Vietnam Veterans Against the War

The Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) was formed in April 1967 by a handful of American servicemen who had returned to the United States after their tours of duty in Vietnam. It gained national prominence over the next several years for its often radical antiwar activities but faded from public view with the end of the conflict in Vietnam. It regained the spotlight briefly in 2004 when one of its former leaders, John F. Kerry, became the Democratic Party's candidate for the presidency.

VVAW initially cultivated a staid public profile, sending well-groomed spokesmen to lobby elected officials to reduce spending on the war. By late 1967, new chapters were being organized in the Midwest and on the West Coast. The Tet Offensive in January–February 1968, however, prompted a change in VVAW's profile and approach. The Vietnamese communists' display of apparently formidable military resources discredited Pres. Lyndon Johnson's direction of the war. In New England, VVAW chapters supported Johnson's antiwar challenger, Sen. Eugene McCarthy, in the New Hampshire primary, and McCarthy's victory there contributed to Johnson's decision not to seek reelection.

Radicalized by the 1968 assassinations of antiwar presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and nonviolent civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., VVAW temporarily lost mainstream veterans' support. It was revitalized the following year, when public protests against Pres. Richard M. Nixon's continuation of the war led to increased membership, including urban veterans with links to radical organizations such as the Black Panthers. Revelations about the killing of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. Army units at My Lai further boosted membership by increasing VVAW's appeal to veterans troubled by their experiences in Vietnam. The organization still had only a few hundred members, however, until the late spring of 1970, when antiwar protests accelerated nationwide following the deployment of U.S. combat forces into Cambodia. The subsequent shooting of students by National Guard troops during an antiwar demonstration at Kent State University in Ohio drew more middle-of-the-road Americans to the antiwar movement. VVAW gained hundreds of new members, many with middle- and upper-class backgrounds.

At the same time, however, the organization's leaders began to cooperate more closely with radical political groups. Besides the Black Panthers, VVAW also worked with the Citizens' Commission of Inquiry into War Crimes in Indochina, which, following the publicity surrounding the My Lai massacre, was trying to identify Vietnam War veterans willing to speak openly about Americans' violations of international and military laws in Southeast Asia.

VVAW activists also adopted more militant antiwar tactics, including disrupting meetings of local draft boards. In September 1970, VVAW leaders organized Operation RAW (Rapid American Withdrawal), in which some 150 veterans and supporters, many wearing disheveled military uniforms with service medals and antiwar paraphernalia, marched from Morristown, New Jersey, to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. On the way they acted out battlefield scenarios, such as the capture and interrogation of civilians, in a chaotic and sometimes dangerous street theater that condemned U.S. involvement in Vietnam. A climactic rally included speeches by actors and prominent antiwar activists Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda, and by Navy Vietnam veteran, Silver Star recipient, and VVAW member John Forbes Kerry of Massachusetts. Kerry became a spokesman for VVAW and traveled to Paris, where he met with Vietnamese communist representatives.

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