Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

To: maggief

I’ve got the article. If you want the PDF I can email it to you, just Freepmail me where you want it sent. Here’s the text (I’m typing fast so pardon my mistakes):

24 G.I. WAR FOES NOW IN SANCTUARY

The ancient religious tradition of sanctuary is being invoked here by 24 dissident young sevicemen, eight of them Vietnam veterans, who have taken refuge in two churches to protest the war in Vietnam.

The first of the servicemen to seek the symbolic protection of sanctuary was Airman Louis D. Parry of San Jose, Calif., who has been at the Church of the Crossroads since Aug. 7.

The message that the men are seeking to communicate by their action, according to 21-year-0old Airman Parry, is that those opposed to the war “can no longer in good conscience cooperate with the United States military to commit crimes against humanity.”

Another of the protesters, who are staying at both the Church of the Crossroads and the Unitarian Church of Honolulu, is Navy Steward Apprentice Oscar Kelley, 20 years old, of Portland, Ore.

Steward Kelley’s motivation, as the young Negro expressed it, was more personal:

“I was very dissatisfied. I never thought I was a human in the Navy.”

Military officials have made no move to arrest any of the men at the churches, although one of them, Pfc. Vincent Ventimiglia of the Marine Corps. was arrested Wednesday by armed forces policemen as he arrived at a Waikiki hotel to join his parents for dinner.

Deadline on Arrests

Officials said that the police would be asked to make arrests once the men have been absent without leave for 30 days and are classified as deserters.

The City of Honolulu, however, has served notice that the servicemen must vacate the Church of the Crossroads within 10 days.

Edward Hirata, the city building superintendent, said that health and building regulations were being violated by the protesters and their supporters.

The church grounds, on which 44 persons—the servicemen and their supporters—set up housekeeping, are not zoned for dormitory or apartment use and lack suitable bathing facilities, Mr. Harata said.

The chairman of the church’s sanctuary committee refused to comment on the city’s eviction actions, saying there would be a meeting with the servicemen.

Two of the men flew to Hawaii from mainland posts. Eight of them, according to the group, have served in Vietnam.

R3eaction to the protest, according to a Honolulu Star-Bulletin telephone poll, showed 68 percent of those queried disapproved of the churches having offered sanctuary to the dissenters.

The Hawaii department of the American Legion called the action “an act of disloyalty.,” but the Young Republican Club of the University of Hawaii pledged its support to the servicemen’s antiwar protest.

One of the protesters, Seaman Arthur Parker, 17, turned himself in to the authorities at Pearl Harbor yesterday after talking to an Army chaplain.

Seaman Parker denounced the protest as “a movement to overthrow the governments.” Both he and Private Ventimiglia were replaced by later arrivals, keeping the total at 22.

The protest was apparently coordinated by the Resistance, a nationwide antidraft group that first revived the custom of sanctuary as n antiwar tactic in a Boston church in May, 1968.

At week’s end the number of servicemen seeking sanctuary grew to 24, with the latest refugees being Army Private John L. Bolm, 21, of Downy, Calif. and Army Specialist 4 Ronald W. Suppl o,m 20, of Newark. Del.


8,246 posted on 07/15/2009 10:53:45 PM PDT by Auntie Mame (Fear not tomorrow. God is already there.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8163 | View Replies ]


To: Auntie Mame; hoosiermama; STARWISE; LucyT

EXCELLENT! Thank you!

Ping to #8246.

Re. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20D15FA3F5D1A7B93C6AB1783D85F4D8685F9

24 G.I. WAR FOES NOW IN SANCTUARY; Servicemen Find Refuge in Two Honolulu Churches

August 24, 1969, Sunday


8,247 posted on 07/16/2009 1:28:16 AM PDT by maggief
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8246 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson