In The Desperate Search For Peace- The Maine Veterans For
Peace-Sponsored March For Peace and Protection Of The Planet From Rangeley To
North Berwick-October 2014 -Take Two
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
“You know I never stepped up and opposed that damn war in
Vietnam that I was part of, a big part of gathering intelligence to direct
those monster B-52s to their targets. Never thought about much except to try
and get my ass out of there alive, in one piece. Didn’t get “religion” on the
issues of war and peace until sometime after I got out when I ran into a few
Vietnam veterans who were organizing a demonstration with the famous Vietnam
Veterans Against The War (VVAW) down in Washington and they told me what was
what. So since then, you know, even if we never get peace, and at times that
seems like some kind of naïve fantasy I have felt I have to be part of actions
like today, like today with guys like you and other members of Veterans for
Peace, to let people know, to let myself know, that when the deal went down I
was where the action was, ’’ said Jack Scully to his fellow Vietnam veteran
Peter Mullin.
Peter had been sitting in the passenger seat of the car Jack
was driving when he made his comment as they were travelling back to Jack’s
summer place in York after they had just finished participating in the last leg
of the Maine Veterans for Peace-sponsored walk for peace and preservation of
the planet from Rangeley to North Berwick, a distance of about one hundred and
twenty miles over a ten day period in the October breezes, the wayward October
2014 breezes. (Mike Kelly, a younger veteran from the Iraq wars, a newer member
who neither of the Vietnam veterans knew well other than he had suffered Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and had
received a disability allowance, whose story they would find out more about
some time later sat in back silently drinking in what these grizzled old
activists were discussing)
The organizers of the march had a method to their madness
since Rangeley was projected to be a missile site, and the stopping points in
between were related to the war industries or to some environmental protection
issue ending in North Berwick where the giant defense contractor Pratt-Whitney
has three shifts running building F-35 missiles and parts for fighter jets. The
three veterans who had come up from Boston to participate in the action had walked
the last leg from Saco (pronounced “socko” as a Mainiac pointed out to Peter
when he said “sacko”) to the Pratt-Whitney plant in North Berwick, some fifteen
miles or so along U.S. Route One and Maine Route Nine.
As Peter let Jack’s comment sink in this is what he had
already had known about Jack, whom he had worked with on several anti-war
campaigns previously, before he made his comment. Jack, born and raised in the
Irish diaspora ghettoes of hard rock Philadelphia, had enlisted in the Army in
1968, before he was to be foregone conclusion drafted as he called it, along
with his friends from the neighborhood (“a package deal” he called it so they would
all go to basic training together at nearby Fort Dix), Pudge, Pinky and Five
Fingers (guess what that five fingers had been doing to earn that sobriquet).
None of them would have thought for a second about not going in when called, had
enlisted just to get a better deal, not get stuck in the infantry like a lot of
draftees (so they thought), could not have stood the gaff in the neighborhoods
back home from friends, from the neighbors, and worse, from the family if they
had done otherwise. Options, if they had been thought about at all, would have
been eliminated out of hand, going to jail for draft refusal was not the kind
of crime the corner boys of Irish working class neighborhoods in Philadelphia went
to jail for back then, flight to Canada was out of the question because running
away from anything human, except a pursuing cop, was unmanly, and applying for
conscientious objector status was out, none of them were in that category if
they had known what it was and how to apply (and an application would have been
rejected out of hand since the church had a “just war” position while objection
then required total opposition to war). No, Jack and his boys were reared in
the traditional Irish Catholic verities of home, church and country pushed
weekly at church and on television by Bishop Sheehan and reinforced by the
screeds from some high-shelf pulpit of the hard anti-communist prelate Cardinal
Spellman of New York City. Where was there room in that mix for a confused
young man from North Philadelphia, if he had been confused, to make a
conscientious stand against the war in those precincts.
And so Jack dutifully went in, was in the course of training
assigned to military intelligence school to learn how to evaluate bombing runs
and enemy targets and then duly sent to the only place where such specialists
were in demand in those days, the hellhole sweaty, sultry god forsaken Republic
of Vietnam. Right at MACV headquarters out by the airport at first then various
field stations within fifty miles of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) later. From about the second week Jack could sense
that something was not right, that the work he was assigned to do was evil.
Every day his conscience was troubled, but the way he dealt with that conflict
was to try to survive a day at a time, that, and smoke as much of the plentiful
dope that was always just laying around as possible.
After Jack had been a couple of months in-country it did not
help that Pudge had been killed when his encampment down in the Delta had been
overrun one night by Charlie. (Pudge, Pinky and Five Fingers not being as
bright as Jack, who had been to a semester of college, were assigned to
infantry training, their worst fear, another specialty that was then in hot demand
in stinking ‘Nam). Jack had reacted to the news by taking his rifle out in the
street and tried to go and shoot every “gook” (his usage at the time) that he
could see. Fortunately he was so stoned at the time that he fired out into
nothing in the night before his barracks mates subdued him. When after six
months in-country Five Fingers was seriously wounded up in Pleiku and had to be
Evac-ed home Jack began to shoot up, do H to keep the demons at bay.
Finally, mercifully, Jack’s tour was up, he had extended his
tour six month just to get out of the service a few months early. After being
discharged he went home but home was no longer what it had been, he deserved no
hero’s welcome, deserved no free drinks at Sully’s from the corner boys and
their fathers and so slipped out of town one night and headed south. The first
stop was Washington and that is where he met the kindred from VVAW who talked
to him, finally got him to make sense of what the hell he had been through.
Through fits and starts over the next couple of years he got his “religion” and
that was that.
After Peter thought about what Jack had said about his
commitment to such actions as that day’s he made this reply, “You know I didn’t
step up and oppose the Vietnam War very seriously until pretty late, after I
got out of the Army in 1971 and was working with some Quaker-types in a GI
bookstore near Fort Dix down in New Jersey (both of the other men gave the
usual signs of recognition of that place, a place where they had taken their
respective basis trainings) and that is where I got, what did you call it Jack,
“religion” on the war issue. You know I have done quite a few things in my
life, some good, some bad but of the good that people have always praised me
for, that social work I did for a while, and later teaching I always tell them
this- there are a million social workers, there are a million teachers, but
these days, and for long time now, there have been very few peace activists on
the ground so if you want to praise me, want to remember me for anything then
let it be for this kind of work, things like this march today when our forces
were few and the tasks enormous.”
This is what Jack already had known about Peter before he
made his comment. Peter, born and raised in the Irish diaspora ghettoes of hard
rock North Adamsville just outside of Boston, had been drafted in the Army in
1969, kicking and screaming a little not over the morality of the war but that
he was leaving his flirty girlfriend behind who would be hit on by every guy,
even his corner boys, in the neighborhood and might just succumb to some sweet
talk. Unlike Jack though he went in alone since, being a little older that Jack
and his crowd, his corner boys had already done their service (one, Jimmy J.
from down his street, had been killed during the Tet Offensive). Here is the
common drill though. None of them, including Peter, would have thought for a
second about not going in when called, most had enlisted to get a better deal
(so they thought), none could have stood
the gaff in the neighborhoods back home from friends, from the neighbors, and
worse, from the family if they had done otherwise. Options, if they had been
thought about at all, would have been eliminated out of hand, going to jail for
draft refusal was not the kind of crime the corner boys of Irish working class
neighborhoods went to jail for back then, armed robbery being more likely, and
then maybe a deal with the judge to go into the service in lieu of jail time. Flight
to Canada was out of the question because running away from anything human,
except a pursuing cop, was unmanly, and applying for conscientious objector
status was out, none of them were in that category if they had known what it
was and how to apply (and would have been rejected since the church had a “just
war” position while objection then required total opposition to war). No, like Jack and his boys, Peter and his boys were reared in the
traditional Irish Catholic verities of home, church and country pushed weekly
at church and on television by Bishop Sheehan and reinforced by the screeds of
the hard anti-communist prelate Cardinal Spellman of New York City. Where was
there room in that mix for a confused young man from North Adamsville, if he
had been confused, to make a conscientious stand against the war in those
precincts. Where, indeed.
So Peter went in, losing that flirty girlfriend to some guy
from Hull during basic training down at Fort Dix and then assigned to infantry
training. And infantry trained soldiers in 1969, despite everybody with any
sense knowing that the whole damn war was lost, were being respectfully
requested in the hellhole, sweaty, sultry Republic of Vietnam. And so Peter
went to the hellhole, and unbelievably, came back without a scratch although he
lost about twenty pounds from the loss of fluids that he could never keep up
with as they sweated away in the horrible humidity. But like Jack he had seen
things, done things that no man should have ever had to have done. He wasn’t
much for talking about that stuff, then or now, even with veterans. Spend most
of his time in-country stoned on grass, maybe a little cocaine, like every
other GI with any sense (except the southern boys, southern white boys, who
didn’t do dope but drank their time away, mostly cheap PX whiskey).
Finally, mercifully, Peter’s tour was up, in those days, in
late 1970, they were letting Vietnam guys with short time get stationed near
home when possible and he was assigned to Fort Devens about forty miles from
Boston. One day as he was leaving the post he ran into some anti-war
protestors, mostly Quakers from around the area and not some student SDS-types
from Boston who he had kind of scorned, who told him they had staged a weekly
vigil in front of the fort for the previous year. He said he would to talk to
them sometime after telling them he had been in ‘Nam and could sure use
somebody to talk to. They told him to come to a Friends meeting, and that it probably
best to do so in Cambridge away from the fort where he could relax and not be
monitored. He did do so one Sunday on a weekend pass, talked a lot to a very
sympathetic young Quaker woman, Susan, whom after several meeting he started to
date, kind of, kind of they both called it even after they had gone to bed
together later after he had been discharged.
After being discharged he went home but like with Jack home
was no longer what it had been, he deserved no hero’s welcome, deserved no free
drinks at Dublin Grille from the corner
boys and their fathers and so slipped out of town one night and headed to
Cambridge and that good Quaker woman’s arms. Stayed with Susan there until she
talked him into going to Fort Dix with her and help with the GI anti-war work
there centered on a coffeehouse that had been set up. Peter did that for a
while, stayed with that sweet Quaker woman too but he was no Quaker and so he
moved on after a while. But it was those Quakers who talked to him, talked to
him without condescension, and finally got him to make sense of what the hell
he had been through. Over the next couple of years he got his “religion” and
that was that.
With that exchange between the two men done the three men,
as the sun started setting, headed back on the last stretch to York in silence
all thinking about what they had accomplished that day.
It had been a long day, a long Monday to begin a hectic
week, starting early for Peter since, due to other commitments, he had had to
drive up to York before dawn that morning. Those commitments included having
stayed up late the night before working on a leaflet in support of the
imprisoned heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower transgender Army soldier, Chelsea
Manning (formerly Bradley), who had been serving a thirty-five sentence at Fort
Leavenworth in Kansas for basically telling the American people, telling her
fellow soldiers, telling Peter, the truth about American military atrocities in
Iraq and Afghanistan and other nefarious acts of the American government abroad, which was to be passed out at the Veterans
Day anti-war parade in Boston. That previous night’s task a labor of love which
had also included a few years of work on Chelsea’s behalf ever since he heard
about the case in the fall of 2010 which Peter saw as some penance for his own
failure to speak up in the military in his time.
Jack and Mike already in York too had gotten up early to
make sure all the Veterans for Peace and personal gear for the march was in
order. They were expected in Saco (you know how to say it now even if you are
not from Maine, or never been there) for an 8:30 start to the walk and so left
York for the twenty-five mile trip up to that town about 7:30. They arrived at
the inevitable Universalist-Unitarian Church (U-U) about 8:15 and prepared the
Veterans for Peace flags that the twelve VFPers from the Smedley Butler Brigade
who came up from Boston for the last leg would carry.
That inevitable U-U remark by the way needs some
explanation, or rather a kudo. Of all the churches, with the honorable exception
of the Quakers, the U-Us have been the one consistent church which has provided
a haven for peace activists and their projects, various social support groups
and 12- step programs. And, of course, the thing that Peter knew them for through
his companion who spent many hours in such places improving her voice by
practicing in front of small audiences in what he felt had been the last gasp
effort to preserve the folk minute of the early 1960s by opening their doors on
a monthly basis and turn their basements or auditoria into throw-back
coffeehouses with the remnant folk performers from that milieu playing, young
and old.
And so a little after 8:30 they were off, a motley
collection of about forty to fifty people, some VFPers from the sponsoring
Maine chapter (who when Peter inquired to Brent, the organizer and all-around
wizard, found out that they had taken turns doing the various legs as they were
able to do so from Rangeley on down), the Smedleys (who as previously mentioned
were making this last leg to finish the week off in good style. Peter had
mentioned to Jack on the way up to Saco that they would horn in on the
accolades for the march by showing up on the last day to be before the cameras
and microphones looking like they had walked the entire distance. Jack laughed
that such illusionary actions were part of politics, what the hell), some
church peace activist types (the usual U-Us and Quakers, but also a few from a
Hindu commune in Portland, a commune of Westerners who had converted along the
way seeing that religion as one of searching for self-peace and world peace,
who proved to be very interesting when Jack talked to couple of them on the
route, a few young environmental activists (representing the protection of
Mother Earth part of march but unlike a lot of such young people linking up the
tremendous social waste of the military with the soon-to-be over the top
climate problems not usually connected by that movement), and a cohort of
Buddhists in full yellow robe regalia leading the procession with their
chanting and pacing drum beating.
These Buddhists were well-known to Jack and Peter from
various peace actions in Boston and the annual peace walk they walked each year
from their monastery in Northampton, Massachusetts to some distant location,
perhaps as far away as Washington, D.C. Peter joked to one of them, a
Westerner, that they were the walkingest people he knew. She replied that the
walking freed up energies to bring some little peace in the world. And Peter to
his surprise seeing them still going strong after several miles of walking
swore that he picked up his own flagging pace just being part of their
procession.
Those Buddhists, or some of them, had been on the whole
journey from Rangeley unlike most participants who came on one or a few legs
and then left. A little saunter of one hundred and twenty miles for them,
child’s play. The group started appropriately enough walking up the eternal
America Main Street although if you know about coastal Maine that is really
U.S. Route One which would be the main road of the march until Wells where they
would pick up Maine Route Nine into North Berwick and the Pratt-Whitney plant.
Peter had a flash-back thought early on the walk through
downtown Saco as he noticed that the area was filled with old red brick
buildings that had once been part of the thriving textile industry which
ignited the Industrial Revolution here in America. Had been the place where his
old friend, Josh Breslin, met out in California after he got out of the service
who had tried to escape from the place and who just couldn’t get it out of his
blood and eventually returned to the area now living in Old Orchard. Josh had
told him many stories about growing up here, about how the mills leaving in the
1950s to head to the cheap labor non-union South had almost destroyed his
father, and about the pull of the place on him after he had “sown his wild
oats.”
Yes, Peter “knew” this town much like his own North
Adamsville, another red brick building town, and like old Jack Kerouac’s red
brick building Merrimack River Lowell which he had been in the previous week to
help celebrate the annual Kerouac festival. All those towns had seen better
days, had also made certain come-backs of late, but walking pass the small
store blocks in Saco there were plenty of empty spaces and a look of quiet
desperation on those that were still operating just like he had recently
observed in those other towns. And the same look on the early morning winos,
homeless, stranglers and vacant eyed they passed along the way.
That sociological observation though was about the only one
that Peter (or anybody) on the march could make since once outside the downtown
area heading to Biddeford and Kennebunk the views in passing were mainly
houses, small strip malls, an occasional gas station and many trees. As the
Buddhists warmed up to their task the first leg proved to be uneventful except
for the odd car or truck honking support from the roadway. (Peter and every
other peace activist he knew always counted honks as support whether they were
or not, whether it was more a matter of road rage or not in the area of an
action, stand-out or march). Both Peter and Jack made it their business to
connect with the Maine VFPers on the march in order to update and encourage
them to send a contingent down to Boston for the Saint Patrick’s Day anti-war
peace parade which the Smedleys had organized for the past four years in
opposition to the pro-war orientation of the “official” parade in South Boston
that day after they had been excluded from that official parade (along with the
GLTBQ community, generic peaceniks and anybody else who did not buy into their
narrow program). They both also, since they had connections to Maine, although
not having been born there like some of the marchers could never claim Mainaic
status, talked to others along the way to get an idea of what had been going on
in Maine since the days when everybody would march on George H.W. Bush’s place
in Kennebunkport to protest his and his son’s wars.
And so the three legs of the morning went. A longer stop for
lunch followed and then back on the road for the final stages trying to reach
the Pratt-Whitney plant for a planned vigil as the shifts were changing about
three o’clock.
[A word on logistics since this was a straight line march
with no circling back. The organizers had been given an old small green bus by
a supporter up in Ellsworth for their transportation needs. That green bus was
festooned with painted graffiti drawings which reminded Peter of the old time
1960s Ken Kesey Merry Prankster bus and a million replicas that one could see
coming about every other minute out of the Pacific Coast Highway hitchhike
minute back then. The green bus served as the storage area for personal
belongings and snacks and, importantly, as the vehicle which would periodically pick up the drivers in
the group and leaf-frog their cars toward North Berwick. Also provided rest for
those too tired or injured to walk any farther. And was the lead vehicle for the
short portion of the walk where everybody rode during one leg before the final
walk to the plant gate.]
So just before three o’clock they arrived at the plant and
spread out to the areas in front of the three parking lots holding signs and
waving to on-coming traffic. Receiving a fair share of peace signs, the
ubiquitous two fingers spread apart to form a V and the occasional honk. That
was done for about an hour, including massing at the Employees parking lot to
take advantage of the mass exodus which had to wait at a stop sign before
hitting Route Nine home. After that crowd thinned out they gathered together
and formed a circle, sang a couple of songs, took some group photographs before
the Pratt-Whitney sign and then headed for the cars to be carried a few miles
up the road to friendly farmhouse for a simple meal before dispersing to their various
homes. In all an uneventful day as far as logistics went. Of course no vigil,
no march, no rally or anything else in the front of some huge corporate
enterprise, some war industries target, or some high finance or technological site
would be complete without the cops, public or private, thinking they were confronting
the Russian Revolution of 1917 on their property and that was the case this day
as well.
Peter did not know whether the organizers had contacted
Pratt-Whitney, probably not nor he thought should they have, or security had
intelligence that the march was heading their way but a surly security type
made it plain that the marchers were not to go on that P-W property, or else.
As if a rag-tag group of fifty mostly older pacifists, lukewarm socialists,
non-violent veterans and assorted church people were going to shut the damn
place down, or try to, that day.
Nothing came of the security agent’s threats as there was no
need for that but as Peter got out of Jack’s car in York he expressed the hope
that someday they would be leading a big crowd to shut that plant down. No
questions asked. In the meantime they had set the fragile groundwork. Yes, it
had been a good day and they had all been at the right place.
