Items of interest to journalists and other baffled imbeciles
September 07, 2004 Anti-Vietnam vets pass the torch to anti-Iraq vets http://www.newsroom-l.net/blog/archives/000097.html#more By Stephen S. Noetzel, Vietnam Veteran Against the War AGAIN Their signature banner read: IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR! The PAST (Sunday Reunion #1, August 29, 2004.)
Funny how most of them haven't changed all that much..in over thirty years "on the barricades". I could already spot them on the subway platform at 23rd Street, as we emerged into the brilliant morning sunshine, of a typical Manhattan Dog-Day of August.
But obviously, they were showing their years; in fact, more than their years. Despite having grown "rotund", most of the Grizzled Vets still managed to squeeze into the remnants of the bestraggled uniform "artifacts" they had saved..for important Protest Events, for many years, even decades. Tattered and faded military shirts, hats & vests.festooned with ironic mixtures of Military and Peace Movement Insignia. The same stuff they wore when they took over the Mall, in Washington DC, in the spring of '71 when they emerged as the heroes of the Anti-War movement. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
And I was right there with them. Wearing my wool Green Beret; modified only slightly, to announce my Political Stance while at the same time stopping the beads of sweat trying to roll off my now bald head. Instead of the regulation Special Forces Patch that originally commanded attention directly over the left eye, there was a round Veterans for Peace "Patch", splashed with the red/yellow colors of Vietnam; yet held in place by my original 5th Special Forces Pin..with it's swaggering Logo-Phrase written in Ironic Latin: "De Oppresso Liber". Liberator of the Oppressed, my ass. Like all of the Old Experienced Ones who have been through the fires of the Anti War struggles for decades, I knew better.
So we marshaled on 22nd Street in the heat, for One Last Parade. For 2 hours we waited at the head of the "Line of March", while politicians and celebrities made speeches in front of us, and a half million Protestors against the Bush War Machine gathered behind us. We carried our signs aloft:
IRAQ is ARABIC for VIETNAM.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War - AGAIN!
Vietnam Vets Action Plan: Job 1; Fire BUSH; Job 2: EXIT IRAQ.
And mine: Vietnam Vets for Kerry - LOVED him in '71; Support him in '04 snip~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.newsroom-l.net/blog/archives/000097.html#more ========================= ==================== [begin signature]
The roots of repression are, and remain real roots; consequently, their eradication remains a real and rational job. What is to be abolished is not the reality principal, not everything, but such particular things as business, politics, exploitation, poverty; To forget this is to mystify the possibilities of liberation." --Herbert Marcuse
Leigh Meyers leighcmeyers at yahoo.com