Wes Clark

Nobody's Hero: My War Story

dlindorff — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:32:53 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

I’m certainly no hero, but since some readers of my last post have
reacted by attacking my courage and integrity on the grounds that I
“never served,” I want to at least set the record straight on my
youthful response to war.

In 1967, when I was a senior in high school in Storrs, CT., I faced
a momentous decision. In April, I would turn 18, and would have to
register for the draft. The Vietnam War was by then in full swing. A
year or two earlier, I’d been an avid fan of military aviation
magazines, and bought into the whole anti-Communist Cold War thing. But
by ’67, I had seen enough of the violence being done in Vietnam against
a desperately poor peasant population—the napalm attacks on civilians,
the burned babies, etc.—that I had done a 180-degree turn. I wanted
nothing to do with war and killing. So I made a decision: I would fill
out my registration at the draft board, and I’d get my draft card, but
I would not let myself be inducted into the military.

When I told my parents, who still supported the war, of my plan,
they were of course upset but supportive. My dad was an engineer and a
former Marine and my mother a Navy WAVE in WWII. My paternal
grandfather had earned a silver star in WWI and my maternal grandfather
had had his lungs permanently scarred by mustard gas in the same
conflict. A history teacher, Bernie Marlin, referred me to a junior
high teacher in the school who had been a conscientious objector during
the Korean War. I talked with him, a Mr. Storrs, at length, and was
very impressed with his story, but I soon realized that I didn’t really
think I was CO material. I did feel war could be justified
sometimes—for example if America were attacked. At any rate, in early
April of ’67, I went ahead and filled out my draft registration form.

That fall, I began college at Wesleyan University. By then, I had
been working as a foot soldier in the anti-war movement a bit, and had
already been to one anti-war demonstration and march in New York City.
At college registration, there was a table for registering for a
student deferment. I decided on the spur of the moment to pass that up.
It seemed unfair to me that friends of mine in high school, who were
not college bound, were going to get drafted, but I wouldn’t because I
was lucky enough to be going to college. So unlike Vice President and
Warmonger-in-Chief Dick Cheney, I just skipped it. I figured when my
time came and I got an induction notice, I would just refuse, and
they’d jail me.

In October, there was a huge demonstration and march in Washington
against the war—the famous “Mobe” about which Norman Mailer wrote in
“Armies of the Night.” I went down to DC with a few other students. We
ended up near the front of the march, and then up on the Mall of the
Pentagon. Through the night, federal marshals were arresting people up
there on the Mall. I made it through until morning, when I was finally
grabbed by the legs, yanked through a line of bayonet-armed soldiers,
beaten with clubs and carried off to a paddy wagon, which took me to a
federal minimum-security prison in Occoquan, VA. I spent a couple days
there in the company of a hundred or so other demonstrators in a prison
dormitory. It was an education like no other. Veteran anti-war and
civil rights activists ran workshops about the war and about a strategy
of resistance, and about how we could build a better world. I soaked it
all up avidly.

When I was released, with a small fine and a 10-day suspended
sentence for “trespassing” on the Pentagon, I hitchhiked back to
school, all fired up to challenge the war. The night before my arrest,
I had joined hundreds of other protesters in burning my draft card. I
had kept the ashes in my shirt pocket, and when I got home, I put them
in an envelope and mailed them to my draft board, with a note saying I
would never carry that card again (a federal crime). My draft board
responded by sending me a new I-A card. I tucked it in my wallet,
saving it for the next card-burning opportunity.

Over the next two years, during which time I participated actively
in student radical activism, building sit-ins, and draft-resistance
actions, such as informational picketing of inductees at the induction
center in New Haven, CT, I had occasion to burn my card and tear up my
card several times—including once at a communion at the Yale chapel,
where we turned our cards in to Rev. William Sloane Coffin. Each time,
I’d send the ashes or the pieces of card to my draft board, and each
time, they’d send me a new one. Along the way, the infamous draft
lottery was established. I was number 81—a certainty to be called up.

At one point, back in the summer of 1968, I filed a CO application,
but I made it clear that I was not religious, and that I was not
opposed to all wars. When I had my CO hearing at the draft board, the
board members were sitting at a table, with all my destroyed draft
cards set in a pile in front of them. I explained to the men sitting in
judgement on me that while I opposed the war in Vietnam, if I were
Vietnamese, I would surely be fighting for my country against the US.
That didn’t go over very well. My application was unanimously rejected.

My day came in the spring of 1969. At the time, I was in a full leg
cast, having broken both bones in my lower leg just above the ankle in
a ski accident. I notified the induction center that I was on crutches
and in a cast and suggested they postpone my pre-induction physical
until I was out of the cast and all better—a delay of about four months
according to my doctor. They said no. They wanted to see me to make
sure I was genuinely injured.

So on a cold late-winter day, I found myself on a bus riding from
the draft board in Rockville, CT to New Haven with a bunch of
frightened young men. I handed out informational packets to everyone,
telling them their rights, how to apply for CO status, etc., and talked
about what was wrong with the war.

When we arrived, I joined everyone in taking the so-called
intelligence test. Then we went for our physicals. I was pulled from
the line and told I needed to go to see a consulting physician at
Yale-New Haven Hospital. Since the address was a mile or so away, and
the sidewalks were icy, I said I’d need cab fare. I was told by the
head of the medical unit that the government didn’t pay for
transportation. He informed me there was a bus that stopped outside
that would take me there.

I replied that I was on crutches, and that I hadn’t asked to be sent
to a consultation—in fact I had asked for a postponement until my leg
was healed—and said that if they wanted to send me anywhere they could
fucking well pay for the transportation. That didn’t make the guy very
happy. He had a screaming fit, and called the head of the center, who
came down. “What’s the problem?” he asked. I explained the situation,
and said that if they wanted me to go all the way to a hospital because
they didn’t trust that my leg was truly broken, they could pay my
fucking cab fare. The guy got angry, called me a “little prick,” but
then took out his wallet and threw some bills at me. I picked the money
up off the floor and went down to the street. Seeing no cab, I went
over to the bus stop. I looked up and saw the Induction Center
commander looking out of a window, so as the bus pulled up, I flipped
him a one-finger salute and got on.

At the hospital, I discovered that the office of the doctor in
question was closed for the day. Angry that I’d wasted all this time
for nothing, I got back on the bus and returned to the Induction
Center. This time, I went directly to the office of the head of the
center, and tossed an envelope of X-Rays from my doctor on his desk.
“It’s no wonder you’re losing the fucking war!” I said. “You guys can’t
even arrange a doctor’s appointment. The office was closed.” I told him
that he could check my X-Rays, and added, “But I’ve come down here once
already, and it’s the last time I’m coming. If you want me back, you
can send the FBI to bring me.” I hung around until the end of the day
and rode home on the bus to my draft board.

When I got there, I went into the office, where the office
secretary, an older woman with a neat grey perm, was still at her desk.
“Excuse me,” I said. “But I’m really pissed off.” She started at my
coarse language. I recounted my experience and she said, “Well, I think
they owe you an apology.” To my astonishment, she picked up the phone,
called the Induction Center, and asked to speak to the head of the
operation—the guy who’d thrown the money at me. “I have a young man
here who is very angry,” she said into the phone. “And I think you owe
him an apology.”

She handed me the phone.

“All right, you little prick,” he said, sounding like he was gritting his teeth. “I’m sorry.”

“You fuckin’ oughta be,” I said, again shocking the secretary.

I put down the phone, thanked the secretary and left.

A month later, to my astonishment, instead of FBI agents at my door,
I got a letter from my draft board. It was a card declaring me to be
IV-F—“unfit for military service.”

Clearly, there was no medical justification for my rejection. My leg
bones healed up just fine a few months later, and I spent part of the
next year loading heavy boxes in a warehouse and driving semi-trailer
trucks. I suspect that, it being 1969, and the army in Nam being by
then in a state of near insurrection, the Army had concluded it didn’t
want people like me anymore. Perhaps a year earlier, before Tet, I
might instead have been sent into the infantry.

I tell this story because while it may not be heroic, and while
other war resisters paid heavily for their stands, I nonetheless think
it contrasts well with the likes of a Dick Cheney, who hid through the
war years behind student deferments and his wife’s skirt, or of a
George Bush, who joined the Air National Guard and made care to check a
box saying he would be “unavailable for overseas duty”—something the
poor guys in the Guard now doing multiple tours in the Iraqi desert on
Bush's orders didn’t have the option of doing.

I don’t apologize for my opposition to the Vietnam War. And while
being prepared to go to jail for a principle may not rank on the
courage meter anywhere near to standing one’s ground under fire during
an enemy assault, or jumping on top of a live grenade, I’m proud that I
did my best to oppose it, and that I never once tried to duck
responsibility for my own actions. Furthermore, I’ll stand my actions
up against any of those in the Bush administration or in Congress who
are so quick to support wars, but who hid behind student deferments or
used powerful connections to avoid military service or combat duty
themselves when it was their turn to “serve.”
__________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006
and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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What's So Special About Veterans?

dlindorff — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:37:25 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

The teacup tempest over retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s self-evident
remark about John McCain—to whit that flying a fighter aircraft and
getting shot down and captured is not particularly relevant to the
skill set needed to be a president—raises a larger question: Why do
veterans, and particularly the veterans of the criminal and pointless
war in Iraq, or the earlier criminal and pointless one in Vietnam,
automatically get “hero” status, and why are they seen as naturals to
run for higher national office?

I’m sure there are plenty of heroes in the military—people who put
their lives on the line, and even give their lives, for their comrades,
people who give up safe jobs and leave their families for what they see
as a patriotic duty. But let’s face it: the whole recruiting project is
about convincing young men and women that joining the military is in
their self-interest—a way to get ahead, a way to see the world, a way
to get financial aid for college, a way to have some excitement, a way
to get a fat signing bonus so you can buy that new car you’ve been
coveting. And people who sign up for these self-interested reasons are
no more heroic than people who go to work for Merrill Lynch or Wal-Mart.

Furthermore, while there are dangerous posts in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the nature of the military is that the vast majority of
people who wear a uniform just work in offices or motor pools, and face
dangers no greater than workers who do the same thing in civilian life
at home. In fact, in the case of more hazardous work, like heavy
equipment repair or flying cargo planes, it’s probably safe to say that
after years of speedups and of gutting worker safety rules and
inspections, it may be safer working for the Pentagon than working for
a civilian employer.

Beyond that, there are people who are easily as heroic as many of our
uniformed citizens who don’t get any credit for their courage and
dedication to humanity and to their country. How about young doctors
who eschew lucrative careers in plastic surgery to work as GPs in
low-income communities or on Indian reservations? How about Peace Corps
or Vista volunteers who go to dangerous places at home and abroad to
help people improve their lives? The Pennsylvania soldier who died
throwing himself on top of a live grenade to save his buddies is a true
hero. But so is the 23-year-old math teacher slain in Philadelphia last
month who left safe, suburban Minnesota to take a low-wage post
teaching underserved kids in this notorious murder capital. Even in
uniform there are heroes who don’t get credit for their courage. How
about people like Lt. Ehren Watada or Sgt. Camilo Mejia, or other members of the military who risked jail, or even did hard time rather than fight, or continue to fight in an illegal war?

There are heroes in our schools, heroes on the job, heroes who work
in jobs like police officer or firefighter, heroes trying to raise
families in adversity, even heroes in politics (though these are few
and far between!). Most of them aren’t ever recognized by society for
what they do. Not everyone who serves in the military is a hero, and plenty of people who don’t, or won’t, wear a uniform are genuine heroes.

Furthermore, as Gen. Clark noted, wearing a uniform, and going to
war, or even earning a medal, do not make a person better suited for
government or politics. But I’d go him one further. Even having been a
high-ranking officer, and having had significant administrative or
policy-making experience in the military does not make a person any
better suited for an executive or a legislative position in government.
In fact, arguably, it makes a person less well suited for government in
a democratic society. The military is not a place that values open
expression of opinions. It is a top-down organization in which
obedience to “superiors” is valued more highly than initiative and
self-direction. The military isn’t even as democratic as the old
Bolshevik Party. At least in theory, Lenin’s Bolshevik model was
supposed to encourage democratic discussion until a decision was
reached by the leadership, after which there would be discipline and
unquestioned obedience. In the military, the democratic discussion part
is eliminated from the model. What that has to do with democratic
governance I don’t know.

Don’t get me wrong. I have a endless sympathy for the hundreds of
thousands of military personnel, active duty, reservist and National
Guard members, who got dragged off under false pretenses to have to
serve in an illegal war of aggression, even to get seriously wounded or
to die there, and I’m a strong supporter of generous veterans’ benefits
for all of them and for their long-suffering families.

But let’s not cheapen the term “hero” by assigning it to all of
them—especially while ignoring the heroism of those who have refused to
fight, or of those who engage in heroic efforts to better the lives of
their fellow human beings instead of just helping to kill them.

And let’s stop pretending that having worn a uniform somehow
automatically makes someone a better person, and a more competent
leader, than someone who never wore one.

The returned soldiers I’ve known from Vietnam, and the soldiers I’ve
spoken to who have served in Iraq, have for the most part been the
first to say that they don’t feel like heroes. It is, in fact, the
charlatans and political cowards in government who are busy promoting
endless war who are tossing that label around with such abandon. They
are in both parties, and we should recognize their abuse of the term,
“hero” and their fake stances of “respect” and “support” for the
troops, for what it is: cheap political posturing, designed to
intimidate critics of a criminal war.
___________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006,
and now available in paperback. His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net