Considering History: The Critical Patriotism of Vietnam Veterans

In my last Considering History column, I highlighted the duality between mythic and critical patriotism, making the case for critical patriotism’s goals of pointing out the nation’s shortcomings in an effort to push us closer to a more perfect union. Any individual or community can model such critical patriotism, from an NFL quarterback kneeling in silent protest to a White House whistleblower highlighting a troubling phone call. But given the ways that the U.S. military is frequently featured in mythic patriotic narratives, there is something especially significant when military veterans express their own critical patriotic perspectives.

On the occasion of Veterans Day, I wanted to highlight one of the most important veteran communities practicing critical patriotism: Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). From its origins in public protest and media campaigns, to its symbolic collective actions, groundbreaking political investigations, and advocacy for veterans, and its continued presence in the 21^st century, VVAW exemplifies the contributions critical patriotic veterans have made throughout American history.

VVAW began with a spontaneous gathering of like-minded people attending a historic protest march. On April 15, 1967, the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam held a “Spring Mobilization to End the War” in New York City. Tens of thousands of protesters marched from Central Park to the U.N. and listened to speeches from Martin Luther King Jr., Harry Belafonte, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and others. A group of veterans began to assemble under a banner reading “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” and carried by Jan Barry, a poet and activist who had completed a tour in Vietnam and then attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point before resigning in protest and searching for what he called “some other way.”

A few weeks later, Barry and others from this initial gathering met at Barry’s apartment to create an organization dedicated to pursuing another way, not just in the war but also for military veterans in their lives back home. “At a time when the mainstream media was whole-heartedly…promoting the war,” as Barry put it, VVAW decided to use their voices to present an entirely different perspective. In November 1967, just in time for Veterans Day (which had been a federal holiday for just over a decade by this time), they bought ad space in the New York Times and published a statement, “Viet-Nam Veterans Speak Out.” That statement begins, “We believe that the conflict in which the United States is engaged in Vietnam is wrong, unjustifiable, and contrary to the principles on which this country is founded,” and concludes, “We believe this is the highest form of patriotism.”

VVAW would continue to make such public statements over the next few years, but also expanded its critical patriotic efforts in many other significant directions. That included the groundbreaking early 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation, through which the VVAW helped gather and present testimony from many veterans about war crimes being committed in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Those recorded testimonies were presented in a documentary film, Winter Soldier (1972), but were also read into the Congressional Record by Senator Mark Hatfield. As a direct result, VVAW leaders, including future Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry, were invited to give statements to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations. In his statement, Kerry linked the investigation to an ideal of American patriotism: “The term Winter Soldier is a play on words of Thomas Paine’s in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriots and summertime soldiers…We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now.”

Alongside such political projects, the VVAW also modeled how collective actions, both protest marches and symbolic ceremonies, could also reflect a critical patriotic perspective. In April 1971, it organized Operation Dewey Canyon III, a march from the Lincoln Memorial Bridge to Arlington National Cemetery where veteran and VVAW leader Reverend Jackson Day conducted a memorial service for fallen soldiers. And over Memorial Day weekend of that year, the VVAW organized the Operation POW protest, a march from the Revolutionary War historic site in Concord to a rally in Boston Common and subsequent campout at the Bunker Hill Monument, to raise awareness of the abandonment of American prisoners of war. By linking these iconic sites of American service and sacrifice to their contemporary causes and critiques, these VVAW actions exemplified both core elements of critical patriotism: the connection to our founding ideals and the activism that seeks to push us to live up to them.”

Even after the Vietnam War was over, VVAW continued to challenge the nation’s failures and fight to uphold its ideals for veterans and all Americans. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, for example, the organization was at the forefront of the fight to recognize and respond to the crisis of PTSD among Vietnam vets. Those efforts included Still at War (1976), a documentary on PTSD and VA hospitals and “rap sessions” with veterans to learn about their experiences and share them with prominent psychiatrists. Through those conversational and medical collaborations, the American Psychiatric Association listed PTSD in the 1980 edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. These ongoing VVAW efforts exemplify the goal of critical patriotism: to fight for the rights and welfare of all our fellow Americans.

More than four decades later, the VVAW continues its critical patriotic efforts on behalf of both veterans and American ideals, with numerous veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq having joined the group. As the organization concludes in its mission statement, “This is real patriotism and we remain true to our mission.” There’s nothing more worth remembering and commemorating on this Veterans’ Day than those efforts, and no patriotism more vital here in late 2024.