the colorado daily page 12 — Friday, May 7, 1971 — ta ae OOo. OK a * s hi et 2 A 3 toes pases x ‘ foes nN se KET a » AVE A 2 bet “+ Ly a 2 LE haan toh: pate CeSqt ap pA pee rt SAS tans Pee 33 Se sAS 33 Pees : Cao PGi, ‘i 4 rg Abit "f Aree BC ‘be #4 BP " : sa Seyres 2 red pric) ih 7 wha ssre % Vd annat x ge I Zt". Re zh SCs ts A Pp m3 , : taba Sa ae Nets 24 ga 3 De Sf ss < PaO POA PS. £ cts 7 tte, aA he a Pixlse 3 ay! eA BETO Pye eR, Rebs A FAH AS re ork X ‘ S21 ” 7 ry me m i: Shin Paes eth eS See G2 OS EN et ates < LD $< eh ey A Note oe 34 rN 4 daily photo by peter j. philbin Daily interview with the vets Stop the war, I want to get out! According to one combat-decorated Vietnam veteran at Washington’s antiwar demonstrations two weeks ago, this is the first time in the history of the United States that American veterans have vocally Opposed an American war while the war is still going on. To find out what motivates.a Vietnam veteran to oppose the war, Daily Editor Timothy Lange inter- viewed four antiwar veterans who are presently University students. These four cannot, perhaps, be considered typical of Vietnam veterans. They are among the minority who go on to college after being discharged. But they, like the thousand veterans in the capital demonstration, are elo- quently united in their opposition to what they call an “immoral” war. Marlin Griffith is 30. He joined the Navy in 1960 and served until 1968 flying supplies in and “flying out coffins or whatever else there was.”’ Dennis Bennett is 27. After three months in Vietnam, he was wounded and spent six months recuperating in Denver’s Fitz- simmons Hospital. Charles Johnson is 24 and served for nearly a year in Vietnam working in social and clinical psychology. Malcolm Thompson is 24. He served for 19 months in Vietnam in the Marine infantry, “mostly on the front lines.’’ After the interview, one of the veterans noted half-cpologetically that they seemed to stray from answering the questions directly. But as can be seen, their digres- sions only spell out more pro- foundly why these four men oppose America’s longest war. Daily: The Vietnam Veterans Against the War has a membership of 12,000, but there are more than 2.5 million veterans of Vietnam. Given that wide gap, do you feel that most veterans are now against the war? Malcolm: This is a personal view on that since | can only speak for myself. If you’re not aware of what’s going on, you're for it. But after you become aware of what’s going on and you have the opportunity to see the situation in its context, instead of being a part of it and being inside, you begin to realize what a massive contra- diction that the war is. Dennis: You have to see where they come from. Two-year draf- tees get out on the GI bill and go to school. And after you put in two years in a certain service, you more or less try to get yourself together, you know? | don’t really think very many of them join the VFW and the American Legion, either. They’re just more inter- ested in their own_ personal advancement. Like most of them go to college or a trade school, or some kind of schooling when they get out. And, otherwise, they’re the ones that would be really involved with the antiwar move- ment. Those people who are actually touched by the antiwar people. | think individual people have some sort of apprehensions about it. Becoming active in trying to expose the military for what it really is involves only a slight number of them. Most of them feel now they're 4-A, they’re not 1-A, and it’s no longer their responsibility. Marlin: | don’t know a large number of veterans, and those | know are all all affiliated with the school here. | think that is not a representative sample of the vet- erans, and | don’t think we can generalize from the way veterans feel here at CU to veterans in general because you're dealing with a select group of people by virtue of the fact that they are here. They’re different than those veterans you're going to find down in Denver, those who came back and went to work at all levels of jobs. So | don’t know. I. have no idea whether most of them are for, against or indifferent. Dennis; Of course, you have your 30 per cent, it’s 30 per cent now, of returning veterans who are unemployed. These people go under employment insurance and a lot of vets can draw, what, nine months or eight months or something. Malcolm: Yes, but it falls under the category of workmen’s com- pensation. Dennis: So there are a lot of these people. When we were drafted and most of us were in, they were calling up 70-80,000 people a month, and these people are still under workmen’s compen- sation. Once that goes out, to- gether with those coming out of colleges, and they’re not working, you're going to have 30 or 40 per cent of Vietnam veterans who are very frustrated. | think it is going to come out in some kind of overt violence trip. These people are saying, “okay, | didn’t burn my draft card, | didn’t split to Canada, | went over, to serve my time in Vietnam.” Or even if they served their time and went over to Germany, they’re still going to say, ‘Well, | did it! Now what am | going to get out of it?”’ They want to go to work, so these people are going to take their frustrations out in violence which will be... ‘Marlin: \ don’t think it’s going to follow though that they would necessarily be against the war because they can’t find a job. Dennis: Oh, right. | think you have to... Marlin: You can be frustrated about a lot of things — which gets down to the more basic problem, as far as | am concerned, which isn’t the war. Most people don’t understand their culture, nor do they under- stand their own. When | was there, when | was in the service, | was really “gung-ho,”’ | got really involved in the military. You have to. | think you have to be involved in the military. It de- mands of you to become involved. The minute you go into the military, you are subjected to the UCMJ. Whenever you're subjec- ted to that piece of bullshit, anything you do wrong, like if | did something wrong my com- manding officer could give me an Article 15 for no apparent reason at all. Which tome... Daily: Article 15? Malcolm: Why don’t you:-clarify that? The UCMJ is the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Dennis: Article 15 is like — if you're not a good trooper. If you get on the bad side of your, say, your supply sergeant. Or if you say something that they don’t think you should be saying; then he can subject you to an Article 15 which is a form of punishment which is not judicial. In away... Malcolm: They sort of ostracize you. They spank you and say when your conduct marks come out you get a 2.0 instead of a 3.7 or a 4.0, and this will have some effect on how your promotions go in the future. So it’s more or less a lever. It’s... Marlin: \ might clarify one fur- ther thing. This serviceman doesn’t have to accept an Article 15, he can request .. . Dennis: A summary court mar- tial. Which is the same thing. You have two obstacles instead of one. Malcolm: Yeah, but with the summary court martial, this really has some effect on your pro- ficiency marks. You really want (continued on page 1 4) ‘Article 15 is like--if you’re not a good trooper.’ ‘4 A®w — €T e6ed Ailep opesojod a4} — T/6)