In mid-May 1971 I was a 19 year old just returned from Vietnam. Within 5 days of returning, I took the MBTA to Cambridge, MA where I found the New England Regional Office of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and joined up! Still in the military, I was on leave and scheduled to report to the USS Nipmuc, a Fleet Tug out of Newport, Rhode Island.
But for the next two weeks I spent a lot of time at the VVAW offices, helping to prepare for the Memorial Day Weekend March from Concord to Boston (BTW, Michelle Bachman, that's Concord, MA not Concord, NH!). During that time I was interviewed on at least one radio station.
The weekend was incredible. Hundreds of Veterans marching. The night on the Green at Lexington found the threat of arrest and indeed the police moved in and carried out their threat, while I and a few others watched from a Church belfry ringing the bell in protest over what was unfolding below.
The front page of that Sunday's Boston Globe showed a single file line of veterans marching down Route 2, and I was among those in the picture.
That weekend, and the two weeks that preceded it, marked the start of a metamorphosis of sorts for me. I went from being a 19 year old who didn't have a clue to spending the next several years working feverishly to end the war and more than fifteen years working on behalf of those in the military facing legal problems and Vietnam Veterans with readjuustment problems.
It took me more than a year to get out of the military, including going AWOL and ending up in Washington DC where I worked with other vets to lobby congress and protest the war. Before going to Washington, I helped with the "Bring 'em Home" radio show on what was then WTBS Radio at MIT in Cambridge, before MIT sold the call letters to Ted Turner. I used the alias "Jack Straw" at the time, and was arrested at the Lincoln Memorial on Christmas Day as part of a multi-site protest by VVAW including takeovers of the Statue of Liberty and Betsy Ross House. Thankfully, I was only detained for a short time and my true identity and AWOL status was not discovered!
I got to dance around J. Edgar Hoover's casket, lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda, singing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead." And during one of several visits to the Quaker fast in front of the White House found Pennsylvania Avenue closed off by the Military Police and was hustled out of the area, finding out later that one of our compatriots was the FBI informant in the Gainesville 8 Trial, and may well have tried to turn me in. Shortly after that I was rescued by my Massachusetts VVAW brothers, and I returned to Massachusetts and the Navy to face the music.
Having been helped by the Legal In-Service Project, for which I would later work, I faced Courts-Martial on my 21st Birthday in June 1972 and spent the summer in the Navy Brig at the Boston Naval Station. Released and Discharged in early October, I spent the next month working nonstop for George McGovern -- and yes, we did win Massachusetts.
Working on Vietnam Veterans issues back then was difficult. In spite of plenty of evidence that readjustment problems were significant -- high suicide rates, unemployment and incarceration, pleas for needed services fell largely on deaf ears. The Traditional Veterans Organizations saw Vietnam Veterans as losers, and the largely WWII-era employees at the VA had pretty similar views. This would begin to change when Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977, and he established Vet Centers and began to direct treatment for Vietnam Veterans.
When Vietnam Veterans began to take the lead in pointing out Post Vietnam Syndrome, it was with an eye to the root cause of having fought in an illegal and immoral war. However, by the time the psychiatric community got around to legitimizing it, the problem had morphed into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a catch-all for everything from traffic accidents to rape to the horrors of war. So, while this was a great victory for both women and veterans, it came at the cost of truly understanding the costs of war. That unlearned lesson haunts us today as we again see problems like suicide, unemployment and incarceration so prevalent in today's Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
When I think of Memorial Day, it is hard not to remember that weekend forty years ago that changed my life. And equally hard not to wonder why so little has changed when it comes to the problems faced by our returning veterans.