From The Bath Irons Works (The Destroyer Builders In Maine( Archives

From The Bath Irons Works (The Naval Destroyer Builders In Maine) Archives

By Fritz Taylor

Yes I am a Vietnam Veteran and yes as I recently pointed out while I hate the NRA I favor my Second Amendment right to bear arm. That latter position a personal one because like the late Doctor Gonzo, Hunter Thompson I like to go to some secluded firing range and rattle off a few rounds. But whatever vestiges I have of my growing up in Fulton County, Georgia I “got religion” on the questions of war and peace through the hellhole of Vietnam experience. Not right away, not completely at first but now I am comfortable with the twenty plus years I have spent screaming (if necessary) against the endless wars, the bloated military budgets and the glorification of the fog war creates in the public, and among soldiers and politicians.

Now I was strictly Army, Fourth Division so you know I saw some hellish action in Vietnam, particularly when we were sent to re-enforce up in the Central Highland and I can tell you plenty about that branch of the service, the waste and the like. You can always learn sometime new though in this struggle against war and endless budgets. As I did a few years ago when I through my friendships with Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris went up to Maine to help out in the annual Maine Peace Walk sponsored by Veterans for Peace and other local activist peace groups.

That “helping out” entailed walking half the freaking state of Maine at least on the oceanside, the side where U.S. Route One slithers down the coast. Over a period of several days. I had started up in Brunswick, up at Bowdoin College where I met walkers who had started up I believe in Rangeley which I do not have a clue where that is except it is pretty far north in Maine with plenty left before you reach the Canadian border.   

When you mention Brunswick you really automatically mention Bath as I found out. In little old out of the way Bath, which is a pretty town along the river and close to the ocean, you have the very large Bath Iron Works which despite its benign name is the main producer of the Navy’s destroyer fleet, the modern one which goes for billions a pop. Needless to say the organizers planned a serious stop at that location along the route to protest these ships being built (and proposing as an alternative something like a Green New Deal to keep the citizenry usefully employed). Probably just as naturally our appearance there was met with mixed reviews depending on whether you worked there or were part of the gentrification also going on in the area now that Southern Maine had become very expensive and overrun with foreigners (mostly from Massachusetts and New York-of course a foreigner in Maine is anybody not born there with certified birth certificate proof).

That was quite an experience, learned some stuff but what was, is really important is that over the past few years a number of mainly Maine citizens have taken it upon themselves to protest by acts of civil disobedience every time some new destroyer is launched. Hats off to the sister and brothers of that branch of the resistance struggle. My kind of people.