Dan Quayle and the National Guard: "Talkin' 'bout my generation'

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Five reasons why you should subscribe to Socialist Action right now 10 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 1988 National Dan Quayle says he's proud of the six-year stint in the Indiana National Guard that his wealthy family procured for him. It's not that he didn't want to risk his life in Vietnam. He was gung-ho for the Vietnam War then, he explains, just as he is a supporter of the Nicaraguan contras today.

Filmmaker and Vietnam bronze-star recipient Oliver Stone comments: "Dan Quayle is everything I can't stand in my generation. Guys like him are willing to fight to the last drop of someone else's blood."

It appears that even 20 years ago, rich-kid Quayle was out of tune with the antiwar feelings shared by the majority of his generation.

At the time that Quayle joined the National Guard, in the spring of 1969, hundreds of thousands of young people in America were taking part in an explosive series of protests against the Vietnam War. Those months saw the most extensive wave of student strikes and demonstrations in the history of the United States up until that time.

The antiwar ferment among young people spread far beyond the campuses. Gis on bases around the country (as well as overseas) were beginning to organize against the war.

Out of these efforts grew a national organization, GIs United Against the War in Vietnam. The group was active (especially among Vietnam veterans) at Fort Bragg, N.C., when Dan Quayle was undergoing his National Guard basic training there.

"Extraordinary military dilemma"

By that time, even the national media had been forced to comment on the government's attacks on Gls who had attempted to exercise their democratic rights to dissent [] 12 months for $6.

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| No military service 27 — Vietnam | Active du lelsewher Reserves Working people served as fodder for the U.S war in Vietnam. But most young men from wealthy backgrounds were able to escape the wartime draft. This chart is based on a survey of 54 heads of major corporations who were of draft age during the peak war years. Only two reported Vietnam service. (The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 25, 1988.)

from otticial policy.

The May 18, 1969, issue of The New York Times 1 - When most every other periodical on the left is running headlong into the Tweedle DeeTweedle Dum world of the Democratic Party, Socialist Action stands out as a voice for independent working-class electoral action. 2 - People all over the world have a new interest in the Eastern-bloc countries. Socialist Action is unique in printing news and analysis of the struggles of working people in these countries written from a revolutionary Marxist point of view. 3 - More than any other U.S. newspaper, Socialist Action furnishes our readers with interviews and documents from the Black trade unions of South Africa. Our analytical articles give detailed coverage of the current debates on Send to: 3435 Duane Hall Military Dilemma," described "a widespread new phenomenon in the ranks of the military: public dissent."

On Nov. 9 of that year, the GI Press Service of the Student Mobilization Committee sponsored a full-page ad in The New York Times. The ad, which was signed by 1365 active-duty Gis (many of whom were stationed in Vietnam) appealed to Americans to attend the antiwar demonstrations scheduled for Washington, D.C., and San Francisco on Nov. 15.

When Nov. 15 arrived, over a million joined the protests in the two cities. Antiwar sentiment and activities continued to increase among the general population-especially after Nixon announced the U.S. invasion of Cambodia on April 30, 1970.

National Guard massacres

In the events that were to follow, the National Guard played an infamous role. On May 4, 1970, students gathered on the central commons of Kent State University in Ohio in order to protest the invasion of Cambodia. The meeting was declared illegal by the authorities. National Guard units on the scene lobbed tear-gas cannisters at the crowd.

Several students, it was reported, threw rocks at the guardsmen. The front ranks of the soldiers got to their knees and opened fire. Four students were killed and many were wounded.

Within hours, millions had heard the news. Within days, students at some 350 colleges were on strike. The country was swept with the largest wave of political demonstrations to ever take place in the country.

Yet on May 14, a National Guard unit again swept a student demonstration with gunfire-this time at Jackson State, a Black school in Georgia. Two students were killed.

What is the National Guard?

Quayle's supporters have praised the National Guard as a kind of rearguard military unit, citizen soldiers busy protecting the homefront. Many of Quayle's detractors, on the other hand, portray the National Guard as a team of Sunday paradeground stiffs—-next to worthless, but certainly harmless enough.

Both conceptions hide the primary purpose of the National Guard—suppression of dissent in America. This was clearly revealed in the massacres at Kent State and Jackson State.

After the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, the National Guard was reorganized and retrained for rapid deployment against the Black rebellions that were shaking America's cities.

placed isco acar 196 counter Civil distural aces. The Detroit ghetto rebellion alone required 10,399 guardsmen —as well as 5547 active Army personnel.

In February 1969, the Guard was mobilized for the first time against student protesters, who were demonstrating for increased Black admissions at the University of Wisconsin.

Throughout the years, in addition, National Guard units have been called in to break trade-union strikes. Guardsmen are used to disperse picket lines, act as scabs, and generally intimidate workers by their heavy weaponry. In 1986, guardsmen were used against the Hormel packinghouse workers' strike in Austin, Minn.

Dan Quayle, the rich kid from Indiana, insists that he enlisted in the National Guard to better "serve his country." But it would be closer to the truth to admit that he served his class—the wealthy capitalists who control this country and who are attempting to hold public opinion in a lockgrip.

strategy taking place inside the South African Black workers' movement. 4 - Socialist Action provides coverage of events in the Palestinian Intifada that go unreported in other papers. We are the only paper that consistently fights for the long-cherished demand of the Palestinian people for a democratic and secular homeland throughout all of Palestine. 5 - With this issue, Socialist Action begins a three-month drive to obtain 500 new readers. If you subscribe now, you save money. Until Dec. 15, you can get a year's subscription for only $6 or a six-month's subscription for only $3. That's $1 off our regular sub prices. So subscribe today! 308,

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What Corporate Chiefs Did During Vietnam

asked, "Must the Citizen Give Up His Civil Liberties When He Joins the Army?" The May 23, 1969, issue of Life magazine, in an article devoted to the "Extraordinary