"Vietnam Veterans Against the War" (VVAW)

Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) was getting more and more news coverage about the time I was getting out of the Army in March of 1969 in Los Angeles. I had been stationed locally at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro for about a year.

I went to work for Cycle News for six months and then began freelancing for motorcycle magazines and writing tech manuals for Clymer Publications. This gave me the freedom to offer my services to VVAW as a writer.

I had been attracted to the idea of doing something to attempt to help stop the senseless war for a while. One night on the news, I saw that VVAW was marching along Sepulveda Blvd., with a mock coffin as a protest. They were camping somewhere in Venice for the night and I took off to try to find them and join them. I went to the Venice Police Department for information. That was a strange time of fear; for the first time in my memory, a person couldn't just walk into a police station. An armed policeman stood on the sidewalk in front of the police station and asked your business before he decided if you could enter. "Do you know where the Vietnam Veterans Against the War are camped tonight?" I asked him. "What do you want to know that for," he asked in return. "I want to join up with them." I replied. I don't remember his reply but it was highly derogatory and only strengthened my feelings that I was doing the right thing. I didn't find them that night but went to their office on Pico Blvd. the next day and joined.

There was plenty to do besides writing. We were highly visible because we wore parts of our uniforms with our medals and insignia and furnished security for peace marches and rallies. We had informal classes on how to maintain security and how to spot agents provocateurs. I was shocked to hear that supposedly, agencies would infiltrate VVAW and the other anti-war organizations and deliberately start violence to discredit these organizations and to give Los Angeles Sheriff's Department an excuse to move in and start busting heads. I didn't believe that until I saw it with my own eyes.

One night, one of the leaders of the Los Angeles Chapter, called me at home and asked if I had seen the issue of Ramparts magazine that had just hit the stands that night. I hadn't and he went on to tell me that Jad Doucette, one of our newer members, had been exposed by the magazine as an undercover San Diego Police Department officer. Doucette had an extensive false background which he and I had discussed at length, as he was also a writer. He had shown me writings he had published in a federal stockade newsletter (Ft. Leavenworth), where he had supposedly done time for some sort of anti-war action. We never saw "Doucette" again.

I was mightily impressed with everyone I met there. They were dedicated to the point of obsession to the cause of ending the war. Family life suffered sometimes. I don't know if that was because of the work they were doing, the hours they kept, or perhaps PTSD. I was amazed that an undercover cop didn't also see this dedication and didn't question what he was doing.

We attended trials that we felt were political in nature as observers. I had the pleasure of meeting Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun) at Ellsberg and Russo's "Pentagon Papers" trial. I met Russo as well. Our influence was probably more imaginary than anything else but the defendants seemed glad to have us there.

Ron Kovic (Born on the Fourth of July, book and movie) was in the Los Angeles Chapter. He was a dynamic personality, well liked by nearly everyone. He gave me his VVAW button when he saw I didn't have one. We nearly fought to get to push his wheelchair at rallies and peace marches. He drove a big car with hand controls and was pretty self sufficient.

Every event we attended featured cameras chronicling our every move. Guys in suits using still cameras with telephoto lenses and video cameras which were fairly new at the time. I don't think civilians had them then; I may be wrong. They were not in common use. It was not hard to spot the agency cars and people that were keeping an eye on us and sometimes following us. Nobody but the law had plain four-door cars with black wall tires. Put two white males in suits in one of those cars and you had little doubt about what was going on.

Most of the guys felt we were followed everywhere we went and that our phones were tapped. I hesitated going along with this belief as I found it hard to subscribe to any kind of a conspiracy theory. Years later, on separate occasions, I encountered two retired CIA agents who told me we didn't know the half of what was going on and confirmed our wildest fears.

A minor incident that happened to my brother illustrates a tiny segment of what went on. He joined the same chapter some months after I did. One day he rode his motorcycle to the office and turned left across traffic to a parking space directly in front of the building. He came in and spent some time with us and then left. When he pulled away from the curb, he went back the way he had come. He was pulled over almost immediately by the law and written up for making an illegal u-turn. He went to court over the ticket and explained what had transpired and that he felt he was being harassed by the law for being in VVAW. The judge dismissed the charge.

I missed out on a far more serious incident while on a brief vacation to Europe. The Chapter was attending a rally in support of a young black man who had been shot by sheriff's deputies at a church in Compton. LA County Sheriff's arrested all the VVAW members there and at the least, roughed them up. At the time the Sheriff's had numerous substations all over a county that was over 100 miles wide. The members were bussed from station to station, keeping them distanced from lawyers that were trying to get them released. This went on for longer than a day; I don't remember exactly how long.

About this time we were observing at the murder trial of a civil rights activist in San Bernardino County. He was accused of enticing a highway patrolman to his house and then killing him with a shotgun. This activist was a popular and effective leader among the black community with no prior criminal record (in my recollection) and feeling in the area was that he had been set up because of his influence in the community. The trial was moved to Indio, quite a few miles away, making it difficult for many of his supporters to attend. The VVAW Chapter got out there whenever we could put together a carpool. I was there on a day when a young black woman (who hitchhiked more than 100 miles every day to attend the trial) was banned from the courtroom for sneezing once. I did a report for the Los Angeles NPR station that day by telephone as their regular stringer had not been able to attend.

The trial went on for a long time and ended in a mistrial while I was on that aforementioned vacation. The Chapter sent me a telegram in Switzerland with that result.

After about a year of this, I had had enough. It felt like I was in another war; but this time it wasn't against little yellow people, it was against big white ones just like me only they wore uniforms I had been taught to respect. I moved to a small town in Utah. I tried to get Ron Kovic to come up and get away but he never did. He ran for some sort of public office in California (State Senator, I think), not too long ago.

I met some wonderful people during those times. I encountered a group of Quakers in Pasadena who were helping VVAW with grant writing. I was mightily impressed with them. I had never met such an unassuming peaceful group of people.

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