Bremerton - The Turner Joy Rally - Speech

Jim Hauser

            In preparation for this rally today I talked with the man responsible for refurbishing and keeping open to the public the Turner Joy.  25 years in the Navy as a ship's engineer.  He's spent 10 years of his retirement working on this ship.  He's had five kids, though one died of cancer.  The youngest is 19 and still living at home.  The woman who works in the ticket office is named Laurie.  They are a little nervous about us. 

            So I want to make very clear; We veterans here today respect their work.

            It was not the sailors and officers of the Turner Joy that duped a nation into war, it was the Commander-in-Chief.

             The Viet Nam War is commonly known now as a tragedy.  The heart of that tragedy was some dark force which lead an American President - Lyndon Baynes Johnson - a man who dreamed of America as a Great Society integrated and free of poverty…a force which lead that man to lie to us about a foreign foe.  That dark force also lead most of us citizens to accept that lie and to act as if it were so.

            I did.

            I volunteered for ROTC as a college student.  I believed I had a duty to defend the America I knew from World War II films and my high school history books.   It was an America which fought only when invaded.  An America magnanimous in victory.  An America which fought forces only larger than itself.  An America dedicated to democracy and equality at home and abroad.

            I was a good soldier.

            I stayed a good soldier even as I learned in college teach-ins that the government we were supporting in South Viet Nam was not, if fact, democratically elected as our President had claimed.  I stayed a good soldier as we learned that 50,000 U.S. soldiers would not be enough;  then that 100,000 would not be enough;  then 250,00;  then 400,000. I stayed a good soldier even when I had lost faith in the rightness of our cause.  So when my orders came, I reluctantly packed my bags and shipped out to Viet Nam in the summer of 1968.

            When I stopped being a good soldier was when I found out what my duty was to be in Viet Nam.  It was called the "Phoenix" program In the sanitized jargon of the military my job was to "identify and help neutralize assets of the communist political infrastructure."  In English that means use informers to find out who was working politically for the other side, send their names and locations to the C.I.A. which would dispatch U.S. Special Forces to assassinate them.  Understand, please, that virtually all men of military age in Viet Nam at that time were enlisted in one of the two warring armies, so people available for political work were women and old men.

            So somehow America had come to the point of asking me to finger women and old men for assassination.

 But somehow America - and my family - had brought me up to say "No.  I can't do that."

            I knew I could legally file for Conscience Objector status even as  soldier and I did.  I went to Headquarters to talk to a military lawyer.  I picked a number, sat on a bench with 30 or so other guys.  When called I seated myself in the lawyer's cubicle and told him I wanted to apply for C.O. status he said, "Why do you want to do that?"  I told him about my  evolving doubts and about Phoenix.  He leaned across the desk.  Looked me in the eye and said.  "Good for You."

            He turned out to have graduated recently from Harvard Law and had done work as a law student assisting young men with applications for conscience objection.  In my application I told the truth about my ethical journey and after a 4 month investigation by the F.B.I., I got it.  I was sent home and given an Honorable Discharge.

            For decades the specter of the Phoenix program shaded my thoughts.  A "Time" article in the early 70's said the program had "neutralized" 30,000 Vietnamese "assets" 

            Things have not changed.  The New York Times reports the Bush Administration has the C.I.A. working with Special Forces Teams around the world to identify and neutralize suspected terrorist assets.  That is going on today.

            However, with the perspective of my years I can now also remember that America was - is - the country which allowed me - and many others - the freedom to follow our deepest consciences and to withdraw from war.  Remembering that brings back to mind so many of the extraordinary freedoms we have forged, the good we have done. Perhaps this spirit is powerful enough to dispel that ignorant urge for Presidents to lie and for citizens to believe the lies.

            My hope is that there remains abroad in this land - even in the wreckage of wars past and the drumbeat of war impending - the capacity to do extraordinary good. 

            Perhaps we have the STRENGTH to resist being an aggressor even when provoked and frightened.  That would be extraordinary.

            Perhaps we have the COURAGE to maintain our civil freedoms even in the face of terrorism.  That would be extraordinary.

            Perhaps we have the WISDOM to seek and celebrate the good in others around the world no matter how different from us they may be.  That would be extraordinary.

            When I left Viet Nam in 1969 I felt I had lost my country.  I think now that I simply gave up on it..

            Today is a hard time to reclaim it, but that potential for extraordinary good compels me to try.  So to all of you gathered here today I say…

"Good for You." 

Jim Hauser