Antiwar Demonstration At Commonwealth Armory
Today is Memorial Weekend. While searching the web I believe I found a historic photo of me at a Demonstration against the War in Vietnam, held at the Armory on October 31 1972. There were two groups that marched down Commonwealth Avenue to the Armory. I was the with the group that left the Boston Commons. At the same time a group left Harvard which was a mistake because the smaller group got there forty minutes earlier. When we arrived, the Boston Police herded us on to the tracks with their German Shepherds – and kept the trains rolling! We were stopped at a fence, and the Cops laughed as we instinctively fell back when they ordered the snarling dogs to attack. They waited for a train to come, to do this. This was a sport to them. For awhile I was in the narrow space – when two trains passed at the same time. We held each so no one fell under a train. The passengers were very upset. Alas I got to the front – and was horrified!
We tried to remain calm. The idea that the police had no concern for our safety, and were trying to kill us, put us in a strange place. We found we were being brave. You can see the look in our eyes. We know for sure – we are on the right side!
I believe we tried to pull the fence down so we could get off the track. There were about four police dogs lunging at us, they climbing atop the half-toppled fence. Then, the cops heard something. They were looking over us at five squad cars with their light flashing, crested Commonwealth. Behind them were about ten thousand Harvard Students. They were singing a song. The Dog Cops – snarled!
We were saved!
When I met Mark Gall in 1997, I was studying The Priory De Sion and the Knights Templar. Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and the DaVinci Code are anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic. Both religious groups objected to Dan Browns very popular book and movie that made a billion bucks. That was sixteen years ago when graduating students were eight years old. How many graduating students saw the movie? Do they know that depicting a Messiah’ of the House of David as a father – is very Anti-Semitic?
Today there are a thousand Anti-Semitic Land Mines planted everywhere – and even the United States! Step on one, and you will be a titled ‘A Jew Hater’. Such was the case when I sent the ex-head of the Department an article from my log with marching Indigenous People. How profound to see the UN vehicles in this parade. The United Nations just condemned Israel – with approval of the U.S. – and there was talk about a UN Army STOPPING THE WAR!
Now that this has happened, I am calling for a Senate Investigation into a Foreign Power accusing American Students of be swayed BY AGENTS OF HATE . Not having a mind of their own, they are accused of listening to Neo-Nazis and White Supremists in order to own…….A STANCE AGAINST THE INVASION OF GAZA. I suspect Israeli Intelligence and Jewish Think tanks did to my fellow countrymen, what the CIA did to the Anti-Vietnam War Demonstrator long ago. We were duped by Communists – WHO HATE AMERICA!…..NOT! We were traitors of Country – AND GOD!
The flying of the Appeal To Heaven flag by a member of the Supreme Court, could be the prelude to a second Civil War. Below is a homemade flag made by Veterans of a Memorial Day protest on Bunker Hill. I will have my reader point me out. I dropped out of High School in 64 with a half year to go after my counselor picked a fight with me after I took and Anti-Army stance.
To be continued.
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
US allows passage of UN resolution calling for cease-fire in Gaza, prompting retaliation from Israel
The U.S. abstention prompted the Israeli government to cancel a visit by Israeli officials to Washington this week
Watch: UN Security Council passes Gaza cease-fire resolutionShare
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By ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL and MONA ZHANG
03/25/2024 11:55 AM EDT
The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution on Monday explicitly calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war after the U.S. declined to exercise its veto power.
Israel responded by canceling a visit this week by Israeli officials and top advisers to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, adding to the tensions between the two longtime allies amid Israel’s military operations in the Gaza strip.
Operation POW
Boston National Historical Park
On Sunday evening of Memorial Day weekend, May 30, 1971, more than two hundred Vietnam veterans camped at the Bunker Hill Monument as part of a three day anti-war protest. Organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, this protest began the day before in Concord and Lexington, home to many Revolutionary War era historic sites, and ended on the Boston Common on Memorial Day, following the overnight at Bunker Hill.[1]
Clad in their military fatigues, the veterans intended to retrace Paul Revere’s mythical midnight ride in reverse, from Concord to Boston, sounding the alarm for peace and “hoping to draw parallels between the actions of Revolutionary citizen-soldiers and the present-day marchers.”[2] According to historian Elise Lemire:
Like Revere, the antiwar veterans were seeking to bring a message to the people, in their case that the country had shamefully reversed its earlier course and become the type of imperial aggressor the colonists had once fought to vanquish.[3]
The veterans named this weekend-long event “Operation POW,” because in their words, “all Americans are prisoners of the war.”[4] As they staged their protest at some of the most seminal Revolutionary War sites, they handed out fliers that read:
With an ironic twist…our presence in Indochina as viewed by a native of an occupied village easily coincides with the British army in America.[5]
Authorities arrested hundreds of veterans and their supporters on Saturday night for refusing to vacate the Lexington town green.[6] After a long night and morning of being held, processed, and eventually released, the veterans carried on their planned protest by coming to Boston. They traveled by bus and caravan, however, as their arrest and subsequent delays made marching the whole route impossible given the timeframe.
Despite the expected bad weather, the veterans intended to set up camp and spend the night at the foot of the Bunker Hill Monument. “We slept in the rain in Vietnam,” one veteran said, “we can sleep in the rain on Bunker Hill.”[7]
The veterans marched on foot to the historic monument not knowing how they would be received by the largely conservative Irish working-class Charlestown community. To the veterans’ surprise and delight, Charlestown residents, many of whom had family serving in the war, opened their windows and cheered them on.[8] According to the Record American:
Some 250 antiwar Vietnam veterans bivouacked in the fog on Bunker Hill…At the height of their demonstration on the historic hill, sympathizers and curious onlookers brought the throng to an estimated 1500 persons…The veterans, dressed in Army fatigues and carrying toy weapons, held a brief rally during which they sang and chanted peace slogans.[9]
In this shared moment, the Charlestown community and protesting veterans united “around the idea that the Vietnam War did not reflect the values for which the colonists gave their lives…nor those of the Bunker Hill Irish-American community whose children were being forced to fight it.”[10] Journalist Stu Werbin of the Phoenix wrote that the veteran’s secured their “greatest victory” by bringing out and gaining the support of the “the mothers of Charlestown.”[11] On Memorial Day morning, residents brought food and coffee “to fuel the veterans’ final push for Boston” where the protest culminated on Boston Common.[12]
In “Operation POW,” the Vietnam Veterans Against the War deliberately and skillfully used the symbolism, ideals, and memory of the American Revolution. In doing so at iconic sites, including Bunker Hill Monument, they effectively raised public awareness and encouraged further support to end the war. As soldiers carrying on the same military tradition as those of the Revolution, they spoke powerfully from personal experience in ways that other anti-war protesters could not. Bestor Cram, a veteran and one of the organizers, reflected years later:
Our role was to give permission to other people to be against the war. We had fought it…We weren’t going to be challenged as to what we were going to say. Our experience gave other people a sense of, ‘I can trust this point of view,’ and it gave permission to a lot of people to be out front with their own feelings and their own anti-war sentiment.[13]
Footnotes:
[1] For a book length examination of the entire protest, please see Elise Lemire’s Battle Green Vietnam: The 1971 March on Concord, Lexington, and Boston (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021)
[2] “200 antiwar veterans march on Bunker Hill,” Boston Globe, May 31, 1971, accessed February, 2023.
[3] Elise Lemire, “The Night Vietnam Veterans Stormed Bunker Hill,” History News Network, accessed February, 2023.
[4] “200 antiwar veterans march on Bunker Hill,” Boston Globe.
[5] Elise Lemire, “About the Book: Battle Green Vietnam,” Battle Green Vietnam: The 1971 March on Concord, Lexington, and Boston, accessed January, 2023.
[6] Alex Ashlock, “50 Years Ago, A Vietnam Protest Led to One of the Largest Mass Arrests in State History,” WBUR News, accessed February, 2023.
[7]“200 antiwar veterans march on Bunker Hill,” Boston Globe.
[8] Lemire, “The Night Vietnam Veterans Stormed Bunker Hill.”
[9] Record American, May 31 1971, page 2, Accessed 1/30/2023
[10] Lemire, “The Night Vietnam Veterans Stormed Bunker Hill.”
[11] Stu Werbin, The Phoenix, June 8, 1971, page 5.
[12] Lemire, “The Night Vietnam Veterans Stormed Bunker Hill.”
[13] Ashlock, “50 Years Ago, A Vietnam Protest Led to One of the Largest Mass Arrests in State History.”
Demonstrators Escalate Tactics, Plan to Shut Down JFK Building
May 6, 1971
Protest against the war in Indochina will continue today, as demonstrators attempt to shut down Boston’s JFK Federal Building.
The action, planned as massive nonviolent civil disobedience, is being organized by the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice.
Demonstrators will mass on the Boston Common at 7 a. m. and march down Tremont Street to the Federal Building. If police do not prevent them, protesters will sit and link arms in an attempt to prevent Federal employees from entering the building. The theme of the day’s action is “No Business as Usual.”
Organizers hope that as many as 5000 people will turn out for the demonstration, though they don’t expect all of them will be willing to risk arrest by participating in acts of civil disobedience. Picketing and leafleting of Government Center will supplement the disobedience.
Yesterday’s Boston Evening Globe reported that unusually strict security measures are being taken at the 80 Federal government buildings in the New England area. On Tuesday, the 2900 employees who work in the Federal building and U. S. Post Office in Boston were issued identification cards. Government spokesmen yesterday said that no one will be admitted to these buildings without an identity card.
Package Worries
Throughout yesterday, Federal officers checked all packages brought into the JFK building.
Almost 5000 National Guardsmen and state and city police are on alert at the Commonwealth Armory, but it is considered doubtful that the guardsmen or state police will be called into action.
Affnity Groups
The Nonviolent Direct Action Group (NDAG), which staged acts of nonviolent civil disobedience at Fort Devens and at the Boston Army Base last year, has been training demonstrators in the tactics of nonviolent disobedience. NDAG training has emphasized the need for demonstrators to form small “affinity” groups and to stay peaceful.
Organizers consider it, unlikely that police will use gas to disperse the crowd around the doors, since the wind can easily carry gas fumes into Boston’s Financial District.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1972/4/18/demonstration-pa-demonstration-sponsored-by-the/
DEMONSTRATION
NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
April 18, 1972
The Revolutionary Student Brigade will sponsor a demonstration today to protest an Air Force recruiter’s visit to the Office of Career Services and Off-Campus Learning.
The demonstration will begin at University Hall at 2 p.m. and move to the OGCP for marching and speeches, Richardson said.
Christopher S. Richardson ’75, a member of the brigade, said last night that the Air Force “serves the United States ruling class in putting down liberation struggles all over the world.”
Rosamond Press 