They weren't supposed to be there. In April 1971, over a thousand men in tattered field jackets and boonie hats camped on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. They were Vietnam Vets Against the War (VVAW), and they were doing something the American public hadn't quite processed yet: throwing their hard-earned combat medals over a fence.
It was messy. It was loud.
Usually, when we talk about the sixties and seventies, we picture college kids in tie-dye or stern generals in the Pentagon. We forget the guys who actually humped the rucksacks through the Mekong Delta. These men didn't just wake up one day and decide to protest. They were the ones who saw the "body counts" firsthand and realized the math didn't add up. Honestly, VVAW changed the entire trajectory of how America views its own wars, even if we don't always give them the credit for it.
The Birth of the VVAW in a Parking Lot
The whole thing started way smaller than you’d think. Six guys. That’s it. In 1967, during a peace march in New York City, a few veterans decided they needed their own contingent. They didn't want to be lumped in with the "hippies" who hadn't seen what a Claymore mine does to a human being. They wanted to speak from a place of authority. Jan Barry Crumb, a former West Point cadet and radio technician, was the spark.
They weren't a monolith. You had guys like Ron Kovic—who later became famous because of Born on the Fourth of July—and John Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant who would eventually run for President. It’s kinda wild to think about how diverse their backgrounds were. Some were radical Marxists; others were just pissed-off Republicans who felt lied to by the Johnson and Nixon administrations.
Operation RAW and the Winter Soldier
Before the big D.C. protests, the group staged Operation RAW (Rapid American Withdrawal). They marched from Morristown, New Jersey, to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. They didn't just walk; they staged "guerrilla theater" along the way, pretending to "clear" villages to show suburban Americans what search-and-destroy missions actually looked like. People were horrified.
Then came the Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971.
Held in a Detroit Howard Johnson’s, over a hundred veterans gave testimony about war crimes they had witnessed or participated in. It was grim. They talked about My Lai, sure, but they also talked about the everyday "casual" brutality of the war. Critics at the time—and even some historians today—questioned the validity of every single claim, but the sheer volume of the testimony was impossible to ignore. It poked a massive hole in the "few bad apples" narrative the government was trying to sell.
Why Vietnam Vets Against the War Still Matters Today
We take it for granted now that you can "support the troops" but "oppose the war." That distinction barely existed in 1970. If you hated the war, you were seen as hating the guys fighting it. VVAW flipped that. They proved that the soldiers were the primary victims of a failed policy.
- They fought for better VA benefits.
- They were among the first to bring national attention to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (though it wasn't called that yet).
- They exposed the effects of Agent Orange long before the government admitted it was toxic.
The group’s internal politics were a nightmare, honestly. By the mid-70s, the FBI had infiltrated them heavily. The "Gainesville Eight" trial saw VVAW members accused of plotting to attack the 1972 Republican National Convention with slingshots and crossbows (they were all acquitted). The leadership split between those who wanted to focus on veterans' rights and those who wanted to overthrow the whole damn system.
It got weird. It got paranoid.
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But the core impact remained. When John Kerry asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" he wasn't just speaking for himself. He was speaking for a generation of men who felt used.
The Medal Toss: Dewey Canyon III
The most iconic moment of the Vietnam Vets Against the War was undoubtedly the Dewey Canyon III "limited incursion" into Washington. The Supreme Court actually tried to ban them from sleeping on the Mall. The vets refused to leave. In a moment of pure cinematic irony, the vets voted to defy the court order, and the police basically gave up trying to arrest them because they didn't want the bad PR of dragging amputees off the grass.
On the final day, veteran after veteran approached a wire fence near the Capitol.
They threw back their Purple Hearts. They threw back their Bronze Stars. Some gave short, biting speeches. Others just wept. This wasn't a bunch of "draft dodgers" complaining. These were the men the country had sent to do its dirtiest work, and they were officially resigning from the mission.
It was arguably the most effective protest in American history because it couldn't be dismissed as "unpatriotic."
Legacy and Modern Veterans' Movements
You see the DNA of VVAW in groups like Iraq Veterans Against the War (now About Face) and Common Defense. They taught future generations that a soldier's duty to their country doesn't end when they take off the uniform—sometimes, that duty means speaking out against the very leaders who sent them into harm's way.
The VVAW still exists today, though it’s much smaller. They still publish The Veteran newspaper. They still advocate for those exposed to toxins in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’ve become the elder statesmen of the anti-war movement, a far cry from the "long-haired radicals" the Nixon administration tried to paint them as.
Actionable Insights for Researching VVAW
If you’re looking to understand this movement beyond the surface-level history books, you have to look at the primary sources. History is often sanitized, but the VVAW records are raw.
- Check the Archives: The Wisconsin Historical Society holds the official VVAW records. It’s a goldmine of internal memos, newsletters, and FBI surveillance files that show just how much the government feared these men.
- Watch "Winter Soldier" (1972): This documentary is hard to find but worth it. It’s just raw footage of the Detroit testimony. No flashy editing. Just men talking. It’s uncomfortable, and it should be.
- Read "The New Soldier": This was the book VVAW put out in 1971. It’s out of print but usually available in university libraries. It captures the aesthetic and the anger of the movement better than any modern retrospective.
- Listen to the Senate Testimony: Look up the full transcript of John Kerry’s 1971 testimony. Regardless of what you think of his later political career, that specific moment was a masterclass in moral clarity during a time of national chaos.
- Distinguish between the factions: When reading about VVAW, keep in mind that the group in 1971 was very different from the group in 1974. The later years were dominated by the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) influence, which led many original members to leave. Understanding this split is key to knowing why the movement eventually faded from the headlines.
The story of the Vietnam Vets Against the War is a reminder that the most powerful voice in any conflict is the one that has been to the front lines and returned with a different story than the one in the newspapers. They weren't just "protesters." They were witnesses.