[20], The organizers had two primary concerns when considering the testimony they would use. [11], The identifying military affiliation of each veteran testifying, including in almost all cases, the dates of service, appears on the roster for each panel that was included with the testimony in the Congressional Record. After the severe criticism of the accuracy of Mark Lane's book about atrocities a month before the event, the organizers of the Winter Soldier Investigation made the credibility of the participants a top priority. Full commitment of Vietnam Veterans Against the War to promote and support the publication Tie ins with Iraq Veterans Against the War and new documentaries Sir! Winterfilm, Inc., 1972.

CCI staffers criticized Lane as being arrogant and sensationalistic, and said the book he was writing had "shoddy reporting in it." However, several journalists and a film crew recorded the event, and a documentary film called Winter Soldier was released in 1972. The VC provided enough food and medical attention to sustain them, and in the particular case of Sgt.

Department of Defense white papers revealed thirteen platoon-sized operations in Laos between January 1971 and April 1972. April 2015. temporär gesenkter USt. An initial steering committee was formed, consisting of Duncan, Ensign, Fonda, Lane, Hubbard, Rifkin and Fernandez, and continued to organize the WSI through September, 1970.

Discharge papers were examined; military records were checked against DoD records; after all their digging, it was claimed that not one fraudulent veteran was found. Pitkin also signed a 2004 affidavit making similar claims about Kerry, but after being challenged by other participants, admitted that his recollections were flawed. The testimony was startling even at the time it took place: startling to the general public, startling to the military and the Nixon administration and startling to those who participated because each of them knew a piece of the story, but the hearings brought a great many of them together for the first time and provided a venue in which they could be heard for the first time. Upon hearing of these claims by Pitkin, another WSI participant named Scott Camil filed his own affidavit refuting Pitkin's statements. (2000, February). The CCI leaders refused to work with Lane further and gave the VVAW leaders a "Lane or us" ultimatum. Sie hören eine Hörprobe des Audible Hörbuch-Downloads. They described their secret operations in Laos and also revealed that they were given meticulous orders to hide the fact that they were American including, but not limited to, the removal of identification from uniforms and switching to Russian arms that were typically used by the PAVN. The Winter Soldier Investigation (WSI) was intended to prove that massacres like the My Lai were not isolated and rare occurrences, but were instead the frequent and predictable result of official American war policy. Non-white patients were reported to have been operated on without anesthetic on several occasions. VVAW participated in and organized antiwar demonstrations, public education efforts, militant actions, and public hearings. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out."[15]. [26] VVAW was also targeted by the FBI for observation as a possible dissident organization. Detroit was proposed by Fonda because of its central location in the American heartland, and the "blue-collar" social status of most of the residents. The U.S. participation in the Vietnam War was the source of much deeply divided sentiment among Americans. Scott Sigmund Gartner and Gary M. Segura. Smith admitted fearing for his life when he heard Hanoi Radio broadcasts saying VC soldiers were being executed in Saigon and the VC was promising to execute Americans in retaliation.

The charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence, and five years later at the WSI, Smith said that he stood by his statements. "[6] All veterans participating in Winter Soldier were required to bring their discharge papers (DD-214's) and IDs. Dieser Artikel kann nicht per 1-Click® bestellt werden. --Dave Kettenhofen is a National Coordinator for VVAW and member of the Milwaukee chapter. The following month, after caustic reviews of Lane's book by authors and a Vietnam expert, VVAW would also distance itself from Lane just one month before the event. [35][36], Fritz Efaw, a Chapter Representative of VVAW, stated: "The claims that the WSI hearings contained falsified testimony from men who were not veterans is an old one, and it's definitely false. Leider ist ein Problem beim Speichern Ihrer Cookie-Einstellungen aufgetreten. This quickly prompted investigations by American media such as the Detroit Free Press, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Boston Globe, which were successful in turning up testimonies from other veterans that they had crossed into Laos throughout a 16-month period extending through all of 1971, well past the enactment of the Cooper–Church Amendment forbidding such actions and which had come into effect in January 1971. [37] Black veterans testifying at the WSI intended to show that racism by the U.S. military toward the Vietnamese, as well as toward non-whites within the military, were both extensions of the racism present in American society. A Marine Corps spokesman persisted in issuing a statement at the WSI saying, "no platoons or any large number of Marines ever crossed the border."

[30][31][32][33][34] An excerpt from Guenter Lewy's book, America in Vietnam, is in Wikiquote. [11] On March 27, 1974, Senator Harold Hughes informed the Senate that several witnesses had testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee about U.S. combat forces entering Laos and Cambodia after they were forbidden to do so. "Let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader," he wrote, referring to Kerry.[28]. [6][7], Among the growing collective of organizers, differences of opinion and direction arose concerning the planned public event. In addition, they also gave specific details about their units and the locations where the events had occurred. With the exception of Pacifica Radio, the event was not covered extensively outside Detroit. The Winter Soldier Investigation was a three day series of hearings held in January and February of 1971.

[11][21] The Detroit Free Press reported daily of participants who had been confirmed by the DoD as veterans.[25].

Specific sets of questions were drafted by experienced combat vets to help verify that participants were not fabricating their stories or faking their knowledge, and that only the strongest testimony was used. This included confirmation by the Pentagon that WSI participants investigated by reporters were indeed Vietnam veterans. [45], Immediately following the WSI, Senator George McGovern and Representative John Conyers announced that they were calling for congressional investigations based on the testimony. The Detroit Free Press printed several stories about the event, including comments from the military. Winter Soldiers recovers this moving chapter in the history of the Vietnam War era. VVAW did not want to lose the monetary support of Lane and Fonda, so the CCI split from the project. The new six-member steering committee for WSI was composed of three national office leaders (Al Hubbard, Craig Scott Moore and Mike Oliver) and three members of the growing list of chapters (Art Flesch, Tim Butz, and William F. Crandell). Laden Sie eine der kostenlosen Kindle Apps herunter und beginnen Sie, Kindle-Bücher auf Ihrem Smartphone, Tablet und Computer zu lesen. [17] The veterans giving testimony were also instructed not to reveal the specific names of others involved in war crimes. While only 109 veterans gave testimony, over 700 veterans attended the hearing. Bitte versuchen Sie es erneut. According to White House memos, Colson worked behind the scenes to get a Kerry-O'Neill debate on nationwide television. Richard Stacewicz teaches history at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, Illinois.