take credit for my review's title ("This History's Bunk"). That credit duly resides with Veteran text wrangler Lisa Boucher. Thanks, Lisa, for the excellent finishing touch.

Kurt Hilgendorf