I send my stuff out to a lot of different people, especially younger people. A couple of months ago I spoke at a college rally at Portland State University. There were over 250 people there, mostly college students. I decided to go back in history and speak about the Viet Nam War, and how it relates to the Genocide in Gaza. I told some of my stories, but focused mostly on graphic stories by other Viet Nam veterans who shared their stories with me. One of the stories I told was the Brian Willson story. I focused on the details of those stories, so that the students would feel the visceral truth.
I talked about the My Lai Massacre, and that there were hundreds of My Lai Massacres in Viet Nam. I talked about the weapons of terror that the U.S. used on the Vietnamese people. I told them that the U.S. committed mass murder against the Vietnamese people every single day. I told them that the killing of innocent civilians were high value military targets, just like what is happening in Gaza. You do not win wars by just killing military combatants, you ultimately win wars by killing innocent civilians. And the reason the general public does not believe this, is because whenever the truth threatens one’s core belief system, there is an urgent need to deny its reality.
If I had given this speech to 250 Veterans For Peace members at a National Convention, most of them would have found it somewhat tiresome, because they have heard this information many times before. But… not so when I was giving this talk in front of over 250 college students standing outside of their university. I was looking at the faces of the students when I was talking. They were glued to every word. You could have heard a pin drop on the grass. Most of them had never heard this kind of information, especially from someone who was actually in Viet Nam. Now, they could connect the dots to what the U.S. was doing in Gaza.
In a way, I validated their raging anger toward their own government. After I spoke, I had countless students come up to me and thank me for what I said. I could see the pain and tears in their eyes, as so many of them felt betrayed. My history now became their history. As the Viet Nam generation, we forget sometimes how long ago the 60s were, when we ourselves were so traumatized by that powerful era. It took us many years to redefine our lives, and the realization that the United States Government was the most dangerous nation in the history of the world. These are facts that the younger generations are still coming to grips with, because it is so frightening to their core belief system. When I quoted Martin Luther King Jr. to them, especially as someone who was 23 at the time of his murder, it opened their eyes even more: “ The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government.” That quote coming from me made King more alive.
I continue to work on my photo book about the Viet Nam War, and how it is very important for me to use simplicity in explaining what really happened. The most powerful military force the world has ever seen, used every kind of weapon of mass destruction to annihilate the Vietnamese people, one of the poorest countries in the world. What is wrong with this picture? Well, that is a book I hope my pictures with text will help explain. That work will be dedicated to young people, who absolutely must know why their own government supplied Israel with billions of dollars of weapons to destroy Gaza.
I am 79, my off ramp is in the near future, just like most of us from the 60s. For all of us veterans and associate members who were politicized from the Viet Nam era, our work at Veterans For Peace has been miraculous and life saving.
Mike Hastie
Medic Viet Nam
September 1, 2024
Mike Hastie was an Army medic during the Vietnam War. He has since returned to Vietnam three times. He is a photographer, poet, and writer and a lifetime member of Veterans For Peace.