Armistice
Day Reflections- I Don’t Need A Good Conduct Certificate As An Anti-War Veteran-With
Frank Jackman In Mind
By Fritz
Taylor
“I don’t
need a good conduct certificate from Norm, National VFP, Smedley VFP, the gods,
history, or anybody else to carry high the banner of VFP as an anti-war veteran,”
Frank Jackman kept thinking to himself as he tossed and turned in the middle of
night after he had looked at an e-mail from his old nemesis Norman Gordon.
(Frank would also use that sentiment as the headline title of an e-mail that he
would sent to the members of the Executive Committee of his local Veterans for
Peace chapter, VFP, the Smedley Butler Brigade responding to Norm’s “charges.”)
What had happened was that good old curmudgeon and guy who would rain on
anybody’s parade but his own Norm Gordon had been up to his old tricks trying
cause dissension in the ranks of the local organization. It would not have been
the first time the two had locked horns over some organizational matter. The
last time had been over whether the local chapter should carry as a matter of
course the American flag in any public functions they attended. They both
agreed on the matter that the chapter should not but Frank had been furious
that Norm had not attended the meeting where the issue was discussed and had
left him to carry the burden of the argument alone while he attended to some
private business of his own. (Their position lost and would have anyway if Norm
had shown up but that was just one more example of his stirring the waters up
and then leaving everybody high and dry).
This time
the issue was personal, was about Frank’s status as an anti-war veteran, about
whether he was in fact a veteran which was how acrimonious Norm could be when
he got his fangs up. Frank had joined the local chapter of Veterans for Peace
six or seven years before , recruited by Paul Sullivan the chapter coordinator,
after having worked with the organization off and on for a number of years
previous to that time. The crucial event had been his participant in an
Armistice Day parade and program where he had proudly carried the black and
white dove-emblemed VFP banner for the first time (Armistice Day also known as,
officially known as Veterans Day, but the original intent had been to designate
the day as a day of peace after the end of the huge bloodbath that was World
War I). Frank’s position about joining organizations after a lifetime of
belonging to many socialist and peace organizations, large and small, ad hoc
and permanent, sometimes active, sometimes as a “paper” member was that he
would not join a group unless he planned to be active. That decision had been
solidified by his carrying that Armistice Day VFP flag that year.
What Frank
had joined, and what he thought he had joined was the Boston chapter, the
Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 of VFP and he had paid his chapter dues
accordingly (and would in subsequent years as well). (The chapter named after
the famous much decorated Marine Corps general who once he got “religion” on
the war issue famously said “war is a racket”-and said much more as well look
it up in Wikipedia for the full
text.) His understanding and the
understanding codified in the by-laws of the chapter was that you could be a
member of the local chapter without being a member of the national
organization. Since he was actively working with the local chapter and would
have been a mere paper member of the national organization all through his
membership he had never joined, never thought to join the national
organization.
Enter Norm
and his late night e-mail. In that e-mail Norm had mentioned that somehow he
had found out that Frank was not a member of the national organization and by his
lights not a member of VFP having not paid dues or submitted a DD214 ( military
discharge papers which are the signal that you have in some way, shape or form
completed your active duty) as required to be a member of the national
organization (how and why Norm got that information from somebody at
headquarters in Saint Louis he would never answer despite Frank’s repeated
questions).
In
additional and this is the point on which Frank blew his stack Norm questioned
whether Frank had ever been in the military since he had not produced a DD214
for the local as required by the local by-laws.
At the time of his recruitment, and he later asked Paul Sullivan about
it and Paul was not sure whether back then proof of service was necessary for
full membership, nobody had, including Paul, asked him for any documentation.
Under ordinary circumstances challenging a member’s military service would not have
been a “red flag,” hot button, seeing red issue by the local but only a few months
previously there had been an ugly confrontation with people taking sides over
what turned out to be bizarre case involving “stolen valor” (a term which
signifies that somebody who may or may not have been in the military claims a
lot of hot air combat bravery stuff like you would hear at an American Legion
bar room). So Frank, who had been deeply embroiled in the controversy, was
beside himself when even the hint of a challenge like that to his credentials
came up, and it would not have had to be somebody as professionally
antagonistic as Norm to have Frank seeing red.
Here is how
Frank initially responded to Norm’s e-mail after a fitful night of tossing and
turning over the issue:
“Frankly Norm you are
by your accusations now the primary reason why I do not choose to join National
and had been one reason ever since you were treasurer badgering me to
join -or as you say the “real” VFP-I am a proud member of Smedley Butler
Brigade, Chapter 9, VFP if that is not "real
“VFP well I can live with
that. By the way you should check the chapter by-laws like I did which do not
require national membership for Smedley membership.
“The other reason I choose not to join, and had once been the primary
reason was that I do not when I join an organization want to be a
paper member-I would only be a paper member of National and obviously I am
not a paper member of Smedley- I still want to know why you would be
interested in why I am member of national or not and how you would have access
to information about whether I was or not.
“More pressing though is your libelous remark about whether I was a
veteran or not-I am right now putting in a request to the State Adjutant
General's Office to get a copy of my discharge but I have other things on
this accusation to say and will be sending out an e-mail about it if you can't
wait to heard that I submitted my DD 214 to the Executive Committee. Later
Frank Jackman “
Norm’s
answer to that e-mail, his not unusual sniveling answer was that Frank had
mistaken his intent, he was just trying to get an active member of Smedley who
moreover had attended various national events like the convention to join up
with others in National. On the military service question he totally backed off
saying he was sure that Frank had done military service. That sniveling made
Frank more aware than ever that he had to tell people associated with the local
chapter what his real military service was like and put some egg on Brother
Gordon’s face.
Frank had
not mentioned much about his actual military service in part because for a very
public man, for man who believed in his role of as a street anti-war activist
he was very, very private about his personal life, about things that had
happened to him in the past. That challenge by Norm had got him to thinking
about something that had been in the back of his mind for a while about being a
little more forthcoming about that aspect of his past. As part of trying to
settle himself down over the whole Norm flare-up he had sent an e-mail to his
ex-wife with whom he was still on friendly terms and he still counted on to
give him counsel when he had what he called “a fire in his head.” Here’s what he had to say to Moira:
“Pea [pet
name for Moira]-I want to tell you about this Norm character who called your
house expecting that I was still living there. I already mentioned [in a
previous e-mail] that he is some weird curmudgeon that wants to rain on everybody’s
parade but his own. What he wanted to talk to me about and which he sent me an
e-mail about last night when I had not called him was why I was not a member of
VFP. This may sound odd but there are two parts to VFP-the National which has
its own organizational structure and local Smedley which is part of and is subordinate
to National. The point is that you can belong to Smedley without belonging to
National and can run for local office as I have an idea to do this year without
joining National. I have seen no reason except as a paper member to be a member
of National. You know when I join something it is for real and not just for the
resume.
What’s a resume by the way? [Private joke between them because Frank
has never assembled a resume having been in the right place at the right time
on such matters most of his working life.] Norm’s position is that because I am
not a member of National I am not a member of VFP and therefore should not hold
office which is what I want to do come the next election cycle, and he probably
thinks I am not be a member of Smedley although our by-laws do not require it.
“The more
serious allegation though is that he questions whether I am a veteran at all
(like in the Bill Fuller case with all his fake “stolen valor” stuff). What
this all means is that I feel honor bound not to him since I don’t need a good
conduct certificate from him or anybody to prove I earned my spurs as an
anti-war Veteran who did stockade time for his beliefs but to Smedley to clear
the air. That means I have to bring up my military history which I have only
told you the details of recently and which I have kept a low profile on with
Smedley. You know I have earned my right to carry the VFP banner high the hard
way and I know you are proud of me for that.
“Funny
though you know, or if you don’t know I will tell you, I am a very private
public man if you get my drift and only tell about my personal life when I am
up against the wall. This fall has been “outing” season for me. First having to
talk about my cancer in public when I couldn’t put together that Peace Walk to
Boston. Then I had to reveal to others the problems we were having in our
marriage once I moved out and now this. I know you have my back on this-and
maybe this will make me a better or more open person and you can be proud of me
for that too.
“Thank
goodness though I am doing meditation because I really needed to do some after
all that noise of this Norm thing -thanks for bringing me to see the virtue of
that idea-kudos.
“Please if Norm
calls either hang up or just say I don’t live there anymore but don’t give him
my cellphone number.”
Moira’s
response was that she supported Frank in his efforts to clear his good name and
that he should write a detailed explanation to the local Executive Board [whom
he in any case as a precaution had CC’d his various exchanges with Norm]of why he need
not be challenged on his military service. Before that he had sent an e-mail
telling the local leadership what he had already done and where he was heading:
“Thanks to everybody
for the support- I just put in a request for my DD214 with the State Adjutant
General’s Office (that is the place in Massachusetts you can get a copy of your
discharge for certain veterans from periods when you got a State bonus for
military service).
"I will be
writing more about that in an e-mail (actually two e-mails) later but for now since I am under a “cloud” about
whether I am a veteran or not I want to know if the Committee thinks I should
Emcee the Armistice Day program as I am expected too [Frank had volunteered to
do that task as part of his stepped-up commitment to the local.] I will
understand either way. I am more than willing to do it but will abide by your
judgment. If I am not going to it I probably would not attend the
parade/program so I have attached a copy of the Sam Adams Park permit [the
place in downtown Boston where the program was to be presented] permit for somebody
to print up and have when they set up. Remember the hassle last year. The
cellphone number at the bottom 617-678-4114 is Laura Morris’ number in case of
trouble- Later Frank”
In the event
the Committee had begged him to avoid dealing with Norm as a fruitless task for
while they had already suffered many wounds. That evening he took up Moira’s
suggestion and wrote a statement:
“I Don’t
Need A Good Conduct Certificate That I Am An Anti-War Veteran
“I don’t
need a good conduct certificate from Norm, National VFP, Smedley VFP, the gods,
history, or anybody else to carry high the banner of VFP as an anti-war
veteran. This issue has come up because of Norm’s erroneous insistence that I
am not a member of VFP because I am not a member of National. I have addressed
that elsewhere. What I find I need to defend myself against is his libelous
insinuation that I am not a veteran. Comparing me by inference with the
unfortunate Bill Fuller. I have today put in a request to the State Adjutant
General’s Office, the place that has the DD214s for certain classes of
Massachusetts veterans who received bonuses during various war periods. I checked this morning and they still have mine
(they moved from the State House to Milford). They have e-mailed me the request
form which has to be returned by snail mail and they will return the DD214 by
my requested e-mail delivery. That process shouldn’t take long and I will
submit the document to the Ex Committee via e-mail when I get it.
“But there
is a faster way to check on my military service. Norm, since you seem to have
plenty of time on your hands for checking stuff for no apparent purpose other
than some private nefarious purpose of your own why don’t you go down to the
Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston or wherever they keep the older federal
decisions in the next couple of day (who knows maybe you can find it on the
Internet these day since it is a public record) and ask to see the decision in
Private Francis J. Jackman (it may have been Joseph rather than the initial but
the last time I looked, needed to look was in1976 so I am not sure of that) v.
the Secretary of the Army (and others including the commanding general of Fort
Devens and some underlings) around early February 1971 (I am not sure of the exact
court order date but it was several days before my discharge). In that case old
cranky Judge Francis Ford, no friend of G.I. resisters, ordered on a writ of
habeas corpus my discharge from the Army for “arbitrarily and capriciously”
denying my conscientious objector application. I was given a discharge under
honorable conditions.
“By the way
that discharge by the Army was directly from the Fort Devens stockade where I
was serving a six month sentence from a Special Court-Martial for refusing to
wear the Army uniform. That was the second of two Special Court-Martials where
I received a stiff sentence (the first, also six months, was just after they
turned down my C.O. application where I, in uniform, attended an anti-war rally
at the Main Gate of Fort Devens during “duty hours”). So altogether between
confinement to barracks, periods of house arrest, stockade time including time
in solitary (for “my own protection’’) I did well over a year in confinement. In a later e-mail I will detail the pertinent
facts and my reasons for keeping this information “on the low,” but for now you
can understand that I am not going to take any noise from anybody about my
status as an anti-war veteran who has paid his dues and can carry the VFP
banner high, very high.
“Although I
don’t need witnesses to my anti-war Army good conduct Sally Rand from the
Friends Meeting up in Cumberland, Maine who used to be at the Cambridge Meeting
then was one of the organizers of the rally I attended in uniform in front of
the fort. And of several rallies in my defense before that first court-martial.
You can also ask Sev to ask his wife Lana if she remembers going to Fort Devens
for some rallies for a G.I. resister. I know I got a letter of support from her
while I was in the stockade.
“Like I said
I will give details and my reasons later for not speaking about this matter but
actually Norm and Nancy already know this story-they just don’t know they know
it. Last Spring I think at Edward’s Midnight
Voices at Friends Meeting House I read a short piece which I titled Jack Callahan’s Fate-With Bob Dylan’s
Masters Of War in Mind. I have been thinking about speaking about my
military past for a while and now this situation has forced my hand. That piece
was a slightly fictionalized, and slightly embellished, run through of my own
situation from that time. Now you can understand better why the Chelsea Manning
case is so close to my heart.
“So the hell
with anybody who has a problem with me not being a member of National, I have
earned my right to carry the VFP banner without a lot of noise about it.”
A few days
later Frank sent the Executive Committee the following to fill out the story:
“Pertinent
facts and reasons for keeping low on my military career
“I am as I have
recognized more clearly this fall a very private public person. I have tried until recently to keep the two
separate. But the need to go public, to be “outed” one way or another about my
battle with cancer when I couldn’t put together the Peace Walk to Boston, my
impeding divorce once I was no longer in Watertown and now a question about my
military service have required me to be more open about the private side . As I
stated in an earlier e-mail about my military status brought on by Norm’s
e-mail inquiry about why I am not a member of National, and more importantly in
impugning my status as a veteran not having produced a DD214 for Smedley. A
process which as far as I know was not required for local membership until we
created the by-laws this year although there might have been some requirement
that I had not been aware. I was certainly not asked for one when I joined. Now
events have forced me to come forward on this issue as well. That questioning
of my veteran status in light of the recent Bill Fuller “hot button” situation by
Norm had as a matter of protecting myself and my anti-war reputation required
me to speak out. Below are the pertinent facts and reasons for my previous
silence.
“I received
my draft notice in the fall of 1968, took a physical which I passed and was
called for induction in January, 1969. At that time I was fairly anti-Vietnam
War but not enough to decide not to accept induction and either go to jail or
Canada. My anti-war thought processes at that stage had not developed that far.
While I thought vaguely about not going into the service nothing in my past
headed me in that direction, including any support from family or friends for
that kind of decision so that was off the radar. So I was inducted at the
Boston Army Base and sent to Fort Gordon down in Augusta, Georgia for basic
training. After about three, maybe four days down there I realized that I had
made a horrible mistake. But I was down in Georgia far from home and so
whatever thoughts I had about doing anything stayed with me until I was able to
get home. At least that was my idea.
“Now in 1969
all the Army cared about for the most part was replacing the “cannon-fodder”
loses on the battlefields in 1968 through Tet and other battles so having no
other specialized skills I was assigned to Infantry AIT (11Bravo, “grunt”, “cannon-fodder”)
at Fort McClellan in Alabama. The only possible assignment for me after that designation
and training was in the bloody rice fields of Vietnam. At AIT a few of us from around Boston talked
about refusing to take machine gun training but nothing came of it once the
company commander read us the riot act and threatened the stockade which I
feared quite a bit then. I thus decided to wait until I got home to see what I
was going to do once I actually did get those orders to report to Fort Lewis in
Washington for transit to Vietnam.
“Once I got
back to Boston I went over to Cambridge to the Friends Meeting House where they
were doing both draft refusal counselling and G.I. rights counselling as well.
One counsellor advised me to file an application as a conscientious objector.
He also “advised” me that servicemen who went AWOL were dropped from their
assigned places after about thirty days in case I wanted avoid going to Fort
Lewis and put the C.O. application at a fort closer to home which would turned
out to be Fort Devens. I did not believe under the standards in effect then
that I qualified as a C.O. since I was not a Quaker or one of the historic
religious objectors to war. So I went to Fort Lewis.
“During that
period I was reading like crazy, anti-war stuff and Catholic resister stuff
like with the Berrigans at Catonsville, some G.I. resistance stuff and began to
form a more definitive idea about what I had to do. Although I did not in the
end wind up going to Vietnam as an infantryman then I was beginning to form the
idea of refusal to continue my military career. As part of that idea I did wind
up going AWOL back to Boston for over thirty days (almost two months really). I
then turned myself into the FBI (after they had called my family’s house
looking for me) and they turned me over to the State Police in Concord who
turned me over the MPs at Fort Devens. There I was placed in a Special
Detachment Unit (for AWOLs and other assorted misfits) to serve my punishment
and also to put in my C.O. application.
“In short
order that C.O. application was “arbitrarily and capriciously” denied out of
hand (words that would be used later to characterize the Army’s action) since I
was stating my objection on general anti-war moral and ethical grounds not at
that moment reason enough to be granted. (Some Supreme Court and lower federal
court decisions would shortly thereafter broaden the scope of objection which
would be germane in my case) and in early 1970 I was to be re-assigned to Fort
Lewis this time again for transport to Vietnam as an infantryman. Before that happened
my civilian attorney (provided through AFSC by the way) was able to get into
federal court in Boston and get a temporary restraining order from a federal
judge so that he could present a writ of habeas corpus that the Army had
unjustly denied my application. That action would keep me at Fort Devens until
my federal case was resolved. That granting of the TRO had also been a close
thing because during my stay at Fort Devens I had begun to agitate against the
war among my fellow soldiers and the very day that I got that TRO there was a
general search around the base looking for me (I had been warned by a
sympathetic clerk what was up and so was hiding on the base) to take me to Fort
Lewis handcuffed and under guard for transport to Vietnam.
“Once I
learned that fate was what the Army had wanted to do to me something snapped in
me. My feelings of resistance grew exponentially. That was when I began to get
the idea of greater resistance. I had during that short period of freedom headed
to Cambridge (only forty miles away) to work with the Quakers who were planning
to rally at Fort Devens to end the war (that is where I met Sally Rand from up
in Maine who was then the organizer of the event). I told them I was willing to
join them during “duty hours” in uniform to protest, to support the call bring
the troops home. I did so and when I went back to the base after the rally I
was immediately arrested by the MPs and placed in the “hole” (solitary) for a
few weeks before my first Special Court-Martial where I drew my first six month
sentence. During that time, and this is important, Sally and others would rally
outside the base in solidarity with my action (and to make sure through publicity
that I was safe since the MPs who manned the stockade were mostly Vietnam veterans).
“When I
finished that sentence (minus good time) I was released back to that Special
Detachment Unit. But the stockade had hardened me in my resolve to resist.
(Plus a lot of reading along that line helped.) A few days after I got out of the
stockade the first time I showed up at morning call out on the base parade
field in civilian clothes with a sign around
neck calling “Bring the troops home.” That brought Special Court-Marital
number two also six months. Toward the end of that sentence the Inspector-General
showed up in my cell one afternoon and told me that the Federal Court in Boston
had granted my writ of habeas corpus and that I was to be released in a few day
(the Army decided not to appeal). Otherwise today I might still be serving six
month sentences-who knows.
“Now there
is obviously nothing in the above narrative to be shy about, at least not in
VFP. Hell, somebody called military
resisters the only real heroes one time I remember (and I have done so in the
Chelsea Manning case). Moreover under the more liberal standards of the times I
deserved that C.O. status and have no problem with having pursued that course. Sometime
after that whole Army experience had been settled I got a little more sophisticated
about imperialism and its inevitable wars and about how to effectively organize
as best we can against it. Under the influence of left-wing socialist thought
(and basically Bolshevik practice in World War I) I came to see that doing
individual actions like mine that only got me put out of the struggle had been
less than effective. The long and short of it was, and still is to some extent,
is that I believed I should have gone to Vietnam and helped organize the
resistance there. With the Army half in mutiny who knows what I could have
done. That is why I have been very hesitant to acknowledge my full military
“career.” And still probably would have been if the issue had not been forced. So
like I said in an earlier e-mail I earned my anti-war spurs the hard way and I
can proudly hold the VFP banner up high and nobody can take that away from me. Frank
Jackman.”
Yeah, Frank
doesn’t need any good conduct certificate-thanks for “your service” Brother.
