Vietnam Agonistes

THIS YEAR MARKS multiple 50th anniversaries of the U.S. escalation of the war in Vietnam and the beginning of major anti-war protests. To mark the anniversary of the war, the Pentagon is sponsoring an official, multimillion dollar Vietnam War Commemoration to “thank and honor veterans.” This program has been criticized as a Vietnam whitewash and an attempt to rewrite history. The Pentagon commission will sponsor more than 1,000 events around the country that will have the effect of honoring the military and obscuring, behind a façade of false patriotism, the painful truths of the Vietnam War.

The Pentagon’s commemorations are missing any consideration of critical unlearned lessons, such as: 1) the Vietnam War was unjust and never should have been fought, 2) wars of military intervention have failed and should be avoided, 3) militarism and war have corrupted U.S. political decision-making, and 4) diplomacy, development, and peacebuilding strategies are preferable and more effective means of resolving international conflict.

Also missing from the Pentagon’s plan is any mention of the massive public opposition to that war, including from many of us who were GIs and veterans. There is no acknowledgement in the Pentagon’s official events of Howard Zinn’s important truth: “In the course of that war, there developed in the United States the greatest anti-war movement the nation had ever experienced, a movement that played a critical part in bringing the war to an end.”

In response to the Pentagon program, more than 1,400 people signed an open letter urging the inclusion of anti-war perspectives in any taxpayer-funded commemorative events. (The letter was featured in a front-page story in The New York Times last October.) Anti-Vietnam War activists have formed the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee to sponsor a series of events on the critical unlearned lessons of the war. Our goal is to 1) recall the false assumptions and distortions that led to the war, 2) acknowledge the breadth and legitimacy of anti-war dissent, and 3) identify the critical unlearned lessons for ongoing U.S. foreign policy.

“Vietnam: The Power of Protest. Telling the Truth. Learning the Lessons” will be held in Washington, D.C., on May 1 and 2. This historic event will conclude with participants marching from the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and on to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, where we will recall King’s courageous stand against the war and his powerful statement, “I oppose the Vietnam War because I love America.”

The importance of addressing the critical lessons of the war was articulated well by former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial this past Veterans Day. “The Wall reminds us to be honest in our telling of history,” Hagel said. “There is nothing to be gained by glossing over the darker portions of a war ... that bitterly divided America. We must openly acknowledge past mistakes, and we must learn from past mistakes, because that is how we avoid repeating past mistakes.”

The planned peace commemorations are not just about the history of Vietnam. They are a reminder of the folly of war and the importance for today of learning from the past. The failure to learn the lessons of Vietnam has led to the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and to our deepening military involvement in the Middle East today. The tradition of resistance to unjust war remains as relevant now as it was then.