Opening Statement of William Crandell:
"Over the border they send us
to kill and to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten." These
lines of Paul Simon's recall to Vietnam veterans the causes for which we
went to fight in Vietnam and the outrages we were part of because the
men who sent us had long ago forgotten the meaning of the words.
We went to preserve the peace
and our testimony will show that we have set all of Indochina aflame. We
went to defend the Vietnamese people and our testimony will show that we
are committing genocide against them. We went to fight for freedom and
our testimony will show that we have turned Vietnam into a series of
concentration camps.
We went to guarantee the right
of self-determination to the people of South Vietnam and our testimony
will show that we are forcing a corrupt and dictatorial government upon
them. We went to work toward the brotherhood of man and our testimony
will show that our strategy and tactics are permeated with racism. We
went to protect America and our testimony will show why our country is
being torn apart by what we are doing in Vietnam.
In the bleak winter of 1776
when the men who had enlisted in the summer were going home because the
way was hard and their enlistments were over, Tom Paine wrote, "Those
are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine
patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country, but
he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
Like the winter soldiers of 1776 who stayed after they had served their
time, we veterans of Vietnam know that America is in grave danger. What
threatens our country is not Redcoats or even Reds; it is our crimes
that are destroying our national unity by separating those of our
countrymen who deplore these acts from those of our countrymen who
refuse to examine what is being done in America's name.
The Winter Soldier
Investigation is not a mock trial. There will be no phony indictments;
there will be no verdict against Uncle Sam. In these three days, over a
hundred Vietnam veterans will present straightforward testimony-- direct
testimony--about acts which are war crimes under international law. Acts
which these men have seen and participated in. Acts which are the
inexorable result of national policy. The vets will testify in panels
arranged by the combat units in which they fought so that it will be
easy to see the policy of each division and thus the larger policy. Each
day there will be a special panel during the hours of testimony. Today,
a panel on weaponry will explain the use and effects of some of the
vicious and illegal weapons used in Vietnam. Tomorrow there will be a
panel on prisoners of war composed of returned POWs, parents of a POW,
American POW interrogators and vets who served in our own military
stockades. Every witness throughout the three days will be available for
cross-examination by the press after their initial statements and
questioning by their fellow-vets who are acting as moderators.
We had also planned to present
a panel of Vietnamese victims of the war who would testify by closed
circuit television from Windsor, Canada. Last Wednesday, after we had
spent a great deal of time and money arranging to bring these people to
Windsor so that they could tell the people of the United States and
Canada what we are doing to their country, the Canadian government
denied them visas. We need not speculate upon the motives and policies
of the Canadian government as our primary concern is with the motives
and policies of our own government.
In addition there are two
evening panels. Tonight at 7:30 a panel which includes Sid Peck and John
Spellman will discuss what we are doing to Vietnam. Tomorrow night at
7:30 two psychiatrists, a lawyer, and three vets will discuss what we
are doing to ourselves.
It has often been remarked but
seldom remembered that war itself is a crime. Yet a war crime is more
and other than war. It is an atrocity beyond the usual barbaric bounds
of war. It is legal definition growing out of custom and tradition
supported by every civilized nation in the world including our own. It
is an act beyond the pale of acceptable actions even in war. Deliberate
killing or torturing of prisoners of war is a war crime. Deliberate
destruction without military purpose of civilian communities is a war
crime. The use of certain arms and armaments and of gas is a war crime.
The forcible relocation of population for any purpose is a war crime.
All of these crimes have been committed by the U.S. Government over the
past ten years in Indochina. An estimated one million South Vietnamese
civilians have been killed because of these war crimes. A good portion
of the reported 700,000 National Liberation Front and North Vietnamese
soldiers killed have died as a result of these war crimes and no one
knows how many North Vietnamese civilians, Cambodian civilians, and
Laotian civilians have died as a result of these war crimes.
But we intend to tell more. We
intend to tell who it was that gave us those orders; that created that
policy; that set that standard of war bordering on full and final
genocide. We intend to demonstrate that My Lai was no unusual
occurrence, other than, perhaps, the number of victims killed all in one
place, all at one time, all by one platoon of us. We intend to show that
the policies of Americal Division which inevitably resulted in My Lai
were the policies of other Army and Marine Divisions as well. We intend
to show that war crimes in Vietnam did not start in March 1968, or in
the village of Son My or with one Lt. William Calley. We intend to
indict those really responsible for My Lai, for Vietnam, for attempted
genocide. General Westmoreland said in 1966:
I'd like to say that let one
fact be clear. As far as the U.S. Military Assistance Command in
Vietnam is concerned, one mishap, one innocent civilian killed, one
civilian wounded, or one dwelling needlessly destroyed is too many.
By its very nature war is
destructive and historically civilians have suffered. But the war in
Vietnam is different; it is designed by the insurgents and the
aggressors to be fought among the people many of whom are not
participants in or closely identified with the struggle. People more
than terrain are the objectives in this war and we will not and
cannot be callous about those people. We are sensitive to these
incidents and want no more of them. If one does occur, mistake or
accident, we intend to search it carefully for any lesson that will
help us improve our procedures and our controls. We realize we have
a great problem and I can assure you we are attacking it
aggressively.
We need not judge
Westmoreland's bland assurances nor need we pass responsibility for
these crimes. You who hear or read our testimony will be able to
conclude for yourselves who is responsible.
We are here to bear witness not
against America, but against those policy makers who are perverting
America. We echo Mark Twain's indictment of the war crimes committed
during the Philippine insurrection:
We have invited our clean
young men to soldier a discredited musket and do bandit's work under
a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear not to follow. We
cannot conceal from ourselves that privately we are a little
troubled about our uniform. It is one of our prides: it is
acquainted with honor; it is familiar with great deeds and noble. We
love it; we revere it. And so this errand it is on makes us uneasy.
And our flag, another pride of ours, the chiefest. We have
worshipped it so and when we have seen it in far lands, glimpsing it
unexpectedly in that strange sky, waving its welcome and benediction
to us, we have caught our breaths and uncovered our heads for a
moment for the thought of what it was to us and the great ideals it
stood for. Indeed, we must do something about these things. It is
easily managed. We can have just our usual flag with the white
stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and
crossbones. We are ready to let the testimony say it all.
Go to Next Page |