Can you spot Lurch?


(Image of John Kerry and Jane Fonda at an antiwar rally deleted)


Nothing like getting out the old family albums. How about a snap of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War marching to Valley Forge in 1970?

Some 150 sweat-soaked members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War ended their three-day trek at Valley Forge, Pa., on Sept. 7, 1970. Huddled around a flatbed truck, they listened to remarks by Jane Fonda and a reading from Donald Sutherland.

Between the main acts came a floppy-haired former Navy lieutenant who had won a fistful of medals on the bloody canals of the Mekong Delta. Tall and self-assured, 27-year-old Yale graduate John Kerry read from a rumpled sheaf of papers in the ringing voice that had commanded men on gunships.

Condemning the tactics and morality of the war, Kerry was "brilliant," Fonda says today. He looked like Abe Lincoln and sounded like John F. Kennedy. "He was our ragtag commander at Valley Forge," says veterans organizer Joe Bangert.

Nice. Not to mention the usual hijinks on the way:

Staging "guerrilla theater" re-enactments of the conflict raging overseas, they swept down on young actors dressed as peasants in coolie hats and black pajamas and spattered mock blood on shocked Main Street Americans.

At Palumbo's Pharmacy in Bernardsville, they took a "peasant" hostage and demanded the location of the community's weapons. A few miles down U.S. Route 202, a New Jersey farm boy raised a shotgun and told the re-enactors to go back to Russia.

Indeed. And here was a leaflet they passed out along the way.



Funny, the "cofounder of VVAW" doesn't talk much about war crimes anymore and he's glad to have the support of Vietnam veterans. In fact it seems to be a big reason for the turnaround in his campaign. The only question is why Vietnam vets would associate with him.