Charlie Anderson | The Wall That Now Divides Us

Charlie Anderson | The Wall That Now Divides Us
Anderson comments on the Vietnam memorial and the pro war protesters in washington this weekend who rained abuse on those of us who opposed the war even though thousands of us were vets or military family members. As Anderson points out, the pro war mission statement was as follows:

".we are adamantly opposed to the use of violence, vandalism, physical or verbal assaults on our veterans, and the destruction or desecration of our memorials ... we defend and honor those whose blood gave all of us the right to speak as freely as our minds think."

Apparently this only applied if those fellow vets agreed with their pro war rhetoric. Many people were prevented from visiting the wall by intimidation and physical attacks from people who claimed the above mission. Abuse was heaped on us as we marched by with threats, wishes for our extermination, and we were described as traitors. We noticed the gathering was almost exclusively white while the antiwar group was multicultural with many hispanic and black vets and family members amongst us. And though this march was small compared to marches in the past, it was still at least 100 times as large as the pro-war group.
The ideas the antiwar movement would vandalize the wall is ridiculous and without basis in fact. They apparently do not know that some of our past leaders helped fund raise and do the political and organizing work to build the wall in the first place. This is just another lie planted to widen the divide between citizens with many beliefs and interests in common. It is sad that some of us after 40 years still continue to believe these lies.