Replies

May 3, 1971: Some twenty Vietnam Veterans Against the War and several supporters, tossed bags of cow manure on the steps of the Mall Entrance of the Pentagon, then offered to clean up the mess in return for a chance to talk to one of the Assistant Secretaries of Defense. Their offer was rejected and some twenty-eight were arrested. All were charged with disorderly conduct.

-- from a District of Columbia government report detailing demonstrations in the District during 1971

------
We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans' Day waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who died for the "greater glory of the United States." We will not accept the rhetoric. We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars -- in fact, we will find it hard to join anything at all and when we do, we will demand relevancy such as other organizations have recently been unable to provide. We will not take solace from the creation of monuments or the naming of parks after a select few of the thousands of dead Americans and Vietnamese. We will not uphold traditions which decorously memorialize that which was base and grim.

-- John Kerry, in "The New Soldier"