UPDATED September 5, 2021. My Kickstarter fundraising campaign concluded successfully on June 15, 2021. The next phase in bringing this book to reality is underway. All materials required for production of the print and e-book editions are in the hands of the publishing operation (BookBaby). I am hoping to have finished product in hand in November 2021 but there are no guarantees, due to factors beyond my control. More updates coming, as appropriate.
[Image credits: Design by Fyr Drak Fabrications (website). Main image: the author's actual half-century-old dress uniform jacket, with the two decorations officially authorized for display, plus two decidedly NOT authorized; upper left: wall of fire (napalm), Michael Zysman, shutterstock.com; upper right: veterans' cemetery, Nadia Yong, shutterstock.com]
Not your run-of-the-mill memoir!
MEMOIR EXCERPTS
NOTE: In the material that follows, an “ellipse” enclosed in parentheses [thusly: (. . .)] indicates where material has been removed for sake of brevity. Brevity? Well, something like that. I estimate the book itself will run to about 280 pages. You really need to buy it and read it! Seriously.
* * *
FAKE “ADVANCE PRAISE” FOR MY BOOK, MY SWIPE AT WHAT HAS BECOME A COMMON PUBLISHING INDUSTRY PRACTICE:
“Despite the intense heat where I reside nowadays, which affects one’s ability to concentrate, Nixon did read this revolting anti-American screed. He’s your real-McCoy hardcore little Commie bastard, this writer. Trust me, I know. I built my whole political career on combatting the Red Menace, you know. (. . .) Well, it’s time to go dig up Agnew for our daily game of Canasta. Gotta watch him like a hawk, though, the cheating prick! So let me just say in closing: I can’t understand why the Army didn’t throw the book at this Commie bastard dissident soldier and put him away for a long, long time. I’m glad I served my country in a Navy uniform! Oh, and let me say one last thing: you don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, do you, you liberal media bastards?!”
--the ghost of President Richard M. Nixon
(. . .) “So, they tell me the guy who wrote this book demonstrated publicly against the Vietnam War while wearing his Army uniform. I wish I’d been Commander-in-Chief back then! I’d’ve shown this dirtbag how traitors were treated in the good old days! And let me say, for the record, that the pain of not being able to personally go whip Ho Chi Minh’s ass was even greater for me than the physical pain from the bone spurs in my heels. You know, that condition that, unfortunately, kept me out of the military in my own youth. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that. My bone spurs are killing me right now. I guess it’s going to rain soon.”
--Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
[Much, much more awaits the reader!—GL]
FRONTISPIECE QUOTATIONS (select)
To know what is right, and not to do it, is cowardice.
—Confucius, Chinese philosopher, c. 500 BC
[I]t takes a certain amount of courage to go to war, but not as much as to refuse to go to war.
—Joseph Heller, World War II veteran, author of Catch-22, interviewed in Paul Krassner’s ‘The Realist,’ 1962
DEDICATIONS (select)
To the everyday citizens who found the courage to participate in the American Anti-War Movement, despite jaundiced glances from relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers or employers.
To all who have been persecuted, prosecuted, imprisoned and worse for the “crime” of opposing unjust wars, or being “whistleblowers” against governmental wrongdoing.
PREFACE
The peculiar truth about truth is this: there are about seven billion versions of it at large, one for every human being on the planet. I am about to tell you the truth of the Vietnam War as I absorbed it, what I did to try to sabotage it from within the US military, and why. You will reach your own conclusions as to my actions having been admirable or “treasonous.” (. . .)
I am a member of “the baby boom” generation, conceived in the wave of hope and optimism that followed the defeat of the Fascist Axis Powers in World War II. But I have come recently to realize that mine should really be called the Vietnam Generation. No young male citizen in the United States was not touched, in one way or another, by the war. (. . .) No incident in this book has been manufactured or exaggerated for effect, and no dialogue invented or spiced up with colorful language. When I say a statement is essentially verbatim, I would pretty well bet my life on its accuracy. I am blessed (cursed?) with an excellent memory—not infallible, but excellent.
Hereupon, then, follows the story of my personal response to being sucked into the insane vortex of an utterly unjustified war, how an individual of conscience interacted with the larger social forces of the era, and how all this molded the person I am today.
CHAPTER I: “Little Boxes” (New York State 1948-1967)
Looking at the state of the world—the world Man had produced, not Nature—made me more than a little unfond of the human race. Before Americans started hearing the name of the country called Vietnam, there were plenty of conflicts raging on planet Earth. Any perceived difference between people—racial, religious, cultural—would be seized as an excuse for mutual slaughter. Great swaths of the world still suffered from tropical diseases and malnutrition. The “advanced nations” seemed to only be paying lip service to their woes. (. . .) I had made this determination while still in my Junior year at Syosset High: I would not participate in the US war against the people of Vietnam in any way, shape or manner. (. . .)
The draft: a young man’s options, 1967 [I had dropped out of Syracuse University after just one semester—GL]
(. . .) Why didn’t I apply for official recognition as a Conscientious Objector, since clearly I was one? I didn’t see any hope of success, due to my lack of anything resembling conventional religious beliefs.
I chose to enlist in the Army as soon as my reclassification to 1-A status arrived in the mail. This meant committing to three years in the military, versus the two a draftee must serve. However, the military did have a program whereby an enlistee could state a preference for the capacity in which he or she would serve, and I selected Medical. (. . .) I was committed to peacefully co-existing with the US Army...to the extent possible.
CHAPTER II: “Welcome to the Army, maggots!” (Fort Jackson, SC 1967)
Though I had great sympathy for victims of race-based oppression in our society, I was raised in a virtually lily-white environment and thus hadn’t had the opportunity to interact with members of racial minorities. Staff Sgt. Sampaga was our principal Drill Instructor, the member of the training cadre with whom we were most in contact. Some of us secretly referred to him as “Sgt. Sakamoto.” Not until quite a while later would I learn that Sarge actually bore a Filipino surname. (. . .) Every night an NCO from the battalion cadre had to take a turn minding the HQ building. He got to select two trainees from his own unit to be “runners.” We were mainly there to apply some spit and polish to the offices so the big-wigs would be pleased upon arriving in the morning. But I really was privileged to have been selected by Staff Sgt. Sampaga, for he was about to show me a side of himself that I’m sure very few privates would ever see.
We discussed the war that night at Battalion HQ. I explained my moral stance; he listened patiently, even with a bit of sympathy. He addressed some buxom blonde on the screen of the TV he’d brought to HQ that night, informing her: “I’m going to send Laxer over to fuck you!” Thanks, Sarge, but that’s not too realistic at this point. It would have been a major shock had he agreed with me about the situation in Vietnam. This man likely already had 10 or 15 years in the Army, with a plan to spend another 15 or 20 before retiring with a nice pension. So he basically held his tongue on the specific topic of Vietnam. Yet, what Sampaga did next blew my mind.
A Permanent Party emblem designates personnel who are assigned to a given base as their duty assignment, i.e. they’re no longer trainees or transients. Sarge’s PP emblem was in the form of a decal on his helmet liner. The design of the emblem may have changed over the years, but it always featured some symbol of liberty in US iconography (e.g. the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia) surrounded by the motto “THIS WE’LL DEFEND.” Suddenly Sarge held up his helmet liner, pointed to the emblem and declared: “This we’ll defend...United States fuck!”
What was this man, whose job was to make our daily lives miserable while preparing us for combat, trying to tell me? He had dropped his guard, he had lowered the mask he was required to wear, the mask of the fierce, ass-kicking Drill Instructor. Here was a lifer willing to verbally fire a spitball at the organization he was committed to serving for decades. I suspect this gentleman was bitter about his own treatment, as a Filipino, in American society.
We shared a good belly laugh at his remark and that’s as far as the incident went. But I would never view him quite the same thereafter. We now shared a kind of secret bond. The plain fact of the matter was that I liked this man. But it would have been against protocol to tell him that. (. . .)
CHAPTER III: Weird times in Texas (Fort Sam Houston, TX 1967)
[Basic Combat Medic Training Course]
[Excerpts from a letter home, September 3, 1967]:
Well, things are just as crazy around here as ever. Friday morning, I was awakened at 4:15 AM by loud bawling—I mean, this guy was really sobbing his heart out. He was pacing the street, wringing his hands, crying out, “Oh God, please...” Well, I considered this a rather serious situation, so I got out of bed and looked out the window. He seemed to be clutching one arm, so I immediately thought of attempted suicide (slashed wrists) or some serious injury. I pulled on my pants and was stepping out the door when he entered another barracks. I assumed he would be safe then, so staggered back to bed (which wasn’t too helpful, since everybody had to get up in another 20 minutes anyway). (. . .)
I have been officially tapped for 91C20, the Practical Nurse Course. I have gotten 97 out of 100 questions correct on my tests; if I maintain a 90% average and get the Company Commander’s recommendation (which simply entails staying out of trouble, which, miraculously, I have done) I have it all wrapped up. The course starts Nov. 15, at 2 hospitals. I’ll be going to Valley Forge, PA. This is reasonably close to home.
NOTE: In the material that follows, an “ellipse” enclosed in parentheses [thusly: (. . .)] indicates where material has been removed for sake of brevity. Brevity? Well, something like that. I estimate the book itself will run to about 280 pages. You really need to buy it and read it! Seriously.
* * *
FAKE “ADVANCE PRAISE” FOR MY BOOK, MY SWIPE AT WHAT HAS BECOME A COMMON PUBLISHING INDUSTRY PRACTICE:
“Despite the intense heat where I reside nowadays, which affects one’s ability to concentrate, Nixon did read this revolting anti-American screed. He’s your real-McCoy hardcore little Commie bastard, this writer. Trust me, I know. I built my whole political career on combatting the Red Menace, you know. (. . .) Well, it’s time to go dig up Agnew for our daily game of Canasta. Gotta watch him like a hawk, though, the cheating prick! So let me just say in closing: I can’t understand why the Army didn’t throw the book at this Commie bastard dissident soldier and put him away for a long, long time. I’m glad I served my country in a Navy uniform! Oh, and let me say one last thing: you don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, do you, you liberal media bastards?!”
--the ghost of President Richard M. Nixon
(. . .) “So, they tell me the guy who wrote this book demonstrated publicly against the Vietnam War while wearing his Army uniform. I wish I’d been Commander-in-Chief back then! I’d’ve shown this dirtbag how traitors were treated in the good old days! And let me say, for the record, that the pain of not being able to personally go whip Ho Chi Minh’s ass was even greater for me than the physical pain from the bone spurs in my heels. You know, that condition that, unfortunately, kept me out of the military in my own youth. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that. My bone spurs are killing me right now. I guess it’s going to rain soon.”
--Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
[Much, much more awaits the reader!—GL]
FRONTISPIECE QUOTATIONS (select)
To know what is right, and not to do it, is cowardice.
—Confucius, Chinese philosopher, c. 500 BC
[I]t takes a certain amount of courage to go to war, but not as much as to refuse to go to war.
—Joseph Heller, World War II veteran, author of Catch-22, interviewed in Paul Krassner’s ‘The Realist,’ 1962
DEDICATIONS (select)
To the everyday citizens who found the courage to participate in the American Anti-War Movement, despite jaundiced glances from relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers or employers.
To all who have been persecuted, prosecuted, imprisoned and worse for the “crime” of opposing unjust wars, or being “whistleblowers” against governmental wrongdoing.
PREFACE
The peculiar truth about truth is this: there are about seven billion versions of it at large, one for every human being on the planet. I am about to tell you the truth of the Vietnam War as I absorbed it, what I did to try to sabotage it from within the US military, and why. You will reach your own conclusions as to my actions having been admirable or “treasonous.” (. . .)
I am a member of “the baby boom” generation, conceived in the wave of hope and optimism that followed the defeat of the Fascist Axis Powers in World War II. But I have come recently to realize that mine should really be called the Vietnam Generation. No young male citizen in the United States was not touched, in one way or another, by the war. (. . .) No incident in this book has been manufactured or exaggerated for effect, and no dialogue invented or spiced up with colorful language. When I say a statement is essentially verbatim, I would pretty well bet my life on its accuracy. I am blessed (cursed?) with an excellent memory—not infallible, but excellent.
Hereupon, then, follows the story of my personal response to being sucked into the insane vortex of an utterly unjustified war, how an individual of conscience interacted with the larger social forces of the era, and how all this molded the person I am today.
CHAPTER I: “Little Boxes” (New York State 1948-1967)
Looking at the state of the world—the world Man had produced, not Nature—made me more than a little unfond of the human race. Before Americans started hearing the name of the country called Vietnam, there were plenty of conflicts raging on planet Earth. Any perceived difference between people—racial, religious, cultural—would be seized as an excuse for mutual slaughter. Great swaths of the world still suffered from tropical diseases and malnutrition. The “advanced nations” seemed to only be paying lip service to their woes. (. . .) I had made this determination while still in my Junior year at Syosset High: I would not participate in the US war against the people of Vietnam in any way, shape or manner. (. . .)
The draft: a young man’s options, 1967 [I had dropped out of Syracuse University after just one semester—GL]
- You could surrender to “fate” and take your chances, hoping to do your two years and emerge physically and psychologically intact;
- You could find some kind of exemption. This option was already gone for me;
- You could apply for official recognition as a Conscientious Objector to war; this might lead to alternative public service in the civilian arena, or service as a medic in the military. Nothing was guaranteed at the outset of the application process;
- You could flee US territory, not knowing when, if ever, you could legally return;
- You could commit the overt political act of refusing to be inducted, as did boxing legend Muhammad Ali, and be sentenced to a term in Federal Prison;
- You could deliberately attempt to fail the physical and/or psychological tests, a tale told in Arlo Guthrie’s legendary “Alice’s Restaurant”;
- Finally, you could “beat the draft” by…enlisting!!
(. . .) Why didn’t I apply for official recognition as a Conscientious Objector, since clearly I was one? I didn’t see any hope of success, due to my lack of anything resembling conventional religious beliefs.
I chose to enlist in the Army as soon as my reclassification to 1-A status arrived in the mail. This meant committing to three years in the military, versus the two a draftee must serve. However, the military did have a program whereby an enlistee could state a preference for the capacity in which he or she would serve, and I selected Medical. (. . .) I was committed to peacefully co-existing with the US Army...to the extent possible.
CHAPTER II: “Welcome to the Army, maggots!” (Fort Jackson, SC 1967)
Though I had great sympathy for victims of race-based oppression in our society, I was raised in a virtually lily-white environment and thus hadn’t had the opportunity to interact with members of racial minorities. Staff Sgt. Sampaga was our principal Drill Instructor, the member of the training cadre with whom we were most in contact. Some of us secretly referred to him as “Sgt. Sakamoto.” Not until quite a while later would I learn that Sarge actually bore a Filipino surname. (. . .) Every night an NCO from the battalion cadre had to take a turn minding the HQ building. He got to select two trainees from his own unit to be “runners.” We were mainly there to apply some spit and polish to the offices so the big-wigs would be pleased upon arriving in the morning. But I really was privileged to have been selected by Staff Sgt. Sampaga, for he was about to show me a side of himself that I’m sure very few privates would ever see.
We discussed the war that night at Battalion HQ. I explained my moral stance; he listened patiently, even with a bit of sympathy. He addressed some buxom blonde on the screen of the TV he’d brought to HQ that night, informing her: “I’m going to send Laxer over to fuck you!” Thanks, Sarge, but that’s not too realistic at this point. It would have been a major shock had he agreed with me about the situation in Vietnam. This man likely already had 10 or 15 years in the Army, with a plan to spend another 15 or 20 before retiring with a nice pension. So he basically held his tongue on the specific topic of Vietnam. Yet, what Sampaga did next blew my mind.
A Permanent Party emblem designates personnel who are assigned to a given base as their duty assignment, i.e. they’re no longer trainees or transients. Sarge’s PP emblem was in the form of a decal on his helmet liner. The design of the emblem may have changed over the years, but it always featured some symbol of liberty in US iconography (e.g. the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia) surrounded by the motto “THIS WE’LL DEFEND.” Suddenly Sarge held up his helmet liner, pointed to the emblem and declared: “This we’ll defend...United States fuck!”
What was this man, whose job was to make our daily lives miserable while preparing us for combat, trying to tell me? He had dropped his guard, he had lowered the mask he was required to wear, the mask of the fierce, ass-kicking Drill Instructor. Here was a lifer willing to verbally fire a spitball at the organization he was committed to serving for decades. I suspect this gentleman was bitter about his own treatment, as a Filipino, in American society.
We shared a good belly laugh at his remark and that’s as far as the incident went. But I would never view him quite the same thereafter. We now shared a kind of secret bond. The plain fact of the matter was that I liked this man. But it would have been against protocol to tell him that. (. . .)
CHAPTER III: Weird times in Texas (Fort Sam Houston, TX 1967)
[Basic Combat Medic Training Course]
[Excerpts from a letter home, September 3, 1967]:
Well, things are just as crazy around here as ever. Friday morning, I was awakened at 4:15 AM by loud bawling—I mean, this guy was really sobbing his heart out. He was pacing the street, wringing his hands, crying out, “Oh God, please...” Well, I considered this a rather serious situation, so I got out of bed and looked out the window. He seemed to be clutching one arm, so I immediately thought of attempted suicide (slashed wrists) or some serious injury. I pulled on my pants and was stepping out the door when he entered another barracks. I assumed he would be safe then, so staggered back to bed (which wasn’t too helpful, since everybody had to get up in another 20 minutes anyway). (. . .)
I have been officially tapped for 91C20, the Practical Nurse Course. I have gotten 97 out of 100 questions correct on my tests; if I maintain a 90% average and get the Company Commander’s recommendation (which simply entails staying out of trouble, which, miraculously, I have done) I have it all wrapped up. The course starts Nov. 15, at 2 hospitals. I’ll be going to Valley Forge, PA. This is reasonably close to home.
Main Gate, Ft. Dix (NJ) Stockade. When this photo first circulated (Liberation News Service, issue of April 19, 1969), it was widely remarked that the slogan above the gate was uncomfortably reminiscent of that over the gate of Auschwitz death camp ("Arbeit Macht Frei--Work Makes You Free"). When this facility became my "home" in late 1969, I believe the Army had been sufficiently embarrassed that it had been removed. I don't personally recall encountering it. Conditions in the stockade led to a rebellion by prisoners in June of that year, and the case of "The Ft. Dix 38." (see excerpts from Chapters VII and VIII below)
[photo credit: David Fenton, LNS, 1969.]
[photo credit: David Fenton, LNS, 1969.]
CHAPTER IV: “Happy Valley Days" (Valley Forge General Hospital 1967/68)
My fellow students had come from different training classes at Ft. Sam, so these guys were all strangers to me. Getting acquainted became one of my first tasks. I made no secret whatsoever, from day one, of how I felt about the war in Southeast Asia. This brought no outright hostility, nor did it evoke rousing cheers. There were about 18 of us privates in the converted ward, including a gentleman originally from Ecuador.
[Excerpt from a letter home, November 12, 1967]:
Needless to say, I am more anti-war than ever. I am more militant about refusing orders for ’Nam. I have placed over my bed a large (about 42 X 30 inches) poster portrait of Joan Baez. I don’t expect this to cause any trouble; wall decorations are allowed, and the only people we were told not to post pictures of are the likes of Mao, Soviet Premier Kosygin, Stalin, Ho, etc.
But the big news on the music scene was a concert tribute to Woody Guthrie, who’d died in late 1967, to be held at Carnegie Hall the evening of January 20. Most of the major performers on the Folk scene wanted to be on the bill, but the buzz about the event got louder when it was announced that Bob Dylan would be there. Yes, Dylan was scheduled to give his first public performance since having reportedly broken his neck in a motorcycle crash. [And I did find a way to attend. —GL]
The war grinds on
At the end of January, the liberation forces mounted an offensive of stunning scope against Saigon’s puppet military. This was the Tet offensive, Tet being the Vietnamese celebration of Lunar New Year. American public opinion was starting to turn against the war, as US casualties mounted into the hundreds per week. We citizens were supposed to accept that, because those on the other side were reportedly dying in much greater numbers. The body count game was underway. There were by now hundreds of thousands of US military personnel in Southeast Asia. Dr. Benjamin Spock, the epitome of humaneness, became one of the first public figures to feel the lash of the Establishment’s wrath after encouraging draft resistance. (. . .)
In the third week of September 1968, we survivors of the intense course were graduated and promoted—I was now a Specialist 4th Class (“speck four”). And I was in possession of multiple copies of orders to report to Oakland Overseas Replacement Station for shipment to RVN on October 22. We said “Good-bye and good luck” all around and began our 30-day leaves. For me, this was the start of a countdown to becoming a fugitive from “justice.” Farewell, “Happy Valley.” Hello, life of an AWOL.
CHAPTER V: An AWOL at large (New York and Boston 1968)
Mission one, day one of my post-school leave was to start growing a full beard. All the better to disguise my status as an active-duty GI when my reporting date for overseas shipment came and went. I would be going underground in 30 days, a new experience. (. . .) The WRL [War Resisters League] brought to my attention the existence of the American Servicemen’s Union (ASU).
The ASU was still a young organization, having been founded specifically to try to throw a monkey wrench into the cogs of the War Machine. Its Chairman, Andy Stapp, had taken on the military establishment at Fort Sill, Oklahoma in a battle over whether GIs have constitutional rights like freedom of speech, assembly, and seeking redress of grievances. Andy had been booted from the Army because the military’s answer on those issues was quintessentially “No!” Stapp would tell the story of the founding of the ASU in Up Against the Brass, published by Simon and Schuster in 1970.
ASU was unique among anti-war organizations precisely because it was recruiting active-duty personnel to its ranks, and because it modeled itself after a labor union. (. . .)
October 22 rolled around soon enough, the day I was supposed to arrive in Oakland for processing and shipment overseas. Instead, I borrowed my mom’s car and hit the road to visit my friends at Syracuse University. I assigned myself the codename ‘The Shadow’ for checking in by phone with the ASU office. Assuming their phones were tapped was entirely sensible, not an exhibition of paranoia.
Sanctuary on an urban campus
Bill Brakefield, a young soldier who said he’d enlisted in the Army in hopes of acquiring skills useful later in life, had become disillusioned with military ways and gone AWOL. He was opposing the war in a very public way. Some students associated with SDS [Students for a Democratic Society], along with some radicals from the surrounding community calling themselves the City College Commune, were sheltering Bill in the Grand Ballroom of the Finley Student Union on the City College of New York (CCNY) campus. (. . .) In the evenings [at the Sanctuary], there were cultural presentations by people from outside the campus confines. One night, I found myself sitting no more than twelve feet from Allen Ginsberg, who likewise was seated on the hard floor, playing a harmonium and chanting/singing.
Continuing education
More trips into Manhattan were made to discuss my options with activists. Armed with recommendations from Andy Stapp and others at the ASU, I started to build a personal library of literature on the current war, and to read about past wars that now seemed less than just.
The first book I acquired was Vietnam! Vietnam!, by British-American journalist Felix Greene. Published in 1966, this book featured many photographs, including the aftermath of atrocities committed against the civilian population by US troops, or soldiers of the ARVN under their direction. (. . .) Though I’d never yet met any Vietnamese, I was forming an emotional bond with them. (. . .)
Message to LBJ
(. . .) I had never really spent any time in “Beantown,” so when I learned that an anti-war teach-in was scheduled for Boston University on November 22, I seized the opportunity to see the sights up there and make my public stand. (. . .)
To make my position crystal clear to the very highest authorities, I decided to send a little message directly to the Commander-in-Chief. This was entirely on my own initiative. The depth of my revulsion at what “my” government was doing in Southeast Asia demanded my protest be loud. I took one of the numerous copies I’d received of my Vietnam orders and penned my message over that with red magic marker. Unfortunately, I did not make a photocopy of the finished product, but it read pretty much like this:
TO: President Lyndon Johnson, The White House, Washington DC
FROM: Spec. 4 Gregory Laxer, US Army
DATE: November 18, 1968
SUBJECT: My resignation
I hereby accuse you of waging an illegal war against the people of Vietnam and of committing crimes against humanity. I am returning my orders for Vietnam duty to you and hereby inform you that I quit the US Army effective immediately.
[signature]
Of course, I was well aware that a regular enlisted person has no legal right to simply quit the military. As a decorated veteran of the war, boosted to commissioned officer rank, Donald Duncan had been in a unique situation when he made his protest. And I certainly had no expectation that President Johnson would ever personally see this document; his secretaries and aides would intercept any such “rude” message. But I did, indeed, duly post it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation’s capital. I would later have confirmation that, yes, it reached its destination. (. . .)
[At the teach-in, I appeared in full Army uniform and read a statement militantly opposing the war. —GL] After the teach-in, [fellow AWOL] Martin Gross and I left the campus, unmolested by law enforcement personnel, to get what sleep we could that last night of freedom. A bus had been rented to carry us and civilian supporters to the gates of Fort Devens—in the town of Ayer, some distance west of Boston—the next day, where we would turn ourselves over to the tender mercy of the Army.
CHAPTER VI: The first court-martial (Fort Devens, MA and Syosset, NY 1968/69)
Applying for Conscientious Objector status after one is already in the military is a complex process. Those who will sit in judgment of one’s sincerity wear the uniform of the war-makers, and harbor an inherent bias against the applicant: the military needs bodies and is not wont to turn them loose casually; they were losing enough personnel via drug use and mental instability. Now, add the wrinkle of someone who is openly defiant of their whole regime and the applicant’s chances of success slip farther. But even in a seemingly hopeless case there’s a saving grace: once you file the application you go into administrative limbo and cannot be shipped elsewhere while the decision is pending. This is the straw I was grasping at as I awaited the Army’s decision on how harshly to prosecute me. (. . .)
I initiated the paperwork for the CO application while still held in the Stockade. I found I needed letters from people testifying that they believed my opposition to war was sincere, not an act launched the day I got my orders to ’Nam. I wrote home in early December, urging my mom to expedite getting me current addresses of my classmates from Valley Forge General Hospital.
After just under three weeks of incarceration in the stockade, I was released to the Special Processing Detachment. Our housing was standard barracks, but no surrounding wire or guards. The occupants of SPD were, like myself, men in limbo. We were awaiting trial for non-violent offenses; we were waiting for orders to be cut assigning us to another geographical area; we were awaiting a determination of our “fitness” to continue in uniform; we were waiting for rulings on applications for discharge; we were finishing up a sentence on minor charges, getting ready to return to regular duties. We were waiting, waiting, waiting. Have I mentioned we did a lot of waiting in the Army? (. . .) My trial [Summary Court-Martial] was convened on January 8, 1969. Representing me were Ed, my civilian attorney, and Lt. Gurian of JAG (Judge Advocate General Corps), my assigned Army defense attorney. The only other person present in the hearing room was the Court, in the form of one Captain Mencl. Prosecutor, judge, jury, all in one. The marvelous efficiency of military “justice”! The Court had in front of it the only evidence that mattered to it, a pair of Morning Reports. These are documents that account for the presence or absence of all personnel assigned to a given unit on a daily basis, like an Attendance sheet in school. The report from Oakland of October 23, 1968 indicated I had failed to report the previous day, as ordered. (. . .) That I would be found guilty was a foregone conclusion. (. . .) The official Summary of the trial recorded not a word of my legal or moral arguments against the war, but just the hard fact of the length of my absence. (. . .)
One day, entirely unexpectedly, I was approached on the company compound by a black woman sergeant whom I’d only seen occasionally; I think she was Company Clerk. She asked me if I could get her a “nickel bag,” that is, five dollars’ worth of loose marijuana to be rolled into joints, sealed in a neat little plastic bag. Not wishing to look like a “square ofay doofus,” I cheerily declared “Sure! No problem!” Not only was I absolutely not a drug dealer, I never even mastered the art of rolling joints. I was all thumbs when it came to such feats of manual dexterity. (. . .)
I completed the transaction with the woman sergeant as quickly as possible. In the coming days I would ponder this affair, and try to make sense of it. I have to admit: that sale was one of the most colossally stupid things I ever did in my life. Without a doubt, I was being set up for further prosecution. (. . .) Some time after I had passed that bag of marijuana to the sergeant, Lt. Gurian said to me: “What the hell are you doing?! Don’t you know you’re being watched?” For a while after that, I did steer clear of the drug scene. (. . .) [There’s much more to this particular tale, but you’ll just have to buy the book for the details!—GL]
As part of the application process for Conscientious Objector status, I’d been sent to be interviewed by a Theology professor at a seminary on the outskirts of Boston. I stuck to my guns (pardon the expression) and clung to my internal logic of advocating strict pacifism. Essentially, all my arguments against war were based on human-derived morality and ethics. I saw no need for belief in supernatural beings to grasp how wrong my country was in its actions in Southeast Asia.
CO application rejected; next stop Federal Court
As anticipated, the Army rejected my application for discharge as a Conscientious Objector in April. Despite my unwavering adherence to a philosophy of total nonviolence, in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi—which was, truthfully, my firm belief system at the time—the “expert witness” who had interviewed me at the seminary had issued the opinion that I was a “selective objector” to the war raging in Southeast Asia. The Army seized on that one opinion and wielded the rubber stamp that said “DENIED.” The war being waged against the peoples of Indochina was the only war I was being ordered to participate in and, yes, I objected to it with every fiber of my being. But the military always acts in its own interests, and the Army needed senior medics very badly.
To the Army, the matter was closed. They proceeded to cut my second set of orders to report to Oakland US Army Overseas Replacement Station on May 12, second anniversary of my enlistment. I had repeatedly stated, in public and at my Summary Court-Martial, that I wasn’t going to go. I was fully prepared to again wield a GI’s ultimate weapon: denial to the military of the use of my body in its war effort. But there was one more delaying tactic to employ, though attorney Ed, my parents and myself knew full well how heavily the odds were stacked against me: we filed suit in Federal Court in Boston, suing General Cushman, Ft. Devens Commanding Officer, and the Department of the Army itself. The basis of the suit was that the Army had cavalierly dismissed my CO claims because my beliefs weren’t part of an established religious denomination. (. . .) To my pleasant surprise, I was told in late April that I could go home, on unpaid leave, until the judicial matter was settled. (. . .) The court in Boston issued its decision [in favor of Federal Government] on my suit against the Army June 19, 1969. (. . .) Thus it came to be that on June 21, Special Order Number 147 was drawn up and mailed to me at home, instructing me to report to Oakland on July 1, for shipment to Vietnam. (. . .)
July 1 was very fast approaching. There were more anguished scenes at home, my mother fretting over the potential consequences of my continuing resistance. My parents understood what this second set of orders for Vietnam meant: I would have to go AWOL a second time. I consulted some more with my friends at the ASU. They could provide lodging in the big city for me the first few days, just in case MPs or Federal agents came knocking on the Laxers’ door out in Syosset. (. . .)
CHAPTER VII: AWOL again, going through changes (New York, Hawaii, California 1969)
Came the first of July and I was a long way from Oakland. To be specific, I was riding the subway in New York City, en route to the American Servicemen’s Union office. There I knew I would be welcomed with open arms, in solidarity with my act of defiance. If, after a few days, there was no sign of agents of the law seeking to ambush and arrest me, I could revert to sleeping under my parents’ roof. The military simply didn’t have the resources to chase down everyone who was AWOL.
July 1 launches the second half of the year, a chance to review one’s goals and progress. Since the Army had thoughtfully provided me this excuse for self-reflection by ordering me a second time to report for duty in Vietnam on that date, I decided to invest it with a special significance. From this day forth, I declared, I am no longer a pacifist. I am a REVOLUTIONARY. A communist revolutionary. I’d come to understand that I had no right to advise the people of a nation under attack by a brutal invading military—that of my own country—that they should lay down their arms. It is the utmost hypocrisy to put an equal sign between the warring parties in such a situation. One side was trying to conquer, the other simply to defend itself. (. . .)
Acquiring the "Forbidden Knowledge"
For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of money…
--Socrates, from “Phaedo” in “The Dialogues of Plato”
I had started to acquire the Forbidden Knowledge. I believed I had received a very good general education growing up in Syosset; indeed, its public schools system was admired by other districts. But there were aspects of how society really worked that had been quite left out of the curriculum. We were decidedly not taught that the state is fundamentally a body of armed men defending the privileges of a tiny minority, the Ruling Class. (. . .)
The Case of the Fort Dix 38
On June 5, 1969 an uprising had occurred in the overcrowded barracks of the post stockade at Fort Dix, New Jersey, an installation used primarily for Basic Training. Reportedly around 800 prisoners were crammed into a facility designed for 250, resulting in hours-long waits to get into the Mess Hall and long stints in pre-trial status. The most common offense causing confinement there? Being AWOL, of course.
In the incident in question, interior infrastructure was smashed up and fires broke out. At the time, I’d been awaiting the verdict of the Federal Court in Boston and hadn’t heard of this unrest via the mainstream media. The ASU staff filled me in when I paid a visit during my lengthy administrative leave. The situation, I quickly learned, was heavy. (. . .) Thirty-eight individuals were initially charged with participating in a riot, damaging government property, and arson. Eventually the prosecutorial focus would narrow to Terry Klug, Bill Brakefield, Jeff Russell and Tom Catlow, all affiliated with the ASU. If convicted of all charges, these guys faced the prospect of 40 or more years in prison. Brakefield was still in that stockade after being tried for AWOL in the wake of the sanctuary arrests at City College of NY the previous November; he had nearly served out his sentence.
August 2, 1969: Waving the flag, but whose flag?
Beyond the first of August I would exceed 30 days of AWOL and again be Dropped From the Rolls out in Oakland. I lacked a firm plan for a date and method to again surrender myself to the Army, to get my punishment over with. Once again, an event was planned for a propitious date: the ASU, in collaboration with SDS, Black Panther Party and other groups, called for a street demonstration Saturday, August 2 in front of Pennsylvania Station, above which the new Madison Square Garden had recently been constructed. The theme of this demo was “Free the Ft. Dix 38 and All Political Prisoners.” (. . .) On my own initiative I again decided to participate dressed in full Army uniform. (. . .) And of course an ASU button adorned my khaki shirt. Andy Stapp and other ASU staffers were present for moral support.
In the sea of banners and placards, as was often the case at militant protests, there were some “Viet Cong” flags: yellow star on a background divided horizontally into fields of red and pale blue. Quite spontaneously, I asked to borrow one of these. Climbing atop a low stone wall abutting a pedestrian plaza, I held aloft the flag of “the enemy.” The crowd chanted: “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! Vietnam is gonna win!” Having concluded that justice was on the side of the people of Vietnam, I was calling for victory for the liberation forces. Did this mean I was cheering the deaths of American military personnel? Not at all. My position was quite simple: they should never have been sent to Indochina in the first place; a ceasefire should be implemented immediately; America’s sons and daughters should be brought back to US soil intact, without delay.
My flag-waving of the “wrong” variety, from the perspective of mainstream America, drew the attention of the crew covering the demo for CBS-TV’s flagship NYC station. I was taken aside to a quiet location and interviewed on camera by Dave Marash, a reporter for that station before he became a fixture on “60 Minutes.” When asked why I was demonstrating, I stated (this is verbatim): “I support the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in its struggle against US imperialism.” When asked what I expected would become of me after this, I said I would face the consequences: prosecution and imprisonment.
My fellow students had come from different training classes at Ft. Sam, so these guys were all strangers to me. Getting acquainted became one of my first tasks. I made no secret whatsoever, from day one, of how I felt about the war in Southeast Asia. This brought no outright hostility, nor did it evoke rousing cheers. There were about 18 of us privates in the converted ward, including a gentleman originally from Ecuador.
[Excerpt from a letter home, November 12, 1967]:
Needless to say, I am more anti-war than ever. I am more militant about refusing orders for ’Nam. I have placed over my bed a large (about 42 X 30 inches) poster portrait of Joan Baez. I don’t expect this to cause any trouble; wall decorations are allowed, and the only people we were told not to post pictures of are the likes of Mao, Soviet Premier Kosygin, Stalin, Ho, etc.
But the big news on the music scene was a concert tribute to Woody Guthrie, who’d died in late 1967, to be held at Carnegie Hall the evening of January 20. Most of the major performers on the Folk scene wanted to be on the bill, but the buzz about the event got louder when it was announced that Bob Dylan would be there. Yes, Dylan was scheduled to give his first public performance since having reportedly broken his neck in a motorcycle crash. [And I did find a way to attend. —GL]
The war grinds on
At the end of January, the liberation forces mounted an offensive of stunning scope against Saigon’s puppet military. This was the Tet offensive, Tet being the Vietnamese celebration of Lunar New Year. American public opinion was starting to turn against the war, as US casualties mounted into the hundreds per week. We citizens were supposed to accept that, because those on the other side were reportedly dying in much greater numbers. The body count game was underway. There were by now hundreds of thousands of US military personnel in Southeast Asia. Dr. Benjamin Spock, the epitome of humaneness, became one of the first public figures to feel the lash of the Establishment’s wrath after encouraging draft resistance. (. . .)
In the third week of September 1968, we survivors of the intense course were graduated and promoted—I was now a Specialist 4th Class (“speck four”). And I was in possession of multiple copies of orders to report to Oakland Overseas Replacement Station for shipment to RVN on October 22. We said “Good-bye and good luck” all around and began our 30-day leaves. For me, this was the start of a countdown to becoming a fugitive from “justice.” Farewell, “Happy Valley.” Hello, life of an AWOL.
CHAPTER V: An AWOL at large (New York and Boston 1968)
Mission one, day one of my post-school leave was to start growing a full beard. All the better to disguise my status as an active-duty GI when my reporting date for overseas shipment came and went. I would be going underground in 30 days, a new experience. (. . .) The WRL [War Resisters League] brought to my attention the existence of the American Servicemen’s Union (ASU).
The ASU was still a young organization, having been founded specifically to try to throw a monkey wrench into the cogs of the War Machine. Its Chairman, Andy Stapp, had taken on the military establishment at Fort Sill, Oklahoma in a battle over whether GIs have constitutional rights like freedom of speech, assembly, and seeking redress of grievances. Andy had been booted from the Army because the military’s answer on those issues was quintessentially “No!” Stapp would tell the story of the founding of the ASU in Up Against the Brass, published by Simon and Schuster in 1970.
ASU was unique among anti-war organizations precisely because it was recruiting active-duty personnel to its ranks, and because it modeled itself after a labor union. (. . .)
October 22 rolled around soon enough, the day I was supposed to arrive in Oakland for processing and shipment overseas. Instead, I borrowed my mom’s car and hit the road to visit my friends at Syracuse University. I assigned myself the codename ‘The Shadow’ for checking in by phone with the ASU office. Assuming their phones were tapped was entirely sensible, not an exhibition of paranoia.
Sanctuary on an urban campus
Bill Brakefield, a young soldier who said he’d enlisted in the Army in hopes of acquiring skills useful later in life, had become disillusioned with military ways and gone AWOL. He was opposing the war in a very public way. Some students associated with SDS [Students for a Democratic Society], along with some radicals from the surrounding community calling themselves the City College Commune, were sheltering Bill in the Grand Ballroom of the Finley Student Union on the City College of New York (CCNY) campus. (. . .) In the evenings [at the Sanctuary], there were cultural presentations by people from outside the campus confines. One night, I found myself sitting no more than twelve feet from Allen Ginsberg, who likewise was seated on the hard floor, playing a harmonium and chanting/singing.
Continuing education
More trips into Manhattan were made to discuss my options with activists. Armed with recommendations from Andy Stapp and others at the ASU, I started to build a personal library of literature on the current war, and to read about past wars that now seemed less than just.
The first book I acquired was Vietnam! Vietnam!, by British-American journalist Felix Greene. Published in 1966, this book featured many photographs, including the aftermath of atrocities committed against the civilian population by US troops, or soldiers of the ARVN under their direction. (. . .) Though I’d never yet met any Vietnamese, I was forming an emotional bond with them. (. . .)
Message to LBJ
(. . .) I had never really spent any time in “Beantown,” so when I learned that an anti-war teach-in was scheduled for Boston University on November 22, I seized the opportunity to see the sights up there and make my public stand. (. . .)
To make my position crystal clear to the very highest authorities, I decided to send a little message directly to the Commander-in-Chief. This was entirely on my own initiative. The depth of my revulsion at what “my” government was doing in Southeast Asia demanded my protest be loud. I took one of the numerous copies I’d received of my Vietnam orders and penned my message over that with red magic marker. Unfortunately, I did not make a photocopy of the finished product, but it read pretty much like this:
TO: President Lyndon Johnson, The White House, Washington DC
FROM: Spec. 4 Gregory Laxer, US Army
DATE: November 18, 1968
SUBJECT: My resignation
I hereby accuse you of waging an illegal war against the people of Vietnam and of committing crimes against humanity. I am returning my orders for Vietnam duty to you and hereby inform you that I quit the US Army effective immediately.
[signature]
Of course, I was well aware that a regular enlisted person has no legal right to simply quit the military. As a decorated veteran of the war, boosted to commissioned officer rank, Donald Duncan had been in a unique situation when he made his protest. And I certainly had no expectation that President Johnson would ever personally see this document; his secretaries and aides would intercept any such “rude” message. But I did, indeed, duly post it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation’s capital. I would later have confirmation that, yes, it reached its destination. (. . .)
[At the teach-in, I appeared in full Army uniform and read a statement militantly opposing the war. —GL] After the teach-in, [fellow AWOL] Martin Gross and I left the campus, unmolested by law enforcement personnel, to get what sleep we could that last night of freedom. A bus had been rented to carry us and civilian supporters to the gates of Fort Devens—in the town of Ayer, some distance west of Boston—the next day, where we would turn ourselves over to the tender mercy of the Army.
CHAPTER VI: The first court-martial (Fort Devens, MA and Syosset, NY 1968/69)
Applying for Conscientious Objector status after one is already in the military is a complex process. Those who will sit in judgment of one’s sincerity wear the uniform of the war-makers, and harbor an inherent bias against the applicant: the military needs bodies and is not wont to turn them loose casually; they were losing enough personnel via drug use and mental instability. Now, add the wrinkle of someone who is openly defiant of their whole regime and the applicant’s chances of success slip farther. But even in a seemingly hopeless case there’s a saving grace: once you file the application you go into administrative limbo and cannot be shipped elsewhere while the decision is pending. This is the straw I was grasping at as I awaited the Army’s decision on how harshly to prosecute me. (. . .)
I initiated the paperwork for the CO application while still held in the Stockade. I found I needed letters from people testifying that they believed my opposition to war was sincere, not an act launched the day I got my orders to ’Nam. I wrote home in early December, urging my mom to expedite getting me current addresses of my classmates from Valley Forge General Hospital.
After just under three weeks of incarceration in the stockade, I was released to the Special Processing Detachment. Our housing was standard barracks, but no surrounding wire or guards. The occupants of SPD were, like myself, men in limbo. We were awaiting trial for non-violent offenses; we were waiting for orders to be cut assigning us to another geographical area; we were awaiting a determination of our “fitness” to continue in uniform; we were waiting for rulings on applications for discharge; we were finishing up a sentence on minor charges, getting ready to return to regular duties. We were waiting, waiting, waiting. Have I mentioned we did a lot of waiting in the Army? (. . .) My trial [Summary Court-Martial] was convened on January 8, 1969. Representing me were Ed, my civilian attorney, and Lt. Gurian of JAG (Judge Advocate General Corps), my assigned Army defense attorney. The only other person present in the hearing room was the Court, in the form of one Captain Mencl. Prosecutor, judge, jury, all in one. The marvelous efficiency of military “justice”! The Court had in front of it the only evidence that mattered to it, a pair of Morning Reports. These are documents that account for the presence or absence of all personnel assigned to a given unit on a daily basis, like an Attendance sheet in school. The report from Oakland of October 23, 1968 indicated I had failed to report the previous day, as ordered. (. . .) That I would be found guilty was a foregone conclusion. (. . .) The official Summary of the trial recorded not a word of my legal or moral arguments against the war, but just the hard fact of the length of my absence. (. . .)
One day, entirely unexpectedly, I was approached on the company compound by a black woman sergeant whom I’d only seen occasionally; I think she was Company Clerk. She asked me if I could get her a “nickel bag,” that is, five dollars’ worth of loose marijuana to be rolled into joints, sealed in a neat little plastic bag. Not wishing to look like a “square ofay doofus,” I cheerily declared “Sure! No problem!” Not only was I absolutely not a drug dealer, I never even mastered the art of rolling joints. I was all thumbs when it came to such feats of manual dexterity. (. . .)
I completed the transaction with the woman sergeant as quickly as possible. In the coming days I would ponder this affair, and try to make sense of it. I have to admit: that sale was one of the most colossally stupid things I ever did in my life. Without a doubt, I was being set up for further prosecution. (. . .) Some time after I had passed that bag of marijuana to the sergeant, Lt. Gurian said to me: “What the hell are you doing?! Don’t you know you’re being watched?” For a while after that, I did steer clear of the drug scene. (. . .) [There’s much more to this particular tale, but you’ll just have to buy the book for the details!—GL]
As part of the application process for Conscientious Objector status, I’d been sent to be interviewed by a Theology professor at a seminary on the outskirts of Boston. I stuck to my guns (pardon the expression) and clung to my internal logic of advocating strict pacifism. Essentially, all my arguments against war were based on human-derived morality and ethics. I saw no need for belief in supernatural beings to grasp how wrong my country was in its actions in Southeast Asia.
CO application rejected; next stop Federal Court
As anticipated, the Army rejected my application for discharge as a Conscientious Objector in April. Despite my unwavering adherence to a philosophy of total nonviolence, in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi—which was, truthfully, my firm belief system at the time—the “expert witness” who had interviewed me at the seminary had issued the opinion that I was a “selective objector” to the war raging in Southeast Asia. The Army seized on that one opinion and wielded the rubber stamp that said “DENIED.” The war being waged against the peoples of Indochina was the only war I was being ordered to participate in and, yes, I objected to it with every fiber of my being. But the military always acts in its own interests, and the Army needed senior medics very badly.
To the Army, the matter was closed. They proceeded to cut my second set of orders to report to Oakland US Army Overseas Replacement Station on May 12, second anniversary of my enlistment. I had repeatedly stated, in public and at my Summary Court-Martial, that I wasn’t going to go. I was fully prepared to again wield a GI’s ultimate weapon: denial to the military of the use of my body in its war effort. But there was one more delaying tactic to employ, though attorney Ed, my parents and myself knew full well how heavily the odds were stacked against me: we filed suit in Federal Court in Boston, suing General Cushman, Ft. Devens Commanding Officer, and the Department of the Army itself. The basis of the suit was that the Army had cavalierly dismissed my CO claims because my beliefs weren’t part of an established religious denomination. (. . .) To my pleasant surprise, I was told in late April that I could go home, on unpaid leave, until the judicial matter was settled. (. . .) The court in Boston issued its decision [in favor of Federal Government] on my suit against the Army June 19, 1969. (. . .) Thus it came to be that on June 21, Special Order Number 147 was drawn up and mailed to me at home, instructing me to report to Oakland on July 1, for shipment to Vietnam. (. . .)
July 1 was very fast approaching. There were more anguished scenes at home, my mother fretting over the potential consequences of my continuing resistance. My parents understood what this second set of orders for Vietnam meant: I would have to go AWOL a second time. I consulted some more with my friends at the ASU. They could provide lodging in the big city for me the first few days, just in case MPs or Federal agents came knocking on the Laxers’ door out in Syosset. (. . .)
CHAPTER VII: AWOL again, going through changes (New York, Hawaii, California 1969)
Came the first of July and I was a long way from Oakland. To be specific, I was riding the subway in New York City, en route to the American Servicemen’s Union office. There I knew I would be welcomed with open arms, in solidarity with my act of defiance. If, after a few days, there was no sign of agents of the law seeking to ambush and arrest me, I could revert to sleeping under my parents’ roof. The military simply didn’t have the resources to chase down everyone who was AWOL.
July 1 launches the second half of the year, a chance to review one’s goals and progress. Since the Army had thoughtfully provided me this excuse for self-reflection by ordering me a second time to report for duty in Vietnam on that date, I decided to invest it with a special significance. From this day forth, I declared, I am no longer a pacifist. I am a REVOLUTIONARY. A communist revolutionary. I’d come to understand that I had no right to advise the people of a nation under attack by a brutal invading military—that of my own country—that they should lay down their arms. It is the utmost hypocrisy to put an equal sign between the warring parties in such a situation. One side was trying to conquer, the other simply to defend itself. (. . .)
Acquiring the "Forbidden Knowledge"
For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of money…
--Socrates, from “Phaedo” in “The Dialogues of Plato”
I had started to acquire the Forbidden Knowledge. I believed I had received a very good general education growing up in Syosset; indeed, its public schools system was admired by other districts. But there were aspects of how society really worked that had been quite left out of the curriculum. We were decidedly not taught that the state is fundamentally a body of armed men defending the privileges of a tiny minority, the Ruling Class. (. . .)
The Case of the Fort Dix 38
On June 5, 1969 an uprising had occurred in the overcrowded barracks of the post stockade at Fort Dix, New Jersey, an installation used primarily for Basic Training. Reportedly around 800 prisoners were crammed into a facility designed for 250, resulting in hours-long waits to get into the Mess Hall and long stints in pre-trial status. The most common offense causing confinement there? Being AWOL, of course.
In the incident in question, interior infrastructure was smashed up and fires broke out. At the time, I’d been awaiting the verdict of the Federal Court in Boston and hadn’t heard of this unrest via the mainstream media. The ASU staff filled me in when I paid a visit during my lengthy administrative leave. The situation, I quickly learned, was heavy. (. . .) Thirty-eight individuals were initially charged with participating in a riot, damaging government property, and arson. Eventually the prosecutorial focus would narrow to Terry Klug, Bill Brakefield, Jeff Russell and Tom Catlow, all affiliated with the ASU. If convicted of all charges, these guys faced the prospect of 40 or more years in prison. Brakefield was still in that stockade after being tried for AWOL in the wake of the sanctuary arrests at City College of NY the previous November; he had nearly served out his sentence.
August 2, 1969: Waving the flag, but whose flag?
Beyond the first of August I would exceed 30 days of AWOL and again be Dropped From the Rolls out in Oakland. I lacked a firm plan for a date and method to again surrender myself to the Army, to get my punishment over with. Once again, an event was planned for a propitious date: the ASU, in collaboration with SDS, Black Panther Party and other groups, called for a street demonstration Saturday, August 2 in front of Pennsylvania Station, above which the new Madison Square Garden had recently been constructed. The theme of this demo was “Free the Ft. Dix 38 and All Political Prisoners.” (. . .) On my own initiative I again decided to participate dressed in full Army uniform. (. . .) And of course an ASU button adorned my khaki shirt. Andy Stapp and other ASU staffers were present for moral support.
In the sea of banners and placards, as was often the case at militant protests, there were some “Viet Cong” flags: yellow star on a background divided horizontally into fields of red and pale blue. Quite spontaneously, I asked to borrow one of these. Climbing atop a low stone wall abutting a pedestrian plaza, I held aloft the flag of “the enemy.” The crowd chanted: “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! Vietnam is gonna win!” Having concluded that justice was on the side of the people of Vietnam, I was calling for victory for the liberation forces. Did this mean I was cheering the deaths of American military personnel? Not at all. My position was quite simple: they should never have been sent to Indochina in the first place; a ceasefire should be implemented immediately; America’s sons and daughters should be brought back to US soil intact, without delay.
My flag-waving of the “wrong” variety, from the perspective of mainstream America, drew the attention of the crew covering the demo for CBS-TV’s flagship NYC station. I was taken aside to a quiet location and interviewed on camera by Dave Marash, a reporter for that station before he became a fixture on “60 Minutes.” When asked why I was demonstrating, I stated (this is verbatim): “I support the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in its struggle against US imperialism.” When asked what I expected would become of me after this, I said I would face the consequences: prosecution and imprisonment.
The author prepares to "wave the flag," NYC, August 2, 1969. On the right is Andy Stapp, founder of the American Servicemen's Union (ASU). I eluded arrest on this occasion (a narrow escape!), after being interviewed by CBS-TV, and later that month joined the largest "GI Sanctuary" (Honolulu) of the Vietnam War's duration.
[photo credit: unidentified friend of the ASU]
[photo credit: unidentified friend of the ASU]
CHAPTER VIII: In the bowels of the beast (Ft. Dix Stockade 1969/70)
[Excerpt from a letter home, October 1969. I would be held in solitary a total of three times during my stay in this stockade, all for absurd reasons.—GL]:
You’ll never guess where I am. I’m in Seg, which is short for Segregation, which is tantamount to solitary.
Before you start writing to Dick Nixon or take any foolish action, allow me to assure you that I’m getting more food here than I was in the regular cellblocks. Physically and mentally I am in excellent condition. My major gripe is simply the illegality of being given corporal punishment without due process of law. But, of course, due process of law is something the military is not at all concerned with. I was put here Sunday afternoon by order of a mere first lieutenant, whose arrogance manifests itself as an inability to tolerate those who won’t lick his boots—for my “crime,” you see, was to refuse to call him “sir.” Somehow, he figures that this will earn him my respect; I guess he thinks basically like Tricky Dick—illogically. So much for Seg—don’t worry; I don’t.
In early October, I was presented with the official charge against me, which was solely that I’d been AWOL from date X to date Y. Interestingly, the prosecuting authority at Dix apparently had no information on my having surrendered myself at Devens and been tried and punished there. They were charging me with being continuously absent since October 22, 1968! Such breathtaking competence! (. . .) Every time I got some word from the Army about my trial, I could count on soon receiving contradictory news. The only constant was the certainty I would be convicted of having been AWOL. (. . .)
The Prosecution presented its case. This consisted of two Morning Reports, which indicated the (corrected) dates of my unauthorized absence from duty. Same modus operandi as in my Summary Court-Martial at Ft. Devens. The Prosecution rested, stating this was prima facie proof of my guilt.
More technical points of law were argued. “Motion denied” came the robotic response. Now I took the stand myself to recount the story of how I came to enlist “voluntarily,” and the basis of my objection to the War in Vietnam. I stated plainly that I objected to the war on moral and political grounds and would never report for duty in Vietnam. The jury was sent off to deliberate. After maybe twenty minutes the jury reappeared. The guilty verdict was promptly announced, with a sentence of six months at hard labor and fine of $75 a month for that period. Having been reduced to E-1 (lowest military paygrade) in the first court-martial, my salary stood at only $123 a month. And so it was that “The People of The United States”—for that is in whose name I was prosecuted—achieved their glorious triumph over the evildoer, Private Laxer. [Ultimately, I was deemed worthy of “rehabilitation” (!) and sent to Fort Riley, on the plains of Kansas, for that privilege in late January 1970.—GL]
CHAPTER IX: “Rehabilitation!” (Correctional Training Facility, Fort Riley, KS January-March 1970)
[Excerpt from a letter home written shortly after my arrival.—GL]:
This place is basic training all over again. There’s a fence around us, but it’s not very impressive; individual barracks aren’t fenced off one from another like Dix stockade. However, I’m not at all happy to be here. If you’ll recall my letters from Ft. Jackson during Basic, you’ll remember that I laughed my way through it. Well, I intend to do the same thing here, but I’ll only be laughing on the outside. Although my plans call for me to return to duty in order to organize for the ASU, after this bullshit is over I might say to hell with it for keeps. At any rate, while I’m here I must go along with the game in order to get out of here in 10 weeks. (. . .)
The intent of this place is to persuade one to return to duty and “soldier.” The officers treat us decently, the food is good. Ha, ha! Too bad, Uncle Sam, but at least 60% of these guys will be AWOL again after they graduate, and will have to be discharged as non-rehabilitatable. (. . .)
I was now in a population less sympathetic to my anti-war stance. Some of these guys were actually lifers (in my unit was a guy who’d been a staff sergeant, E-6) who’d screwed-up and gotten caught. Imagine the humiliation for a former NCO busted back down to private and now being treated like a raw recruit just off the bus, including the privilege of pulling KP. The Army’s theory was that CTF would motivate him to reform and tread the straight and narrow path of devoted duty after the experience. I can’t quote any official statistics, but rumor had it the Army’s success rate left something to be desired. Lifers were distinctly a minority, but we younger guys couldn’t help marveling at their very presence.
“Sorry, kid, we can’t send you to Vietnam.”
If there was one thing stranger about going through CTF than being handed a loaded rifle, it was learning that a certain “guarantee” by the Army was on the level. We’d all been told, before being shipped there from various stockades, that if we successfully completed the program we would get to choose a geographical area for our ensuing duty station. This was the one carrot dangled in front of us. And now it had been officially revealed that, due to our “criminal histories,” we would not be allowed to serve overseas even if we wanted to! (. . .)
Meanwhile, push had come to shove in requesting our next duty stations. I made the Presidio of San Francisco (Letterman General Army Hospital) my first choice. There was no vacancy there for a 91C20 Medic, so I had to settle for Fort Ord on the Monterey Peninsula. “California, here I come!” (. . .)
CHAPTER X: A tenuous truce (Fort Ord, CA 1970/71)
California at last! Surfers and beach bums, bronzed hippie chicks, Hollywood, endless sunny days, The Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, the coolest rock bands on the planet, astounding physiques getting pumped-up on Muscle Beach. In the national, even the world imagination, it was the USA writ larger than life.
But there was another side to the coin. Migrant farmworkers living in squalor, riot cops itching to bust heads, Charles Manson and his followers, one activist dead and another blinded in the struggle over People’s Park in Berkeley, rabid rightwingers in Orange County. And in the Governor’s Mansion sat Ronald Reagan, who had strong ideas about quelling campus unrest: “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.” Yes, it was the USA writ larger than life alright.
Fort Ord was a sprawling base, right on the Pacific Ocean, though too flat to enable a view directly to the water from most locations. The facility was primarily used for Basic Combat Training. (. . .) I found myself assigned to the three ARD wards, with an occasional stint in Intensive Care if they were understaffed on a given shift. ARD stood for Acute Respiratory Distress. Our real task was monitoring trainees showing cold or flu symptoms for something potentially more sinister. Primarily that meant meningitis, and occasionally I would assist with a spinal tap to rule that menacing condition out. If there was no Registered Nurse on duty on the ARD wards, I—“Mr. Buck Private”—was in charge! By dint of my advanced training, I would actually supervise medics who outranked me. Naturally, this caused raised eyebrows, not so much out of resentment as curiosity. (. . .)
It was actually not difficult to hitchhike to the Bay Area from Ft. Ord in those days. Yes, long-haired “freaks” would pick up short-haired GIs. Once arrived in S.F., GIs were easily spotted because of our relatively short hair. But I never personally encountered any hostility from the long-haired crowd based on my military status. Everything was mellow, baby. (. . .)
Day to day anti-war activities
The first thing I had to do upon arriving at any new duty station was to feel out the enlisted personnel around me, to learn who was friendly and who was potentially hostile, to my politics. I couldn’t count on the friendlies to become militant backers of the ASU who’d be willing to risk their own freedom. If push came to shove, how many would be gone in a flash? Naturally, I encouraged enlisted personnel to sign up for ASU membership.
I also got to know the civilian anti-war activists in the area when I went off the base. (. . .) I committed to working with the core group of local activists, which eventually morphed into a local chapter of the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM), modeled after SDS. This included contributing to their newsletter, the Right-On Post. Because I had writing and propaganda skills, I quickly gained a share of editorial control over that publication. Each time a new issue came out, we would distribute it surreptitiously on base. With a rotating work schedule, I was privileged to be able to slip into empty barracks during daytime hours and leave literature on top of bunks. But I confined this activity to the medical barracks, not going into unfamiliar areas. Even so, it was only dumb luck that allowed me to avoid getting caught. Some lifer NCO might have swaggered into one of these buildings at any given time. (. . .)
National Headquarters for the Black Panther Party was located in Oakland, across the Bay from San Francisco. It almost became mandatory for a revolutionary to make a pilgrimage, to show solidarity, to BPP HQ. And this a batch of us, MDM activists and GIs, did one weekend. As we were entering the fortified building to take a tour, Ron Dellums, the local US Representative to Congress and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, was just leaving. It was an honor to get to shake his hand. And that’s something I could say about precious few American politicians. (. . .)
Late in 1970, after 23 straight months in rank of private or PFC, I was finally restored to Spec. 4. It wasn’t a matter of ego or status that had fueled my battle to climb back to where I’d been prior to the first AWOL. It was a question of principle…and wages! The revolution would be a little richer now that I actually had an almost-respectable, by Army standards, monthly salary. Pay rates were actually being upgraded in an early phase of what would become a push for VOLAR—a “volunteer” Army, a professional military designed to avoid the conscription of unwilling, potentially dissident, cannon fodder. As part of VOLAR’s enticements, civilians were actually being hired for all Mess Hall duties. An end to KP for enlisted persons! A “beloved” tradition cast aside! But on the very last day that Hospital Company personnel at Ft. Ord still had to pull KP, guess who was assigned? Coincidence?!
[I was scheduled to officially exit the Army] on July 6, just shy of 50 months since I began my three-year enlistment. I had fought the Army to a standstill, a tenuous treaty of peace presiding over my stay in California. I had made it through without violating my conscience, and the Army had gotten every last day out of me I’d signed up for. Of course, my parents had paid a heavy emotional toll. Just days prior to my ETS, I’d discovered a little tuft of gray hairs on my head, at the ripe old age of 23! I, too, had paid a toll.
The Army had a final surprise for me. When I was handed my Discharge Certificate, I found it stated I was leaving “Under Honorable Conditions.” I had never been informed by the authorities that I was to be issued anything other than a full Honorable Discharge. But here I’d been handed my thanks for putting up with the bullshit of “rehabilitation” at Ft. Riley, a total of six months of imprisonment, and serving out my last year-plus conscientiously in the Fort Ord Hospital. (. . .)
A friend drove me to Monterey Airport, from whence I took the “hop” to Los Angeles and transferred to the flight east. At the earliest opportunity on that final leg home, I used the cramped quarters of a lavatory to change into civvies. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. My personal war with the Army was over, but the larger war raged on. Not by a long shot was I finished working to oppose it.
EPILOGUE: The ghosts of Vietnam are marching still (New York City 1971-75)
(. . .) As 1973 yielded to ’74, Richard Nixon’s upper lip had more and more reasons to sweat profusely. “I am not a crook” and similar protestations from the man with the perpetual five-o’clock shadow provided a goldmine for stand-up comics. In August, ‘Tricky Dick’ finally had to go. Over in Vietnam, the liberation forces rapidly approached Saigon in April 1975. What remained of the ARVN melted away in utter panic. The politician known as ‘Big Minh’ became caretaker head of the southern regime and surrendered to the troops who triumphantly rolled into the capital in their Soviet T-54 tanks. It was a time for rejoicing for those of us who had stood in solidarity with the victims of murderous US aggression. For the first time in many decades, no foreign troops stood arrogantly upon Vietnamese soil. That had been the vision of ‘Uncle Ho’ all along. (. . .)
So that’s what those codes mean . . .
Early in my own post-active-duty existence, I encountered the common problem of vets with “less than Honorable” discharges. After I was rejected for employment by some major corporations with no explanation, I heard from some fellow veterans that employers looked for codes on one’s Discharge Certificate (Form DD-214) that revealed whether one’s term of service had been smooth, or one had been a troublemaker. Sure enough, upon closer examination, I found my own DD-214 contained a summary of my “Bad Time” (time spent AWOL and incarcerated), and other stuff I couldn’t even decipher. That latter category probably included an indication I’d been barred from re-enlisting. Thanks to the magic of the product called Wite-Out, I obliterated that information and changed my form to read simply HONORABLE rather than UNDER HONORABLE CONDITIONS. Things went more smoothly thereafter in the realm of employment. ( . . .)
Now tell me, what did America gain from all this [the Vietnam War]? What supposed principle could possibly justify all this suffering? Sages have declared that “One should never say ‘never’” and that “Only fools are certain.” But that’s conventional wisdom, and I say to hell with the conventional wisdom. And I say to you now, with certainty: you will never persuade me that my country was in the right in this sordid episode. And I will never apologize for the actions I took in opposition to this war.
More considerations of the Vietnam War: Rights or wrongs aside?!
After completing the first draft of this memoir, I allowed myself to finally read two revered books about the Vietnam War. These were Matterhorn—A Novel of the Vietnam War (El Leon Literary Arts/The Grove Press, paperback, 2010) and A Rumor of War (Ballantine Books, first paperback edition, 1978). (. . .)
Philip Caputo wrote (page 218): “I cannot deny that the front still held a fascination for me. The rights or wrongs of the war aside, there was a magnetism about combat” [emphasis added]. Both these authors admit that, beyond concern number one—personal survival—they sought to test their manhood in combat and desired promotion up the ranks. (. . .)
Did the Vietnamese people exist only to provide them a test of their manhood? Is it that easy to toss aside the question of which nation was waging aggression and which defending itself? True, we have no choice to whom we are born, in what nation and into what socio-economic circumstances. But I will maintain until I draw my final breath that we can choose to refuse to participate in unjust, unwarranted wars. (. . .)
I have recounted here how I, a college drop-out, acquired the skill to penetrate the smokescreen of “Patriotism,” to understand the real motives of the state. But before I learned how to analyze things from a class-conscious perspective, my “gut” told me, while I was still a teenager, that this particular war, with which I was on a collision course due to the circumstances of my birth, could not possibly be justified.
Burns and Novick on the war: 10 years, $30 million, no truth!!
(. . .) This documentary project had the associated tagline, “There is no single truth in war.” I have presented my argument in this book that there was, in fact, one overarching, indeed overwhelming fundamental truth of the US war against the peoples of Indochina: It was never justified in the first place. Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick are considered “liberals,” or at least middle of the road politically, not raving rightwingers. So what are we to make of their expenditure of ten years of their lives and tens of millions of dollars, only to produce an end product that cannot—or willfully refuses to—grasp this fundamental truth? All we need do is examine the list of sponsors of their project. [Among them, the far-right Koch brothers—GL] (. . .)
[W]e will be condemned to suffer the ongoing festering of this wound until the last veteran is dead and buried. But even that will not be the terminus of the matter, as a certain segment of the population will continue to believe that US participation was a “noble” effort to “save” people from “Communist aggression.” And wounded veterans will continue to be produced in ongoing, utterly unjustified wars. The psychosis I have termed “the American Disease” [see ESSAY: The human condition—a blunt assessment on following pages] has deadly consequences, you see. Will you ever be capable of looking at yourself in the mirror and dealing with it, America?
ESSAY: The human condition—a blunt assessment
[This section of the book is more or less a summing up of my life philosophy, touching on numerous topics; the following excerpts barely scratch the surface.—GL]
As I write, more than 50 years have passed since my first public expression of anti-war dissent. In these decades, I must report, the United States has not launched a single military operation that I could find justified, that I could approve of. The economy remains dependent on perpetual war for its sustenance. The cost of this military activity gets folded into the national debt, which will burden taxpayers for literally decades to come, or bring the economy to eventual collapse. The US military is essentially a mercenary force now, augmented by civilian “security contractors”—more profit opportunities for the private sector. The armed services have had to lower their standards for recruitment, but the civilian economy is shaky enough (for those of us not in the uppermost percentiles of income) that young men and women are still being steered into the ranks, by necessity of earning a salary.
Not far into the opening episode of Dr. Jacob Bronowski’s 1973 television series, “The Ascent of Man” (a BBC/Time-Life Films coproduction), we are presented the concept that war is fundamentally a highly organized form of theft. (. . .) The French were the first “Western” exploiters of Vietnamese labor power. The United States of America expended billions of dollars and untold millions of human lives—Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian and American—in its furious but futile effort to become the new exploiters. (. . .)
More on the class nature of modern society
As explained in Chapter VII, I started to acquire the Forbidden Knowledge via associating with the leadership of the American Servicemen’s Union. In our school years, we had been taught that the USA was a democracy, and that government’s three branches had been brilliantly designed in a system of checks and balances so that none had excessive power. We were decidedly not taught that the state, i.e. government, is instituted fundamentally to defend the privileges of a tiny minority, the Ruling Class. (. . .)
With his superior technology, essentially unlimited resources for re-supply of weapons and ammunition, and ability to deliver terror from the skies, Uncle Sam arrogantly went about destroying Vietnam “in order to save it.” In the end, General Giap emerged the victor—at a terrible, terrible cost—and nearly 60,000 American lives had been thrown away permanently, with many more disabled for life, or taking their own lives in later years. From this, did the United States take away any lessons? It would be hard to argue an affirmative answer, looking at its record of invasion/occupation in the intervening decades.
The flag that magically obliterates reason
What magical properties this cloth, with the red and white horizontal stripes and the white stars on blue background, possesses! It is a wonder, to be sure. The citizenry will dutifully salute whatever it’s draped upon, no matter how venal and corrupt. No wonder politicians wrap themselves in it when they spout lies and hypocrisy of indescribable magnitude. When they tell the lies that lay the foundations for unjustified and unjust wars. And when they tell the ongoing lies that sustain the wars. (. . .)
America, why are you still offering up your sons and daughters to risk their lives and limbs, to perpetrate crimes against civilians in far distant lands, to come home to be haunted forever-after by nightmares? How much longer will you swallow the lies of “Patriotism,” and take flags in exchange for your precious children? (. . .)
Here in the 21st Century, in this age of technological wonders, raw natural resources are still necessary to run the world. Unfortunately for the planet’s environment and inhabitants, crude oil is still king. Modern society cannot operate without it. To obtain it, to control its flow, nations will launch wars of aggression. And leaders of aggressor nations will concoct preposterous lies to conceal their real motivation. It will be stated that such and such an action was necessary “to protect this nation’s vital national interests.” Vital national interests. Translation: “We will take whatever measures we deem necessary to ensure the profitability of our corporations, and the well-being of the plutocrats who control them.” (. . .)
The Conventional Wisdom needs to be discarded
We are incredibly fortuitous to live on a planet hospitable to life, but its resources are finite. This world cannot benignly absorb an infinite quantity of poison dumped into the ocean, buried in the ground, spewed into the atmosphere. How could this not be obvious? Well, the conventional wisdom was that this is how the economy works, this is what gives people employment, this is what leads to progress. If we are to survive as a species, we need to cooperate, not slaughter one another in a quest to seize the remaining resources, or to dispute artificial lines on a map defining nations. This whole concept of “Patriotism” needs to be discarded, for our world has become one where cooperation is our only hope for survival, so immense have the problems of the impact of human activity on the environment become. (. . .)
The American Disease
And so, have we traveled very far from Mr. Kipling and his “white man’s burden”? This notion that the USA somehow has a right to impose its will on other nations as it sees fit, and damn world public opinion and even agreements on humane treatment of prisoners of war signed by relatively civilized nations, is what I call the American Disease. It is a fantastic self-imposed delusion of colossal proportions, and it can only guarantee eternal war and suffering, planet-wide. (. . .)
Buffy Sainte-Marie, Native American human rights activist who gained attention in the Vietnam War years, wrote a song called “Universal Soldier.” Donovan, the former Scottish tailor with the lovely, lilting voice, recorded a popular version of this work. The song lists various “faiths” to which a soldier might adhere while engaging in war, including Buddhism. But Ste.-Marie erred by trying to blame the common soldiery for the never-ending wars of Mankind. “He’s the Universal Soldier, and he really is to blame” she wrote. Are we to hold blameless, then, those who instigate the wars and reap the profits from a safe position thousands of miles from any combat? (. . .)
There follow nine Appendixes--
Appendix 1: A Condensed History of the Vietnam War
Appendix 2: Music with a Social Conscience [brief overview of “protest songs”]
Appendix 3: Official Government Documents [relating to my anti-war activities]
Appendix 4: Application for Conscientious Objector Status [actual text of my statement of moral principles, written at age 20]
Appendix 5: Special Court-Martial Trial Record [trial held at Ft. Dix, NJ after my second refusal to participate in Vietnam War]
Appendix 6: The “Collapse” of the Armed Forces—A Look Back [examining two studies published c. 1973 that painted a dire picture of US military readiness]
Appendix 7: A Dirty Little Secret [behind the scenes of the US anti-war movement]
Appendix 8: Concerning the Burns-Novick “The Vietnam War” [two internet articles I posted in response to the grave failings of the PBS series]
Appendix 9: “Letter to the Wall”—Memorial Day 2015 [my contribution to a Veterans for Peace initiative concerning the American lives lost in the Vietnam War]
Final segments of the book--
On the quoting of song lyrics [why I could only quote them very selectively for this book]
Acknowledgments
[Excerpt from a letter home, October 1969. I would be held in solitary a total of three times during my stay in this stockade, all for absurd reasons.—GL]:
You’ll never guess where I am. I’m in Seg, which is short for Segregation, which is tantamount to solitary.
Before you start writing to Dick Nixon or take any foolish action, allow me to assure you that I’m getting more food here than I was in the regular cellblocks. Physically and mentally I am in excellent condition. My major gripe is simply the illegality of being given corporal punishment without due process of law. But, of course, due process of law is something the military is not at all concerned with. I was put here Sunday afternoon by order of a mere first lieutenant, whose arrogance manifests itself as an inability to tolerate those who won’t lick his boots—for my “crime,” you see, was to refuse to call him “sir.” Somehow, he figures that this will earn him my respect; I guess he thinks basically like Tricky Dick—illogically. So much for Seg—don’t worry; I don’t.
In early October, I was presented with the official charge against me, which was solely that I’d been AWOL from date X to date Y. Interestingly, the prosecuting authority at Dix apparently had no information on my having surrendered myself at Devens and been tried and punished there. They were charging me with being continuously absent since October 22, 1968! Such breathtaking competence! (. . .) Every time I got some word from the Army about my trial, I could count on soon receiving contradictory news. The only constant was the certainty I would be convicted of having been AWOL. (. . .)
The Prosecution presented its case. This consisted of two Morning Reports, which indicated the (corrected) dates of my unauthorized absence from duty. Same modus operandi as in my Summary Court-Martial at Ft. Devens. The Prosecution rested, stating this was prima facie proof of my guilt.
More technical points of law were argued. “Motion denied” came the robotic response. Now I took the stand myself to recount the story of how I came to enlist “voluntarily,” and the basis of my objection to the War in Vietnam. I stated plainly that I objected to the war on moral and political grounds and would never report for duty in Vietnam. The jury was sent off to deliberate. After maybe twenty minutes the jury reappeared. The guilty verdict was promptly announced, with a sentence of six months at hard labor and fine of $75 a month for that period. Having been reduced to E-1 (lowest military paygrade) in the first court-martial, my salary stood at only $123 a month. And so it was that “The People of The United States”—for that is in whose name I was prosecuted—achieved their glorious triumph over the evildoer, Private Laxer. [Ultimately, I was deemed worthy of “rehabilitation” (!) and sent to Fort Riley, on the plains of Kansas, for that privilege in late January 1970.—GL]
CHAPTER IX: “Rehabilitation!” (Correctional Training Facility, Fort Riley, KS January-March 1970)
[Excerpt from a letter home written shortly after my arrival.—GL]:
This place is basic training all over again. There’s a fence around us, but it’s not very impressive; individual barracks aren’t fenced off one from another like Dix stockade. However, I’m not at all happy to be here. If you’ll recall my letters from Ft. Jackson during Basic, you’ll remember that I laughed my way through it. Well, I intend to do the same thing here, but I’ll only be laughing on the outside. Although my plans call for me to return to duty in order to organize for the ASU, after this bullshit is over I might say to hell with it for keeps. At any rate, while I’m here I must go along with the game in order to get out of here in 10 weeks. (. . .)
The intent of this place is to persuade one to return to duty and “soldier.” The officers treat us decently, the food is good. Ha, ha! Too bad, Uncle Sam, but at least 60% of these guys will be AWOL again after they graduate, and will have to be discharged as non-rehabilitatable. (. . .)
I was now in a population less sympathetic to my anti-war stance. Some of these guys were actually lifers (in my unit was a guy who’d been a staff sergeant, E-6) who’d screwed-up and gotten caught. Imagine the humiliation for a former NCO busted back down to private and now being treated like a raw recruit just off the bus, including the privilege of pulling KP. The Army’s theory was that CTF would motivate him to reform and tread the straight and narrow path of devoted duty after the experience. I can’t quote any official statistics, but rumor had it the Army’s success rate left something to be desired. Lifers were distinctly a minority, but we younger guys couldn’t help marveling at their very presence.
“Sorry, kid, we can’t send you to Vietnam.”
If there was one thing stranger about going through CTF than being handed a loaded rifle, it was learning that a certain “guarantee” by the Army was on the level. We’d all been told, before being shipped there from various stockades, that if we successfully completed the program we would get to choose a geographical area for our ensuing duty station. This was the one carrot dangled in front of us. And now it had been officially revealed that, due to our “criminal histories,” we would not be allowed to serve overseas even if we wanted to! (. . .)
Meanwhile, push had come to shove in requesting our next duty stations. I made the Presidio of San Francisco (Letterman General Army Hospital) my first choice. There was no vacancy there for a 91C20 Medic, so I had to settle for Fort Ord on the Monterey Peninsula. “California, here I come!” (. . .)
CHAPTER X: A tenuous truce (Fort Ord, CA 1970/71)
California at last! Surfers and beach bums, bronzed hippie chicks, Hollywood, endless sunny days, The Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, the coolest rock bands on the planet, astounding physiques getting pumped-up on Muscle Beach. In the national, even the world imagination, it was the USA writ larger than life.
But there was another side to the coin. Migrant farmworkers living in squalor, riot cops itching to bust heads, Charles Manson and his followers, one activist dead and another blinded in the struggle over People’s Park in Berkeley, rabid rightwingers in Orange County. And in the Governor’s Mansion sat Ronald Reagan, who had strong ideas about quelling campus unrest: “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.” Yes, it was the USA writ larger than life alright.
Fort Ord was a sprawling base, right on the Pacific Ocean, though too flat to enable a view directly to the water from most locations. The facility was primarily used for Basic Combat Training. (. . .) I found myself assigned to the three ARD wards, with an occasional stint in Intensive Care if they were understaffed on a given shift. ARD stood for Acute Respiratory Distress. Our real task was monitoring trainees showing cold or flu symptoms for something potentially more sinister. Primarily that meant meningitis, and occasionally I would assist with a spinal tap to rule that menacing condition out. If there was no Registered Nurse on duty on the ARD wards, I—“Mr. Buck Private”—was in charge! By dint of my advanced training, I would actually supervise medics who outranked me. Naturally, this caused raised eyebrows, not so much out of resentment as curiosity. (. . .)
It was actually not difficult to hitchhike to the Bay Area from Ft. Ord in those days. Yes, long-haired “freaks” would pick up short-haired GIs. Once arrived in S.F., GIs were easily spotted because of our relatively short hair. But I never personally encountered any hostility from the long-haired crowd based on my military status. Everything was mellow, baby. (. . .)
Day to day anti-war activities
The first thing I had to do upon arriving at any new duty station was to feel out the enlisted personnel around me, to learn who was friendly and who was potentially hostile, to my politics. I couldn’t count on the friendlies to become militant backers of the ASU who’d be willing to risk their own freedom. If push came to shove, how many would be gone in a flash? Naturally, I encouraged enlisted personnel to sign up for ASU membership.
I also got to know the civilian anti-war activists in the area when I went off the base. (. . .) I committed to working with the core group of local activists, which eventually morphed into a local chapter of the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM), modeled after SDS. This included contributing to their newsletter, the Right-On Post. Because I had writing and propaganda skills, I quickly gained a share of editorial control over that publication. Each time a new issue came out, we would distribute it surreptitiously on base. With a rotating work schedule, I was privileged to be able to slip into empty barracks during daytime hours and leave literature on top of bunks. But I confined this activity to the medical barracks, not going into unfamiliar areas. Even so, it was only dumb luck that allowed me to avoid getting caught. Some lifer NCO might have swaggered into one of these buildings at any given time. (. . .)
National Headquarters for the Black Panther Party was located in Oakland, across the Bay from San Francisco. It almost became mandatory for a revolutionary to make a pilgrimage, to show solidarity, to BPP HQ. And this a batch of us, MDM activists and GIs, did one weekend. As we were entering the fortified building to take a tour, Ron Dellums, the local US Representative to Congress and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, was just leaving. It was an honor to get to shake his hand. And that’s something I could say about precious few American politicians. (. . .)
Late in 1970, after 23 straight months in rank of private or PFC, I was finally restored to Spec. 4. It wasn’t a matter of ego or status that had fueled my battle to climb back to where I’d been prior to the first AWOL. It was a question of principle…and wages! The revolution would be a little richer now that I actually had an almost-respectable, by Army standards, monthly salary. Pay rates were actually being upgraded in an early phase of what would become a push for VOLAR—a “volunteer” Army, a professional military designed to avoid the conscription of unwilling, potentially dissident, cannon fodder. As part of VOLAR’s enticements, civilians were actually being hired for all Mess Hall duties. An end to KP for enlisted persons! A “beloved” tradition cast aside! But on the very last day that Hospital Company personnel at Ft. Ord still had to pull KP, guess who was assigned? Coincidence?!
[I was scheduled to officially exit the Army] on July 6, just shy of 50 months since I began my three-year enlistment. I had fought the Army to a standstill, a tenuous treaty of peace presiding over my stay in California. I had made it through without violating my conscience, and the Army had gotten every last day out of me I’d signed up for. Of course, my parents had paid a heavy emotional toll. Just days prior to my ETS, I’d discovered a little tuft of gray hairs on my head, at the ripe old age of 23! I, too, had paid a toll.
The Army had a final surprise for me. When I was handed my Discharge Certificate, I found it stated I was leaving “Under Honorable Conditions.” I had never been informed by the authorities that I was to be issued anything other than a full Honorable Discharge. But here I’d been handed my thanks for putting up with the bullshit of “rehabilitation” at Ft. Riley, a total of six months of imprisonment, and serving out my last year-plus conscientiously in the Fort Ord Hospital. (. . .)
A friend drove me to Monterey Airport, from whence I took the “hop” to Los Angeles and transferred to the flight east. At the earliest opportunity on that final leg home, I used the cramped quarters of a lavatory to change into civvies. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. My personal war with the Army was over, but the larger war raged on. Not by a long shot was I finished working to oppose it.
EPILOGUE: The ghosts of Vietnam are marching still (New York City 1971-75)
(. . .) As 1973 yielded to ’74, Richard Nixon’s upper lip had more and more reasons to sweat profusely. “I am not a crook” and similar protestations from the man with the perpetual five-o’clock shadow provided a goldmine for stand-up comics. In August, ‘Tricky Dick’ finally had to go. Over in Vietnam, the liberation forces rapidly approached Saigon in April 1975. What remained of the ARVN melted away in utter panic. The politician known as ‘Big Minh’ became caretaker head of the southern regime and surrendered to the troops who triumphantly rolled into the capital in their Soviet T-54 tanks. It was a time for rejoicing for those of us who had stood in solidarity with the victims of murderous US aggression. For the first time in many decades, no foreign troops stood arrogantly upon Vietnamese soil. That had been the vision of ‘Uncle Ho’ all along. (. . .)
So that’s what those codes mean . . .
Early in my own post-active-duty existence, I encountered the common problem of vets with “less than Honorable” discharges. After I was rejected for employment by some major corporations with no explanation, I heard from some fellow veterans that employers looked for codes on one’s Discharge Certificate (Form DD-214) that revealed whether one’s term of service had been smooth, or one had been a troublemaker. Sure enough, upon closer examination, I found my own DD-214 contained a summary of my “Bad Time” (time spent AWOL and incarcerated), and other stuff I couldn’t even decipher. That latter category probably included an indication I’d been barred from re-enlisting. Thanks to the magic of the product called Wite-Out, I obliterated that information and changed my form to read simply HONORABLE rather than UNDER HONORABLE CONDITIONS. Things went more smoothly thereafter in the realm of employment. ( . . .)
Now tell me, what did America gain from all this [the Vietnam War]? What supposed principle could possibly justify all this suffering? Sages have declared that “One should never say ‘never’” and that “Only fools are certain.” But that’s conventional wisdom, and I say to hell with the conventional wisdom. And I say to you now, with certainty: you will never persuade me that my country was in the right in this sordid episode. And I will never apologize for the actions I took in opposition to this war.
More considerations of the Vietnam War: Rights or wrongs aside?!
After completing the first draft of this memoir, I allowed myself to finally read two revered books about the Vietnam War. These were Matterhorn—A Novel of the Vietnam War (El Leon Literary Arts/The Grove Press, paperback, 2010) and A Rumor of War (Ballantine Books, first paperback edition, 1978). (. . .)
Philip Caputo wrote (page 218): “I cannot deny that the front still held a fascination for me. The rights or wrongs of the war aside, there was a magnetism about combat” [emphasis added]. Both these authors admit that, beyond concern number one—personal survival—they sought to test their manhood in combat and desired promotion up the ranks. (. . .)
Did the Vietnamese people exist only to provide them a test of their manhood? Is it that easy to toss aside the question of which nation was waging aggression and which defending itself? True, we have no choice to whom we are born, in what nation and into what socio-economic circumstances. But I will maintain until I draw my final breath that we can choose to refuse to participate in unjust, unwarranted wars. (. . .)
I have recounted here how I, a college drop-out, acquired the skill to penetrate the smokescreen of “Patriotism,” to understand the real motives of the state. But before I learned how to analyze things from a class-conscious perspective, my “gut” told me, while I was still a teenager, that this particular war, with which I was on a collision course due to the circumstances of my birth, could not possibly be justified.
Burns and Novick on the war: 10 years, $30 million, no truth!!
(. . .) This documentary project had the associated tagline, “There is no single truth in war.” I have presented my argument in this book that there was, in fact, one overarching, indeed overwhelming fundamental truth of the US war against the peoples of Indochina: It was never justified in the first place. Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick are considered “liberals,” or at least middle of the road politically, not raving rightwingers. So what are we to make of their expenditure of ten years of their lives and tens of millions of dollars, only to produce an end product that cannot—or willfully refuses to—grasp this fundamental truth? All we need do is examine the list of sponsors of their project. [Among them, the far-right Koch brothers—GL] (. . .)
[W]e will be condemned to suffer the ongoing festering of this wound until the last veteran is dead and buried. But even that will not be the terminus of the matter, as a certain segment of the population will continue to believe that US participation was a “noble” effort to “save” people from “Communist aggression.” And wounded veterans will continue to be produced in ongoing, utterly unjustified wars. The psychosis I have termed “the American Disease” [see ESSAY: The human condition—a blunt assessment on following pages] has deadly consequences, you see. Will you ever be capable of looking at yourself in the mirror and dealing with it, America?
ESSAY: The human condition—a blunt assessment
[This section of the book is more or less a summing up of my life philosophy, touching on numerous topics; the following excerpts barely scratch the surface.—GL]
As I write, more than 50 years have passed since my first public expression of anti-war dissent. In these decades, I must report, the United States has not launched a single military operation that I could find justified, that I could approve of. The economy remains dependent on perpetual war for its sustenance. The cost of this military activity gets folded into the national debt, which will burden taxpayers for literally decades to come, or bring the economy to eventual collapse. The US military is essentially a mercenary force now, augmented by civilian “security contractors”—more profit opportunities for the private sector. The armed services have had to lower their standards for recruitment, but the civilian economy is shaky enough (for those of us not in the uppermost percentiles of income) that young men and women are still being steered into the ranks, by necessity of earning a salary.
Not far into the opening episode of Dr. Jacob Bronowski’s 1973 television series, “The Ascent of Man” (a BBC/Time-Life Films coproduction), we are presented the concept that war is fundamentally a highly organized form of theft. (. . .) The French were the first “Western” exploiters of Vietnamese labor power. The United States of America expended billions of dollars and untold millions of human lives—Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian and American—in its furious but futile effort to become the new exploiters. (. . .)
More on the class nature of modern society
As explained in Chapter VII, I started to acquire the Forbidden Knowledge via associating with the leadership of the American Servicemen’s Union. In our school years, we had been taught that the USA was a democracy, and that government’s three branches had been brilliantly designed in a system of checks and balances so that none had excessive power. We were decidedly not taught that the state, i.e. government, is instituted fundamentally to defend the privileges of a tiny minority, the Ruling Class. (. . .)
With his superior technology, essentially unlimited resources for re-supply of weapons and ammunition, and ability to deliver terror from the skies, Uncle Sam arrogantly went about destroying Vietnam “in order to save it.” In the end, General Giap emerged the victor—at a terrible, terrible cost—and nearly 60,000 American lives had been thrown away permanently, with many more disabled for life, or taking their own lives in later years. From this, did the United States take away any lessons? It would be hard to argue an affirmative answer, looking at its record of invasion/occupation in the intervening decades.
The flag that magically obliterates reason
What magical properties this cloth, with the red and white horizontal stripes and the white stars on blue background, possesses! It is a wonder, to be sure. The citizenry will dutifully salute whatever it’s draped upon, no matter how venal and corrupt. No wonder politicians wrap themselves in it when they spout lies and hypocrisy of indescribable magnitude. When they tell the lies that lay the foundations for unjustified and unjust wars. And when they tell the ongoing lies that sustain the wars. (. . .)
America, why are you still offering up your sons and daughters to risk their lives and limbs, to perpetrate crimes against civilians in far distant lands, to come home to be haunted forever-after by nightmares? How much longer will you swallow the lies of “Patriotism,” and take flags in exchange for your precious children? (. . .)
Here in the 21st Century, in this age of technological wonders, raw natural resources are still necessary to run the world. Unfortunately for the planet’s environment and inhabitants, crude oil is still king. Modern society cannot operate without it. To obtain it, to control its flow, nations will launch wars of aggression. And leaders of aggressor nations will concoct preposterous lies to conceal their real motivation. It will be stated that such and such an action was necessary “to protect this nation’s vital national interests.” Vital national interests. Translation: “We will take whatever measures we deem necessary to ensure the profitability of our corporations, and the well-being of the plutocrats who control them.” (. . .)
The Conventional Wisdom needs to be discarded
We are incredibly fortuitous to live on a planet hospitable to life, but its resources are finite. This world cannot benignly absorb an infinite quantity of poison dumped into the ocean, buried in the ground, spewed into the atmosphere. How could this not be obvious? Well, the conventional wisdom was that this is how the economy works, this is what gives people employment, this is what leads to progress. If we are to survive as a species, we need to cooperate, not slaughter one another in a quest to seize the remaining resources, or to dispute artificial lines on a map defining nations. This whole concept of “Patriotism” needs to be discarded, for our world has become one where cooperation is our only hope for survival, so immense have the problems of the impact of human activity on the environment become. (. . .)
The American Disease
And so, have we traveled very far from Mr. Kipling and his “white man’s burden”? This notion that the USA somehow has a right to impose its will on other nations as it sees fit, and damn world public opinion and even agreements on humane treatment of prisoners of war signed by relatively civilized nations, is what I call the American Disease. It is a fantastic self-imposed delusion of colossal proportions, and it can only guarantee eternal war and suffering, planet-wide. (. . .)
Buffy Sainte-Marie, Native American human rights activist who gained attention in the Vietnam War years, wrote a song called “Universal Soldier.” Donovan, the former Scottish tailor with the lovely, lilting voice, recorded a popular version of this work. The song lists various “faiths” to which a soldier might adhere while engaging in war, including Buddhism. But Ste.-Marie erred by trying to blame the common soldiery for the never-ending wars of Mankind. “He’s the Universal Soldier, and he really is to blame” she wrote. Are we to hold blameless, then, those who instigate the wars and reap the profits from a safe position thousands of miles from any combat? (. . .)
There follow nine Appendixes--
Appendix 1: A Condensed History of the Vietnam War
Appendix 2: Music with a Social Conscience [brief overview of “protest songs”]
Appendix 3: Official Government Documents [relating to my anti-war activities]
Appendix 4: Application for Conscientious Objector Status [actual text of my statement of moral principles, written at age 20]
Appendix 5: Special Court-Martial Trial Record [trial held at Ft. Dix, NJ after my second refusal to participate in Vietnam War]
Appendix 6: The “Collapse” of the Armed Forces—A Look Back [examining two studies published c. 1973 that painted a dire picture of US military readiness]
Appendix 7: A Dirty Little Secret [behind the scenes of the US anti-war movement]
Appendix 8: Concerning the Burns-Novick “The Vietnam War” [two internet articles I posted in response to the grave failings of the PBS series]
Appendix 9: “Letter to the Wall”—Memorial Day 2015 [my contribution to a Veterans for Peace initiative concerning the American lives lost in the Vietnam War]
Final segments of the book--
On the quoting of song lyrics [why I could only quote them very selectively for this book]
Acknowledgments
