Vietnam Vets also convening in Chicago

Eugene Cherry, war resister, expresses gratitude to VVAW members.

Too much going on to do any real live blogging, so here is a link to the New Yorker’s blog on YearlyKos.

One of Hertzberg’s posts there ends with a lament that there’s no revolution in the air at the YearlyKos convention in Chicago. I had a different experience by getting away from the grand McCormick Place convention center where the Kossaks are meeting. Being a Vietnam veteran in addition to blogging, I spent Friday evening with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. (Let's stop here for a second to warn Bill O'Reilly that there are some rude words in this report, but we learned them in the US Army.) It’s the VVAW’s 40^th anniversary meeting, and on Friday night a happy crowd of old and young vets enjoyed Vietnamese food at the Thai Binh restaurant in an Asian neighborhood north of the Loop.

Here the atmosphere was more to the revolutionary mood unfound at YearlyKos. The “open mike” format for speakers was perhaps more liberating than the formal VVAW sessions scheduled for Saturday at Roosevelt University; present were not only the around-60 age group of Vietnam Vets, but also the young generation of Iraq veterans, including resisters.

Eugene Cherry, 24, stood at the microphone and expressed gratitude for the help he’d received from VVAW and like-minded anti-war groups as he fought to get discharged from the Army – the Chicago native is finally free as of July 13. Click here for background on his case.

Others from the younger set wore T-shirts with “Support War Resistance” on the chest, and some of the youth fashions would have pleased Hertzberg’s desire for something more defiant that the bloggers’ look.

“Remember to reach out to other veterans,” one speaker said. (Do you hear that, Kossaks?)

A Vietnam vet led a cheer-leader’s chant: “Give me and F! Give me a U! Give me a C! Give me a K!” A big “FUCK” roared out, and what’s it for? “Fuck You!”

And who’s that for? The answer came from Carl Rogers of Los Angeles, the first vice president of VVAW when it formed in 1973. He recalled the event back then when so many Vietnam vets threw away their medals earned in that war, and said it was the perfect “fuck you” gesture of the day. His lament for our present circumstance was that we’ve yet to find the perfect “fuck you” gesture for the Iraq war.

So there was some defiant, revolutionary atmosphere to be had in Chicago. Just not at McCormick Place. Where we’re blogging like crazy – and maybe that will turn out to be the factor that helps turn this country against another wrong war. Without all the misery of revolution. Nor homeless veterans in the streets.