From Veterans For Peace In Massachusetts-Stop The Damn Endless Wars-Revelations
What VFP Stands For -
Revelations-From
The Sam Eaton-Ralph Morris Series
From The Pen Of Bart Webber
Ralph Morris had
always considered himself a straight-up guy. Straight up when he dealt with
customers in his high-precision electrical shop in Troy, New York inherited
from his father after he retired before he himself recently retired and turned
it over to his youngest son, James, who would bring the operation into the 21st
century with the high tech equipment precision electrical work needs nowadays.
Straight up when he confronted the trials and tribulations of parenthood and
told the kids that due to his political obligations (of which more in a minute)
he would be away and perhaps seem somewhat pre-occupied at times he would
answer any questions they had about anything as best he could (and the kids in
turn when characterizing their father to me, told me that he was hard-working,
distant but had been straight up with them although those sentiments said in a
wistful, wondering, wishing more manner like there was something missing in the
whole exchange and Ralph agreed when I mentioned that feeling to him that I was
probably right but that he did the best he could). Straight up after sowing his
wild oats along with Sam Eaton, Pete Markin, Frankie Riley and a bunch of other
guys from the working class corners who dived into that 1960s counter-cultural
moment and hit the roads, for a short time after the stress of eighteen months
in the bush in Vietnam. Meaning sleeping with any young woman who would have
him in those care-free days when we were all experimenting with new ways to
deal with that fretting sexual issue and getting only slightly less confused
that when we got all that god-awful and usually wrong information in the
streets where most of us, for good or evil learned to separate our Ps and Qs.
After which he promised his high school sweetheart, Lara Peters, who had waited
for him to settle down to be her forever man. And straight up with what
concerns us here his attitude toward his military service in the Army during
the height of the Vietnam War where he did his time, did not cause waves while
in the service but raised, and is still raising seven kinds of holy hell, once
he became totally disillusioned with the war, with the military brass and with
the American government (no “our government” his way of saying it not mine) who
did nothing but make thoughtless animals out of him and his buddies.
Giving this “straight
up” character business is important here because Ralph several years ago along
with Sam Eaton, a non-Vietnam veteran having been exempted from military duty
due to being the sole support of his mother and four younger sisters after his
ne’er-do-well father died of a massive heart attack in 1965, joined a peace
organization, Veterans For Peace (VFP), in order to work with others doing the
same kind of work (Ralph as a full
member, Sam an associate member in the way membership works in that
organization although both have full right to participate and discuss the aims
and projects going forward) once they decided to push hard against the endless
wars of the American government (both Ralph and Sam’s way of putting the
matter). Without going into great detail Sam and Ralph had met down in
Washington, D.C. on May Day 1971 when they with their respective groups (Sam
with a radical collective from Cambridge and Ralph with Vietnam Veterans
Against the War) attempted to as the slogan went-“shut down the government if
it did not shut down the war.” Unfortunately they failed but the several days
they spent together in detention in RFK Stadium then being used as the main
detention area cemented a life-time friendship, and a life-time commitment to
work for peace. (Sam’s impetus the loss of his best corner boy high school
friend, Jeff Mullins, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1968 who begged
him to tell everybody what was really going on with war if he did not make it
back to tell them himself.)
That brings us to the
Ralph straight up part. He and Sam had worked closely with or been member of for
several years in the 1970s VVAW and other organizations to promote peace. But
as the decade ended and the energy of the 1960s faded and ebbed they like many
others went on with their lives, build up their businesses, had their families to
consider and generally prospered. Oh sure, when warm bodies were needed for
this or that good old cause they were there but until the fall of 2002 their
actions were helter-skelter and of an ad
hoc nature. Patch work they called it. Of course the hell-broth of the senseless,
futile and about six other negative descriptions of that 2003 Iraq war disaster,
disaster not so much for the American government (Sam and Ralph’s now familiar
term) as for the Iraqi people and others under the cross-fires of the American
military juggernaut (my term). So they, having fewer family and work
responsibilities were getting the old time anti-war “religion” fires stoked in
their brains once again to give one more big push against the machine before
they passed on. They started working with VFP in various marches, vigils, civil
disobedience actions and whatever other projects the organization was about
(more recently the case of getting a presidential pardon and freedom for the
heroic Wiki-leaks whistle –blower soldier Chelsea Manning sentenced to a
thirty-five year sentence at Fort Leavenworth for telling the truth about
American atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan). Did that for a couple of years
before they joined. And here is really where that straight up business comes
into play. See they both had been around peace organizations enough to know
that membership means certain obligation beyond paying dues and reading
whatever materials an organization puts out-they did not want to be, had never
been mere “paper members” So after that couple of years of working with VFP in
about 2008 they joined up, joined up and have been active members ever
since.
Now that would be
neither here nor there but Ralph had recently been thinking about stepping up
his commitment even further by running for the Executive Committee of his local
Mohawk Valley chapter, the Kenny Johnson
Chapter. (Sam as an associate member of his local chapter, the James Jencks
Brigade is precluded as a non-veterans from holding such offices the only
distinction between the two types of membership.) He ran and won a seat on the
committee. But straight up again since he was committed to helping lead the
organization locally and perhaps take another step up at some point he decided
this year to go to the National Convention in San Diego (the geographic
location of that site a definitive draw) and learn more about the overall
workings of the organization and those most dedicated to its success.
So Ralph went and
immersed himself in the details of what is going on with the organization. More
importantly he got to hear the details of how guys (and it is mostly guys
reflecting the origins of the organization in 1985 a time when women were not
encouraged to go into the service), mostly guys from his Vietnam War generation
as the older World War II and Korea vets pass on and the Iraq and Afghan war
vets are still finding their “voice” came to join the organization. What amazed
him was how many of the stories centered on various objections that his fellow
members had developed while in whatever branch of the military they were in.
See Ralph had kept his “nose clean” despite his growing disenchantment with the
war while serving his eighteen months in country. He had been by no means a
gung-ho soldier although he had imbibed all the social and political attitudes
of his working class background that he had been exposed to concerning doing
service, fighting evil commies and crushing anything that got in the way of the
American government. He certainly was not a model soldier either but he went
along, got along by getting along. These other guys didn’t.
One story stood out
not because it was all that unusual in the organization but because Ralph had
never run up against anything like it during his time of service from 1967-1970.
Not in basic training AIT, not in Vietnam although he had heard stuff about
disaffected soldiers toward the end of his enlistment. This guy, Frank
Jefferson, he had met at one of the workshops on military resisters had told Ralph
when he asked that he had served a year in an Army stockade for refusing to
wear the uniform, refusing to do Army work of any kind. At least voluntarily. The
rough details of Frank’s story went like this. He had been drafted in late 1968
and was inducted into the Army in early 1969 having had no particular reason
not to go in since while he was vaguely anti-war like most college students he
was not a conscientious objector (and still doesn’t since he believes wars of
national liberation and the like are just and supportable, especially those who
are facing down the barrel of American imperialism, was not interested in going
to jail like some guys, some draft resisters, from his generation who refused
to be inducted an did not even think about the option of Canada or some such
exile. Moreover the ethos of his town, his family, his whole social circle was
not one that would have welcomed resistance, would not have been understood as
a sincere if different way of looking at the world. Add to that two guys had
been killed in Vietnam from his neighborhood and the social pressure to conform
was too great to buck even if he had had stronger convictions then.
Three days, maybe
less after Frank was deposited at Fort Jackson in South Carolina in January,
1969 for basic training he knew he had made a great mistake, had had stronger
anti-war feelings, maybe better anti-military feelings than he suspected and was
heading for a fall. This was a period when draftees, those fewer and fewer men
who were allowing themselves to be drafted, were being channeled toward the
infantry, the “grunts,” the cannon-fodder (words he learned later but not known
as he came in) and that was his fate. He was trained as an 11 Bravo, killer
soldier. Eventually he got orders to report to Fort Lewis in Washington for
transport to Vietnam. On a short leave before he was requested to report Frank went
back to Cambridge where he grew up and checked in with the Quakers which
somebody had told him to do if he was going to challenge his fate in any way.
The counsellor there advised him to put in a CO application at Fort Devens
nearby. He did so, was turned down because as a Catholic objector he did not
qualify under the doctrine of that church. (And he still held to his “just war”
position mentioned above). He tried to appeal that decision through military
then civilian channels with help from a lawyer provided by the Quakers (really
their American Friends Service Committee) although that was dicey at best. Then,
despite some counsel against such actions Frank had an epiphany, a day of
reckoning, a day when he decided that enough was enough and showed up at parade
field for the Monday morning report in civilian clothes carrying a “Bring The
Troops Home” sign. Pandemonium ensued, he was man-handled by two beefy lifer-sergeants
and was thrown in the stockade. Eventually he was tried and sentenced to six
month under a special court-martial for disobeying orders which he served. He
got out after during that stretch and continued to refuse to wear the uniform
or do work. So back to the stockade and re-trial getting another six months,
again for disobeying lawful orders. Fortunately that civilian lawyer had
brought the CO denial case to the Federal Court in Boston on a writ of habeas
corpus and the judge ruled that the Army had acted wrongly in denying the
application. A few weeks later he was released. Frank said otherwise he still
might forty plus years later be doing yet another six month sentence. So that
was his story and there were probably others like that during that turbulent
time when the Army was near mutiny.
Ralph said to himself
after hearing the Jefferson story, yeah, these are the brethren I can work
with, guys like Jefferson really won’t fold under pressure. Yeah, that’s
right.
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