Dave Cline: Veteran, Father, Fighter, Hero - R.I.P.

Dave Cline, a founding member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and president of Veterans for Peace, passed away this weekend.

His loss is hard to bear even for those such as myself who were not very close to him on a personal level. I can't even begin to imagine how hard this must be for his family.

His loss is hard to because he was such a fine human being, a warm, radiant, down-to-earth stand-up working-class guy with a great sense of humor and an unbelievable dedication to the fight for social justice. His activism spanned almost four decades after returning from combat in Vietnam. I had the pleasure of working with him on and off again starting in 2002 at various anti-war demonstrations and events when it became clear that the Bush administration was going to risk the lives of thousands of Americans and Iraqis by invading Iraq.

His third combat wound in Vietnam led to the beginning of his political transformation. Before that traumatic event he "thought life was drinking beer, chasing girls and listening to rock and roll." Shortly before the Tet Offensive in 1968, Dave was involved in a night time firefight near the Cambodian border. He saw someone approaching his foxhole but held his fire until he saw the barrel of an AK-47 and a muzzle flash. He opened fire, killing the Vietnamese soldier.

The next morning, someone congratulated him, saying, "here's the gook you killed." But to Dave, he wasn't a "gook." He began to wonder: did that man have a girlfriend? What about his mother? And he realized that he had lived while the other man died only because of pure, dumb luck.

Dave was hospitalized in Japan for the injuries he suffered in that fight. In the hospital, he picked up a book by anti-war Vietnam vet and Green Beret Donald Duncan called "The New Legions," which helped turn him against the war he once fought.

After returning from Vietnam, Dave threw himself into the burgeoning anti-war movement and helped establish the Oleo Strut coffeehouse next to Fort Hood to do anti-war work among active-duty troops. An oleo strut is a shock absorber for a helicopter, and that's what what the coffeehouse was for troops returning from Vietnam and for those who were questioning or opposed to the war. This approach to doing political work - providing comfort and a social outlet in addition to politics - was one of the things that separated Dave and many anti-war veterans from the rest of the anti-war movement and the American Left.

At the coffeehouse, there was radical literature, bands played shows, and Dave helped publish a GI newspaper there. He also met Jane Fonda, whose Fuck the Army (FTA) tour travelled to Fort Hood and other bases around the world to entertain anti-war military personnel. At this time he also helped found and lead Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

At some point in the 1970s, Dave moved to New Jersey, worked at various jobs with the NYC Port Authority and became a union activist. Like most combat veterans, he struggled with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and went through a few marriages.

Despite personal difficulties Dave may have faced, he fought the good fight. He fought the Veterans Administration for proper care and benefits for all Vietnam vets; he fought for both American and Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange; he fought against America's murderous intervention against the Central American revolutions in the 80s fearing that it would turn into another Vietnam; he stood up against the attack on Panama, the Gulf War, and intervention in Somalia in the early 90s; he opposed the bombing of Serbia and Kosovo in 1999; he travelled to Vieques to show his solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico in their fight to stop the U.S. military from using it as a practice range; he organized against the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; and he organized a Veterans for Peace caravan to bring relief to New Orleans after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and neglect by every level of government.

The thing that kept Dave going throughout the years, I think, was his desire to stop anyone from having to go through what he and millions of Americans and Vietnamese had to go through in the Vietnam war. That's what kept him motivated through the ups and downs of movement activity. That's what gave him the fire and the passion that came through in his hoarse voice whether he was speaking at a large anti-war rally or to a dozen middle and high school kids.

It was this deep, personal level of commitment to the cause that made him so dear to everyone he worked with, spoke to, and had an impact on. It was why he had little patience for the sectarian, ideologically-motivated infighting or ego-tripping that he saw between groups that ostensibly were on the same side of the issues. He felt that fighting over trivial issues, nitpicking, and sneaky maneuvering within the Left strengthened and aided the enemies of working people, soldiers, and people of color. He felt that getting overly-involved in ideological debates meant losing sight of the people whose lives are put in harm's way every day all over the world by the system.

Despite his hostility to what he would call ideology, Dave was a socialist. He wanted a fair, just, and equal world without wars, insurance companies running rampant, and war profiteering. His genius was in being able to make these complex ideas relevant and compelling to any audience he spoke to, whether they were political or not, by humanizing them in terms of his own life experience. Imperialism wasn't some lifeless abstraction about the concentration and centralization of capital reaching its highest point of development. For Dave, imperialism was about people's lives being destroyed in a hail of gunfire, bombs, and napalm, it was about Agent Orange crippling veterans and their children decades later, it was about rich people sending poor people to die for money and power, and it was about veterans not getting anything but the shaft by the government that sent them to kill or be killed for no good reason.

Dave Cline will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him. The best way we can honor him is by continuing his fight to get all of our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan immediately, making sure they get the care they deserve when they get home, and fighting for a world where there are no more wars for power and profit.

The clip above is Rita Martinson who toured with Jane Fonda's FTA tour and it's from the excellent film Sir! No, Sir! It's a fitting tribute to Dave.

Click here to sign to the Dave Cline VVAW guestbook. Even if you don't sign it, take the time to read what others have said about him.