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Speaking Truth to Power
| BIOGRAPHY |
I came home to "the world" less than a supporter of the war in
Vietnam on purely humanitarian issues having witnessed first
hand the carnage to the young naïve Patriotic Americans serving
their country and to the Vietnamese People.
I had seen the ads in Playboy magazine for the Vietnam Veterans
Against the War but was not politically anti-war. I had heard of
the Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit from 01/31/71 to
02/02/71. I had seen the evening news of April 19, 1971 and
learned of Operation Dewey Canyon III a limited incursion into
Congress by VVAW and I was captivated by an eloquent young
Vietnam Veteran named John Kerry as he testified before the
United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the
spokesman of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The
speech became known as the “How do you ask a man to be the
last man to die for a mistake” speech in which he laid out the
brutal human truths of that war, which were personally known to
me and some of the history and politics of Americas involvement,
which were unknown to me and most Americans. I had seen the
nightly news and the front page photo in the next mornings
newspaper of the historic "liberation" of the Statue of Liberty on
12/26/71 and the inverted US Flag (a sign of international
distress) flying from Lady Liberty.
Shortly thereafter I met another young Marine Corps 'Nam Vet in
a history class in college named Tom Zangrelli. Tom was a
member of the California Veterans Movement (CVM). I went to
several meetings with him at their storefront office in Santa
Monica and began to do some limited work on veteran’s issues
and veterans rights. At one meeting we all discussed and agreed
to join a peace march with a small group of vets from the
Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
At that march on the beach I met a young disheveled young
'Nam Vet in a wheel chair wearing a Marine Corps short sleeve
kaki shit with sergeant’s chevrons and a row of ribbons. I
introduced myself and shook his hand. His name was Ron Kovic. I
asked when and with whom he had served with in 'Nam. I was
amazed when I realized we I knew him. We had served together
in the same unit in Vietnam. We had been told that he was KIA
outside a village named An Loc in I Corp.
Shortly there after we voted to become the Santa Monica
Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Soon a
chapter developed in the South Bay on the campus of El Camino
College. We coordinated our activities with Sam Shore who was
the coordinator of a chapter in L.A. and later became Regional
Coordinator. Chapters sprung up in Long Beach with George
Johnson, in Northridge at CSUN with Bill Hager, another sprung
up in Whittier with Jim “J.T.” Thompson, another was organized
on City College in Los Angeles with Ron Scheck and another in
Orange County with Alfredo Cabrera and Bill Unger and many
others vets and supporters.
I’m privileged to have served as a "Winter Soldier" in the Vietnam
Veterans Against the War with the hundreds of members and
supporters in Los Angeles and Orange County and the hundreds
of thousands nation wide. As an national organization we
brought a special creditability to the anti war movement in
demanding an end to the war in which we had served.
I’m proud of what all of us accomplished together nationally and
in the California/Nevada Region .. I have listed just a few of those
accomplishments below:
• Organizing hundreds of Vietnam Veterans from one
chapter with less than a dozen members to many local chapters
throughout Los Angeles and Orange County with hundreds of
Vietnam vets and our supporters.
• The speaker’s bureau that we organized and of the many
Vietnam Veterans who went out to Churches, College Campus,
News Conferences and demonstrations throughout the City to
keep the heat on the government and to speak to any one who
would listen about the true nature of our government and it’s
criminal conduct of the war and its human cost.
• Of our out reach and our volunteer efforts in the V. A
Hospitals. Health facilities that were under funded under staffed
and to me, in an Orwellian way, were surrealistic “human
warehouses”
• Of Shad Meshad and Jack McCloskey who clinically analyzed
and classified Post Vietnam Syndrome (PVS) now known and
recognized by mental health professional world wide as PTSD. I
personally feel many if not most of us, myself included, were
dealing with undiagnosed PVS and that VVAW served as a de
facto self help group where we could talk it out to some degree.
Something that the VA and the military had yet to embrace.
• Of our arrest for the take over and occupation of the North
Hollywood Naval Reserve Training Center the night of April 19,
1972 that put the war and the Vietnam Veterans Against the
War and it’s supporters on the evening news and the front page
of the next mornings edition of the Los Angeles Times delivered
into hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.
• I’m proud that we abandoned our effort to defend our
selves in the take over by putting the government and the war
on trial and serve time in jail for that take over in order to help
organize and finance “The Last Patrol” to confront Nixon and the
Republican Party when they moved their convention at the last
moment in 1972 from San Diego to Miami.
• I’m proud of the 20-plus mile march from San Pedro to
the Veterans Cemetery in Westwood during the massive 1973
Christmas bombing of Hanoi to again call attention to the war
and to pay our respect to our fallen comrades from all wars.
Where we were wrongfully denied entry. Along the way we
passed out a flier entitled “Would Jesus Fly a B -52?” We took a
lot of heat for that one not being “politically correct” but we felt it
was an appropriate question to ask the American people during
the Christmas Holiday celebration of Christ’s Birthday that again
put the anti war movement and the Vietnam Veterans Against
the War and our supporters in Los Angeles on the front page of
the L. A. Times. The photo on the front page of that march
brought a call from a concerned citizen informing us of an under
cover LAPD Officer in our ranks, named Kevin McNamara, who
was in the photo and was uncovered by a phone call from a
concerned American who knew him.
• I’m proud of so many things we accomplished together
given the overwhelming odds and the power of the opposition
that we faced from the US Government at the national, state,
country and city level. As well as the many right wing groups,
such as the Young Republicans, the Young Americans for
Freedom and CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) who
were aligned against and who had overwhelming money and
access to the media to spread their disinformation. And then
there was the police informants and the provocateurs that
infiltrated the organization such as the L. A. P. D. Red Squad and
Police Officers such as Kevin McNamara and others.
In closing let me say to all the veterans and our supporters, to all
of my brother and sisters, I was privileged indeed to have known
you and to have worked with you in that just cause. Never forget
that we all have much to be proud of.
JAN A. RUHMAN
Vietnam on purely humanitarian issues having witnessed first
hand the carnage to the young naïve Patriotic Americans serving
their country and to the Vietnamese People.
I had seen the ads in Playboy magazine for the Vietnam Veterans
Against the War but was not politically anti-war. I had heard of
the Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit from 01/31/71 to
02/02/71. I had seen the evening news of April 19, 1971 and
learned of Operation Dewey Canyon III a limited incursion into
Congress by VVAW and I was captivated by an eloquent young
Vietnam Veteran named John Kerry as he testified before the
United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the
spokesman of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The
speech became known as the “How do you ask a man to be the
last man to die for a mistake” speech in which he laid out the
brutal human truths of that war, which were personally known to
me and some of the history and politics of Americas involvement,
which were unknown to me and most Americans. I had seen the
nightly news and the front page photo in the next mornings
newspaper of the historic "liberation" of the Statue of Liberty on
12/26/71 and the inverted US Flag (a sign of international
distress) flying from Lady Liberty.
Shortly thereafter I met another young Marine Corps 'Nam Vet in
a history class in college named Tom Zangrelli. Tom was a
member of the California Veterans Movement (CVM). I went to
several meetings with him at their storefront office in Santa
Monica and began to do some limited work on veteran’s issues
and veterans rights. At one meeting we all discussed and agreed
to join a peace march with a small group of vets from the
Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
At that march on the beach I met a young disheveled young
'Nam Vet in a wheel chair wearing a Marine Corps short sleeve
kaki shit with sergeant’s chevrons and a row of ribbons. I
introduced myself and shook his hand. His name was Ron Kovic. I
asked when and with whom he had served with in 'Nam. I was
amazed when I realized we I knew him. We had served together
in the same unit in Vietnam. We had been told that he was KIA
outside a village named An Loc in I Corp.
Shortly there after we voted to become the Santa Monica
Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Soon a
chapter developed in the South Bay on the campus of El Camino
College. We coordinated our activities with Sam Shore who was
the coordinator of a chapter in L.A. and later became Regional
Coordinator. Chapters sprung up in Long Beach with George
Johnson, in Northridge at CSUN with Bill Hager, another sprung
up in Whittier with Jim “J.T.” Thompson, another was organized
on City College in Los Angeles with Ron Scheck and another in
Orange County with Alfredo Cabrera and Bill Unger and many
others vets and supporters.
I’m privileged to have served as a "Winter Soldier" in the Vietnam
Veterans Against the War with the hundreds of members and
supporters in Los Angeles and Orange County and the hundreds
of thousands nation wide. As an national organization we
brought a special creditability to the anti war movement in
demanding an end to the war in which we had served.
I’m proud of what all of us accomplished together nationally and
in the California/Nevada Region .. I have listed just a few of those
accomplishments below:
• Organizing hundreds of Vietnam Veterans from one
chapter with less than a dozen members to many local chapters
throughout Los Angeles and Orange County with hundreds of
Vietnam vets and our supporters.
• The speaker’s bureau that we organized and of the many
Vietnam Veterans who went out to Churches, College Campus,
News Conferences and demonstrations throughout the City to
keep the heat on the government and to speak to any one who
would listen about the true nature of our government and it’s
criminal conduct of the war and its human cost.
• Of our out reach and our volunteer efforts in the V. A
Hospitals. Health facilities that were under funded under staffed
and to me, in an Orwellian way, were surrealistic “human
warehouses”
• Of Shad Meshad and Jack McCloskey who clinically analyzed
and classified Post Vietnam Syndrome (PVS) now known and
recognized by mental health professional world wide as PTSD. I
personally feel many if not most of us, myself included, were
dealing with undiagnosed PVS and that VVAW served as a de
facto self help group where we could talk it out to some degree.
Something that the VA and the military had yet to embrace.
• Of our arrest for the take over and occupation of the North
Hollywood Naval Reserve Training Center the night of April 19,
1972 that put the war and the Vietnam Veterans Against the
War and it’s supporters on the evening news and the front page
of the next mornings edition of the Los Angeles Times delivered
into hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.
• I’m proud that we abandoned our effort to defend our
selves in the take over by putting the government and the war
on trial and serve time in jail for that take over in order to help
organize and finance “The Last Patrol” to confront Nixon and the
Republican Party when they moved their convention at the last
moment in 1972 from San Diego to Miami.
• I’m proud of the 20-plus mile march from San Pedro to
the Veterans Cemetery in Westwood during the massive 1973
Christmas bombing of Hanoi to again call attention to the war
and to pay our respect to our fallen comrades from all wars.
Where we were wrongfully denied entry. Along the way we
passed out a flier entitled “Would Jesus Fly a B -52?” We took a
lot of heat for that one not being “politically correct” but we felt it
was an appropriate question to ask the American people during
the Christmas Holiday celebration of Christ’s Birthday that again
put the anti war movement and the Vietnam Veterans Against
the War and our supporters in Los Angeles on the front page of
the L. A. Times. The photo on the front page of that march
brought a call from a concerned citizen informing us of an under
cover LAPD Officer in our ranks, named Kevin McNamara, who
was in the photo and was uncovered by a phone call from a
concerned American who knew him.
• I’m proud of so many things we accomplished together
given the overwhelming odds and the power of the opposition
that we faced from the US Government at the national, state,
country and city level. As well as the many right wing groups,
such as the Young Republicans, the Young Americans for
Freedom and CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) who
were aligned against and who had overwhelming money and
access to the media to spread their disinformation. And then
there was the police informants and the provocateurs that
infiltrated the organization such as the L. A. P. D. Red Squad and
Police Officers such as Kevin McNamara and others.
In closing let me say to all the veterans and our supporters, to all
of my brother and sisters, I was privileged indeed to have known
you and to have worked with you in that just cause. Never forget
that we all have much to be proud of.
JAN A. RUHMAN
| COME FROM THE SHADOWS |
| JAN A. RUHMAN |
Jan A. Ruhman was a member of
Vietnam Veterans Against the
War from 1971 through 1974 in
the California/Nevada Region. He
served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
from September 1965 through
February 1970 and in Vietnam,
1st Amtrak Battalion, 3rd Marine
Division, September 1966
through May 1968.
Vietnam Veterans Against the
War from 1971 through 1974 in
the California/Nevada Region. He
served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
from September 1965 through
February 1970 and in Vietnam,
1st Amtrak Battalion, 3rd Marine
Division, September 1966
through May 1968.
by JAN A. RUHMAN
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