This article includes some worthwhile historical information on the antiwar movement against the Vietnam War, especially as it relates to veterans. The Antiwar Movement We Are Supposed To Forget by H. Bruce Franklin Touchstone Nov/Dec 2000. (The article was originally published in the Chronicle of Higher Education but it's behind subscription at that site.)
Thousands of veterans who had fought in Vietnam moved to the forefront of the antiwar movement after they returned to the United States, and they -- together with thousands of active-duty G.I.'s -- soon began to play a crucial role in the domestic movement. Dozens of teach-ins on college campuses were led by Vietnam veterans, who spoke at hundreds of rallies. More and more demonstrations were led by large contingents of veterans and active-duty servicepeople, who often participated under risk of grave punishment. The vanguard of that Washington demonstration by half a million people in the spring of 1971 was a contingent of a thousand Vietnam veterans, many in wheelchairs and on crutches, who then conducted "a limited incursion into the country of Congress," which they called Dewey Canyon III (Dewey Canyon I was a 1969 covert "incursion" into Laos; Dewey Canyon II was the disastrous February 1971 invasion of Laos). About 800 marched up to a barricade hastily erected to keep them away from the Capitol and hurled back their Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars, Silver Stars, and campaign ribbons at the government that had bestowed them.
John Kerry was a participant in the Dewey Canyon III protest.
Franklin also recalls the fact that active duty soldiers expressed their opposition to the war and/or war policies in a variety of ways:
In 1968, dozens of black soldiers, many of them Vietnam veterans, were arrested and court-martialed for refusing to mobilize against antiwar demonstrators outside the Chicago Amphitheatre during the Democratic National Convention. What made the convergence of the black and antiwar movements explosively dangerous for those trying to maintain order and sustain the war was the disintegrating and volatile situation within the armed forces, as pointed out by an alarming article published in the January 1970 Naval War College Review.
Very little awareness of resistance to the war inside the military survives today. But without this awareness, it is impossible to understand not just the antiwar movement but also the military history of the war from 1968 to 1973, not to mention the end of the draft and the creation of a permanent "volunteer" army to fight America's subsequent wars. To begin to get some sense of the relative scale and effects of civilian and active-duty war resistance, compare the widely publicized activity of draft avoidance with some little-known facts about desertion (a serious military crime, defined by being away without leave for more than 30 days and having the intention never to return). Although draft evasion and refusal certainly posed problems for the war effort, desertion was much more common and far more threatening.
The number of draft evaders and resisters was dwarfed by the number of deserters from the active-duty armed forces. During the 1971 fiscal year alone, 98,324 servicemen deserted, an astonishing rate of 142.2 for every 1,000 men on duty. Revealing statistics flashed to light briefly as President Ford was pondering the amnesty he declared in September 1974 (at the same time he also pardoned ex-President Nixon for all federal crimes he may have committed while in office). According to the Department of Defense, there were 503,926 "incidents of desertion" between July 1, 1966, and December 31, 1973. From 1963 through 1973 (a period almost half again as long), only 13,518 men were prosecuted for draft evasion or resistance. The admitted total of deserters still officially "at large" at the time was 28,661 -- six and a half times the 4,400 draft evaders or resisters still "at large." These numbers only begin to tell the story.
This article is a good reminder that the stereotypes of "the 1960s" and about the Vietnam War that today's Republicans promote are sometimes almost bizarre departures from the reality. For instance:
Who opposed the war? Contrary to the impression promulgated by the media then, and overwhelmingly prevalent today, opposition to the war was not concentrated among affluent college students. In fact, opposition to the war was inversely proportional to both wealth and education. Blue-collar workers generally considered themselves "doves" and tended to favor withdrawal from Vietnam, while those who considered themselves "hawks" and supported participation in the war were concentrated among the college-educated, high-income strata.
In fact, that part is so much a departure from the conventional wisdom, it's worth quoting a second time with my emphasis added:
Who opposed the war? Contrary to the impression promulgated by the media then, and overwhelmingly prevalent today, opposition to the war was not concentrated among affluent college students. In fact, opposition to the war was inversely proportional to both wealth and education. Blue-collar workers generally considered themselves "doves" and tended to favor withdrawal from Vietnam, while those who considered themselves "hawks" and supported participation in the war were concentrated among the college-educated, high-income strata.
The article is adapted from Franklin's book Vietnam and Other American Fantasies (2000).
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