I was also pleased because my anti-war group at Ft. Bragg, N.C. -- G.I.’s United Against the War -- had received a message inviting any of our active duty members to come to Washington, D.C., and participate in the huge Vietnam War Moratorium March on Washington on November 15th. They needed 36 active duty soldiers to take leave from their units, travel to D.C. and participate by carrying six coffins full of small pieces of paper, each with the name of one of the 40,000 U.S. soldiers who had died in Vietnam to that point. The pieces of paper were to be deposited into the coffins during a candlelight vigil on the Washington Mall on Friday night, November 14th. Then on Saturday, we G.I.’s would carry the coffins from the steps of the Capitol all the way down the mall past the Washington Monument where a huge stage would be erected and where celebrities would entertain and speakers would speak against the war.
As it turned out only my buddy Dave Wachter and I volunteered from Ft. Bragg. We were invited to attend a special breakfast in a hotel near the Capitol early Saturday morning where the leadership of National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam were gathered along with such honored guests as Senators George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy. I’m afraid that Dave and I didn’t take the breakfast meeting very seriously. We admired the Yippee! spirit of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. So, we smoked a doobie made of hashish on the way to the breakfast and pretended to smoke a number (really just a Kool cigarette) after we finished our breakfast. We were the only ones seated at the head table since none of the other dignitaries there deigned to talk with us, much less sit next to us.
Still, they didn’t kick us out of the breakfast and they were glad to see us when we showed up on the steps of the Capitol at the designated hour to help carry one of the six coffins. Unfortunately, only four other active duty G.I.’s showed up with us. So, instead of 36 there were only six of us, and it turned out that these coffins were god-almighty-heavy. They were made like real wooden coffins, very sturdy, and with all that paper inside, they may have been as heavy as real coffins with real bodies.
If the six of us had had to carry our one coffin all the way to the far-away stage, there is no doubt that we would have had to set it down several times for long rests, but luckily the planners soon gathered up dozens of volunteer civilian protesters to carry the other five coffins and to spell the six of us when we needed a break. In fact, Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary, were two of the guys who helped carry our coffin with us, which was pretty dang cool.
Once we got to the stage we found that we had backstage passes and were free to hang out with the celebrities, like comedian Dick Gregory, Pete Seeger and the cast from the Broadway musical Hair. And, of course, Abbie Hoffman was flitting around, obviously tripping on LSD.
After all the music and all the speechifying, Dave and I were ready to head back to his family’s home in Takoma Park, MD, worn out from a very long and very exciting day. But as we were walking back to our car, we heard people screaming and the throng ahead of us started scattering in all directions. Then, we heard shouts of: “Gas, the pigs are gassing us!”
And before we knew what to do about it a gust of wind carried the acrid smell and horrible taste of pepper gas down on us. We found an apartment house whose door was open and got out of the crowd, but we brought the gas in with us on our clothing and residents coming down on their way to a Saturday night on the town quickly retreated to their apartments grumbling their complaints about us hippies.
That was about it. Dave and I finally made it to the car and retreated to Takoma Park where we rested up that night and then drove back to Fayetteville and Ft. Bragg a day or two later.
(Next: There are repercussions from our participation in the Moratorium March.)
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