By Fritz
Taylor
Recently in a
short archive caption about the Bath Iron Works in Maine where many of the top-of-the
line and billion-dollar expensive destroyers are built I mentioned, as a little
background for knowing about the place that I am a Vietnam Veteran. I also mentioned
in an earlier archive caption while I hate the NRA I favor my Second Amendment
right to bear arm. 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, certainly not right away since I come
from a long, a very long line of military people and not completely at first since
I initially mistook being anti-war with pacificism which I was, am uncomfortable
with. Now though 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. I certainly did the year I went up to Maine to walk the walk Peace Walk
then held annually about quiet Bath and its well-oiled shipbuilding capacity. Each year they organizers, more about them in
a minute, try to gather in a theme that speaks to the militarization of our
country, of the world, the particular role Maine plays in that process and of
course from our perspective some alternatives. In 2016 that was around creating
the environment for a sustainable future, very much more in doubt in the few years
since that walk, which meant a serious frontal attack on the role the military
plays in not making the future world sustainable. I should have mentioned before
that leaflets are passed out with messages along that line along the line of
march, the sites selected like Bath Iron Works where things need to be changed
and evening programs at the various nightly stopping points dealing with the overall
theme message.
I noted in the
last archival caption that I have been doing these walks for a few years even
though I had my fill of marches in the Army. Moreover, I had my doubts whether
such a walking program over a couple of weeks would do anything for the cause,
still have questions.
Enter the
great equalizers. I started, kicking and
screaming at first about doing this trek once my friends Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris
went up to Maine to help out in the annual Maine Peace Walk sponsored by the Maine
chapter of Veterans for Peace and other local activist peace groups. Ralph and
Sam pointed out that even a few VFP dove-encrusted flags on the march would ensure
that some message was getting through. Having seen that flag business work a
million times before I bought in -for part of the trek.
Of course if
you had read the previous caption you know 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.
(As it turned out Sam and Ralph who started their own treks there were clueless
when I asked where the place was except the military has a tracking station there
which links that nowhere Maine town with the American’s military’s globalization
of their forces in many fields. I said good work brothers for starting there,
yes, good work indeed.
Ralph Morris
and I are Vietnam veterans, Sam didn’t serve because he was the sole surviving
son of a mother who had four young daughters to raise after Sam’s drunken father
passed away of a heart attack in 1965. It took me a while, took me a while as
it did to “get religion” on the issues of war and peace, and to get over the
false division between anti-war activity and working with avowed pacifists to accept
Sam as a brother. Hell as a winter soldier although I already knew from Ralph
that as early as 1971 in Washington on May Day where they “met” after being
arrested in Robert F. Kennedy football stadium where they had with their
respective groups attempted to stop the war by stopping the government that Sam
was some old righteous Puritan angel avenger out of the John Brown mold. Took a
while but knew deep in my bones that this guy was for real, that when he said something
you could depend on him. Yeah, now in 2019 we are in desperate need of winter soldiers.
And if you don’t know, are not familiar with that term then think about that small
band of stalwarts was held firm at Valley Forge come fight against the British
and their hirelings. The defenders of the republican idea when that was very
dicey indeed. Like now.
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