John Kerry wasn’t alone. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War had about 20,000 members. In April 1971, the organization conducted a demonstration in which about 800 of those members threw their medals and ribbons over a fence at the front steps of the United States Capitol building. This process lasted more than two hours. Each veteran declared his or her name, hometown, branch of service and a statement.
As Kerry threw his decorations over the fence, his statement was: “I’m not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try and make this country wake up once and for all.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry
It was quite a shocking event for the entire country to observe. I remember it. It was discussed a lot, and I think there was a quite common opinion that these veterans certainly had earned the right to conduct a demonstration of this kind. They earned their ribbons and medals serving in the war, and so they could throw their ribbons and medals away at an anti-war demonstration if they wanted to do so.
This was about the same time that the newspapers were also publishing stories about the trials of the US soldiers who had carried out and then covered up the My Lai massacre.
The public’s opinion about the Vietnam War at that time was morally very complicated. By that time about 58,000 US soldiers had been killed and about 300,000 had been wounded.
Now many people, perhaps especially young conservatives, imagine that Kerry’s role in the Vietnam Veterans in the War was considered to be absolutely disgraceful, but a huge portion of the population considered him to be very impressive, even heroic.
Ayers says this was Kerry’s finest moment. In fact, Ayers probably is right about that.
Ayers too was part of the moral complexity of that time. He believed he was doing something effective to stop the Vietnam War. It seems that one of his organization’s bombs killed a policeman, but keep in mind that 58,000 US soldiers had been killed.
We here now in 2008 should look back on those people and on those events with a perspective that appreciates the moral considerations, passions and anger that people struggled with in 1971.
