Tomorrow, 24 April, is 39 years since the Vietnam War Out Now rally in DC

I wondered if any of you were there? I was with my cousin John, 17 and green. Hoping somebody could post some pictures. It was a seminal moment in my life. John died a couple of years later. The Army had me in W Germany and I couldn't attend his funeral. He had all our pictures and they were lost. They said 500,000 people there, I feel they short counted. Thanks & Peace Richard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2XujsHfj0U&feature=related edited for video

and attended big marches in San Francisco in '69 and '70. I was too poor to own a camera back in those days.

I knew someone who was there. The late Rod Kane was a VVAW rep in D.C. at the time. He wrote about that experience in his book, "Veteran's Day--A Viet Nam Memoir" (Orion Books, 1990). I'm a little rusty on the details, but I believe Rod wrote about attending pre-demonstration coordination meetings with the police--and then learning, years later, that MOST of the antiwar delegates at those meetings were undercover cops from various agencies that were spying on the antiwar movement. Rod would be remembered from those days as "Doc" Kane, as he served in Vietnam as a combat medic with the Army's First Cavalry Division.

Jeez, now I'm getting flashbacks: I think I have two other friends who were there--Lynn Witt, who was Illinois state rep for VVAW, and John "Soup" Campbell, who was with VVAW in New Jersey.

I hope the responses continue to come in. Love & Peace . . .

:fistbump:

Was in my second year with the US Army (draftee) and working at Ft Myer. Early Monday morning they brought in the cops and the military to bust it up. I thought the crowd estimate was more like 300,000 but it's been so long I don't really remember. I too have lost all my pics from that weekend.

in front of the White House but you could walk right up to them. A Capital Policeman on duty guarding the Lincoln Memorial (which was closed) let me go in after I told him I was from about 35 miles from his birthplace. You know that would never happen these days.

a Senior in High School...it was peaceful and I for one learned quite a bit about the movement and the people involved from the ground up. Terrific experience.

I'm on my iTouch and can't bring the foto up right now

I posted it before on DU so maybe .....
Anyway a cop on a horse ended up pushing us into the reflecting pool

Slept on the mall Saturday night. I was stationed at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

because I was at a number of them, a search for April 24 turns up Abbie Hoffman NY stock exchange protest in 1969.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_U.S._involvement_in_the_Vietnam_War

On April 24, Abbie Hoffman led a small group of protesters against both the war and capitalism who interrupted the New York Stock Exchange, causing chaos by throwing fistfuls of both real and fake dollars down from the gallery.

April 24

Five hundred thousand people in Washington, DC and 125,000 in San Francisco march in protest against the Vietnam War.
. another notation: April 24, 1971 - Vietnam War Out Now rally. 500,000 call for end to Vietnam War. From the BBC:Protest - 'Stop the Government'

The day after the veterans had returned their medals, 24 April, 1971, more than 500,000 demonstrators arrived in Washington DC. They intended to shut down the federal government by stopping the flow of traffic into the city on May Day.

Police agents had infiltrated the demonstrators and obtained their 'tactical manual' for the action.

A retired police officer who was on duty that day recalls:

They looked at all of the major access routes coming into the District from Maryland and Virginia, and they made assignments to demonstrators where they could go to block the streets. They were going to come out in waves, so that when the first wave got arrested, the second wave would fill the streets and then a third wave and so on. They had done a pretty good job.
A lot of them came down because they felt very strongly about what they were doing, and a lot of them came for adventure. And adventure meant confrontation.
As a result of the careful planning and disciplined response by the Washington DC Police Force, the city stayed open. Between 3 May and 5 May, about 12,000 protesters were arrested, including ex-Marine Daniel Ellsberg. The Washington DC Police set a United States record for the largest number of people arrested in one city over the course of a single day. Just six years previously, 12,000 would have been considered an unexpectedly large total turnout for an anti-war rally.

I slept on the Mall. Woke up in the morning & walked over the Lincoln Memorial. On the way down the steps I ran into my brother. Didn't know he had planned to be there (we were from Ct.) He asked me if I had any weed so I sat down on the steps & rolled him a jay. I always thought that in some file, in some dark basement, there was a picture of our criminal act!

It had Fuck the War painted in 10' letters on the base, I wondered if J, Edgars shiny shoe narcs were taking pictures. Maybe should use F.O.I. Act for copies! LOL