RELENTLESS RESISTANCE

CHAPTER 4

                                       
 CHAPTER 4

Lindy Blake
USS6724705 Bldg.1212 Presidio
San Francisco, Calif.



#1 Rule: No one can write more than 2 pages


Dear Carol … Happy Birthday to me on this jolly September 19. It’s been ten days since I turned myself in. I would’a wrote before but it’s a hassle to write letters. It’s hard to get paper and pencils, and there’s censorship of all outgoing and incoming mail. This is the second letter I tried to write today. The first one said the truth about this place, but it’s against the rules to tell the truth. Please share this letter with Doug and ask him to write me. I’m really feeling low. We been sitting around singing songs and I just about broke up crying. My court martial is October 18. I waived counsel cause military lawyers just aren’t on my side, and I can’t afford a private one. To represent myself I’m gonna need letters of recommendation. If you can think of anyone, please ask them to help me. I know Pop will not. I can’t say anything bad about this place cause they read everything. I’m in the Presidio in San Francisco, about a half a mile from the Golden Gate Bridge. That bridge is the only beautiful manmade thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve been talking to the chaplains and military lawyers and stuff, and they think I’m a crazy but sincere fool. I tell them when I get free I’m gonna go live with Ma in Hawaii and learn to express myself better, maybe be a writer. I want to go back to school.
“Vietnam, your latest game,
 you’re playing with your blackest queen. 
Damn your souls and curse your grins, 
I stand here with a fading dream.”
Tell Ma I love her. And tell everyone to write. I’m really lonely. I miss everyone so much. 
Love, Lindy Ragamuffin

 

On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former Army General, and a Republican, gave his farewell address to the nation. In that speech, he warned our nation about the danger a military industrial complex imposed.
He cautioned, “We now stand in the middle of a century that has seen four wars with other countries. Until these latest conflicts, the United States had no armament industry.
There are now three and a half million people in our country working in the defense establishment.
We must guard against the acquisition of unwanted and unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the industrial military complex. The potential disaster for the rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty will prosper together.”

There was never a Declaration of War in Vietnam. But Eisenhower took us there.
The winds of perpetual war blew. It was the beginning of the Cold War with communism. Whispers of fear prevailed and were fueled by Senator Joe McCarthy and corporations. President Eisenhower coined and adopted The Domino Theory. He and Senator John F. Kennedy, from Massachusetts, among others, felt that if South Vietnam fell to communism then Cambodia, Laos and all of Southeast Asia would succumb as well. Previously, France had abandoned its failed attempt to stop the communists in North Vietnam from invading South Vietnam. In response, President Eisenhower sent 900 advisors to help President Diem, seen as a weak leader, to aid with strategies for victory.

After the United States spent over a billion dollars in financial support with nothing to show for it, the new  President, John F. Kennedy, started sending helicopters to spray Vietnam jungles with Agent Orange, a chemical used to defoliate trees that exposed the Vietcong for easy targeting. Kennedy’s administration called the on-going invasion a struggle, not an undeclared war.
Soon after, early in 1963, the government announced our troops had turned the corner toward victory.
In November of 1963 Kennedy sent 16,000 American troops to insure the goal was carried out.
Even that amount of support was criticized by many peacemakers. Members of Congress, advised JFK to butt out of an unwinnable situation. But the president contended that expansion of Chinese communism was a major threat.
After President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, Vice President Lyndon Johnson took the reins and upped the ante.
Vietnam, the first “conflict” to be viewed daily on the 6:00 pm news, provided at-home armchair observers, supporters and critics a ringside seat. Anyone and everyone could watch planes drop bombs and grenades into ditches where non-combative civilians had taken shelter. ‘TAPS’ played nightly on CBS as body bags filled with someone’s precious offspring were somberly unloaded from aircraft onto tarmacs in the United States. 
In July of 1964, President Johnson ordered a troop expansion from 75,000 to 120,000, accompanied by accelerated draft calls. In August of that same year, American ships were fired on by the enemy in Vietnam’s Gulf of Tonkin. In retaliation, America plummeted bombs on them, petitioned and got Congress to grant the power to conduct military operations in Vietnam without declaring war. By that fall, American troops numbered 185,000.

As the not-a-war escalated, the issue became murder. “It’s a crime to send any American boy to his death in Vietnam for the killing of innocent civilians,” denounced Senator Ernest Gruening..

By the end of that year, 1,350 Americans had died in the “conflict.”
“Hell no, we won’t go,” became a rallying cry in 1965, and some draft resisters drove the point home by burning their selective service cards in public. Resisters were labeled “communist sympathizers,” not people of peace.
 
At the same time, the protesters questioned the inequities in military service obligations between the privileged and the not. 
In 1967, over 200,000 marched in New York and San Francisco calling for an end to the undeclared war and the unfairness of conscription. Even though young men from every economic level were being drafted, the U.S. warriors that actually ended up fighting in Vietnam were 25% poor, 50% working class and 20% middle class. Those of wealth called to do their duty, could take advantage of the many deferments money could buy. And most did.
 Up until 1966, mental exams disqualified potential recruits if their score ranked below a 30% benchmark. In an urgent need to enlist more soldiers, the mental exam scores were lowered to 15%. 

Still, the carnage continued because the government feared any drawback would be a sign of weakness allowing communism to run rampant.
When President Johnson’s ranks swelled to 525,000 soldiers in June 1968, public approval dropped to 31%.
The general population was confused. Very few could say what we were fighting for, and most rejected any increase in troops.
By the end of 1967, the beloved Saturday Evening Post termed the undeclared war “a national mistake.”

October 11, 1968
Brother Doug…. This is the third letter I’ve tried to get mailed today. It’s my last piece of paper. Today I witnessed a horrific tragedy with the scope being as bad as people can be, and none of the army people care. When I’m free I’ll tell you and the whole world the truth. I cried all afternoon and am sick to my stomach.
I’m still working on my Conscientious Objector papers. Did I ask you to send letters of recommendation to present with my application?
If everyone knew the truth about this place they would help me out. There’s a revolution brewing, I hope you can sense that.
Do you share my letters with Carol? I got a letter from my good buddy Clyde, you remember him don’t ya, and all I could think of was being free. Tell Pop I forgive him for being such a jerk.
I’ve started chanting … although it’s hard to find a private spot, it really helps relieve my nerves and despair.
Please write me … love Lindy Ragamuffin



American protests continued swelling against the Vietnam War.
By 1968, the military had suffered 208,800 deserters or AWOLers, enough to man fifteen combat divisions. 
And then there were the draft dodgers. 
If your lottery number was called, there were several ostensibly legal, illegal and creative ways to dodge service. The common thread for most draft dodgers was the possession of a fat wallet. As the protests grew, more people  became aware of how rigged the system was.
Many got student deferments, an easy way out for those who could afford tuition or enjoyed political privilege. Anyone enrolled in college was exempted from Vietnam war duties. Among our most famous patriots who took advantage of that option were Bill Clinton, Dan Quayle, and Dick Cheney.
Or one could join the National Guard. Again, privilege reigned. Having an influential parent made sure the draftee got a plum assignment to a noncombat division. That was the ploy, among others, of George W. Bush.
Some got a medical exemption, often for ailments not suffered. Thirty thousand dollars could buy a physical deferment for almost anyone. Real estate mogul Donald Trump claimed a bone spur in his foot precluded him from service. Later, he announced that healing took place all on its own without surgery.
Medical deferments were also granted to those giving Academy Award performances faking ailments from anorexia to mental illnesses.
Draft dodging by escaping to Canada or Sweden also saved several thousand potential inductees’ asses. Again, money to flee enabled many to shirk.

War resisters are a breed apart from draft dodgers. Resisters believe rebuffing war is a courageous and valuable act of citizenship. Resisters act on the premise that if a nation’s government calls for an illegal or immoral policy, they are honor-bound to disobey and if necessary, suffer punishment. Resisters are willing to stand up and face the consequences of their choices.
Many resisters incurred not only the wrath of government but also of their parents and friends. Some were fired from their jobs because of their perceived lack of courage. Being a resister was a lonely and isolating stance.
Muhammad Ali was an outspoken resister who paid dearly for his convictions with the loss of his heavyweight boxing title.
Protesting is an act of courage and resistance.

In 1967, 64-year-old Dr. Benjamin Spock, author of the bestselling book Baby and Child Care, marched against the Vietnam conflict. After advising millions of parents how to raise a child, he took to the streets rallying to save them from the ravages of war. 
Vilified by many for demonstrating against the war, he went even further. Accused of conspiring with men of draft age to resist induction, he was arrested. Convicted and sentenced to two years in prison along with a $5,000 fine, he won on appeal. When released he continued to cheer on the increased numbers of draft cards turned back to the government.

Ramsey Clark, Lyndon Johnson’s Attorney General, believed that war resisters should not be prosecuted. In his view, most of those brought to trial were young gentlemen lacking money or status. Prison left many permanently scarred. President Johnson was not pleased when Clark remarked that they actually had more courage and initiative than the rest. “It’s a hell of a lot easier to go than not to go,” he stated defiantly. 

Lindy Blake was a resister. He voluntarily turned himself in with the expectation of serving time in prison to satisfy the debt to his country, a country that had lied to him with the promise of a baker’s assignment. He felt duped.

In October, less than a month after his twentieth birthday, he had received no family visitors. His mother wrote a steady stream of letters. Living in Hawaii, an ocean away, she felt helpless and hoped he found her communications comforting. Although Lindy wrote his father, seeking understanding, he never received a single communication back. His younger brother Doug, a fifteen-year-old growing up with little fatherly support himself, had moved to Hawaii with his mother. Carol, his older sister, age 23, was juggling two children and a husband. The only civilians he saw were clergy and a woman from a war resistance group, in Oakland. That patriot, named Sara, brought him cookies along with compassionate support and a ray of hope.

Lindy continued to request the application for Conscientious Objector status. The Army continued to stonewall.