For Vietnam, for peace

Vietnam is not a war, but a country, a people.

Peace activist Tom Hayden was one of the first Americans to realize that Vietnam was not just a war, but a country, a people.

Formerly a California State Senator, a lecturer at several prestigious universities such as the University of California, Los Angeles, Scripps College, Pitzer College, and Harvard Political Science Institute, and a sharp writer with around 20 books to his name, Tom Hayden became a household name worldwide for his active involvement in Vietnam and his opposition to the Vietnam War. This included participating in numerous anti-war speeches, calling on the US Congress to cut funding for the war, urging the US government to withdraw troops from Vietnam, and participating in the Brastislava Conference to denounce American crimes and demand peace for Vietnam.

Tom Hayden and artist Jane Fonda in 1972. (Source: AP)

In 1965, as the American war in Vietnam escalated, Hayden, along with many other peace activists, visited Vietnam. Upon returning home, he and his friends wrote the first book about Vietnam , "Another Side," recounting their firsthand experiences in North Vietnam, helping Americans understand the just struggle of the Vietnamese people.

Interestingly, through his involvement in activities demanding an end to the war and the restoration of peace in Vietnam, Tom Hayden met the famous actress Jane Fonda. Sharing the same ideals and ideals, they fell in love. Even more interestingly, in 1973, the fruit of their love was the birth of their son, Troy Garity, named after the hero Nguyen Van Troi.

15,000 people participated in a protest in California, USA, demanding that the US government end the war in Vietnam, on October 15, 1965.

"La Jeune Fille a la Fleur" - The Flower Before the Gun Barrel

In 1967, at the age of 17, American girl Jan Rose Kasmir probably could not have imagined that she would be the subject of one of the most striking anti-war photographs of the 20th century, taken by French photographer Marc Riboud.

Jan Rose Kasmir's story is also quite remarkable. At the age of 17, the young woman joined the protest movement against the Vietnam War, because in her mind at the time, that war was completely unjust and the United States should not have intervened in the situation in Vietnam. One day in October 1967, Jan Rose Kasmir was among the protesters in front of the Pentagon.

According to Jan Rose Kasmir's recollections, as the protesters, including herself, advanced toward the Pentagon, National Guard troops were lined up, preventing the demonstrators from getting any further. Some people were carrying flowers; Jan Rose Kasmir took one and held it close to the men carrying guns.

Later, Jan Rose Kasmir said she didn't know who took the picture until her father bought a magazine and saw her picture printed in it. She never imagined that the photograph, with its evocative title "La Jeune Fille a la Fleur - The Girl and the Flower," would become so famous.

Jan Rose Kasmir in the famous photograph “La Jeune Fille a la Fleur”.

Interestingly, Jan Rose Kasmir wasn't the only one who performed the symbolic act of "holding a flower in front of a gun." According to Bill Zimmerman, one of the participants in the 1967 anti-Vietnam War protest in front of the Pentagon, as told The Guardian (UK), he witnessed a young man in a sweater carrying a bouquet of flowers.

“Suddenly, this hero placed the flower on the barrel of the rifle pointed at his head, and everyone on both sides dropped their weapons,” Zimmerman recalled. That moment of placing the flower on the gun barrel was captured and spread through the media, but no one knows the name of the young man from that day.

Actions like those of Jan Rose Kasmir or that mysterious young man are simple, symbolic, yet profoundly meaningful. Perhaps when performing these acts, people like Jan Rose Kasmir or that young man didn't care about fame; for them, at that moment, it was simply an act to express their hatred of guns and war. The gun barrel and the flower – that contrast makes people cherish and appreciate peace even more.

Dropping leaflets from airplanes to protest the war.

The person who did something "few people have ever done" was Susan Schnall – an American nurse. During her visit to Vietnam in 2006, where she received the "Medal for Peace and Friendship Among Nations" awarded by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations, Susan Schnall recounted that back then, in 1967, she was serving in the US Navy as a nurse in California, treating wounded soldiers returning from the Vietnam War. Day after day, caring for the wounded and listening to their stories, the young American nurse gradually realized that what happened on the battlefields of South Vietnam was very different from what the US government was trying to convince the American people of. The stories of American soldiers, such as how they killed people, made Susan Schnall hate war and feel compelled to do something.

“I knew that American B-52s were dropping leaflets urging Vietnamese soldiers to desert. So I wanted to use a similar method, using an airplane to express my views on American soil. A friend of mine is a pilot, so I borrowed his plane,” Susan Schnall recounted the reason behind her “unique” action.

Navy nurse Susan Schanall speaks at the Peace March in San Francisco Bay on October 12, 1968. (Source: baotangchungtichchientranh.vn)

“On October 12, 1968, we loaded a plane with leaflets about the peace march of soldiers and veterans in San Francisco, which was to take place two days later. From an altitude of several hundred meters, we began opening the plane doors to drop leaflets at military bases in the San Francisco Bay Area, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, and the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, where I worked. Afterwards, we held a press conference to let the American people know that there were American soldiers protesting America’s war in Vietnam. At the peace demonstration, Susan always wore her nurse’s uniform and chanted the slogan ‘Bring America’s sons alive home’,” Susan Schnall recalled.

In February 1969, for her actions, Susan Schnall was sentenced by a court-martial to six months in prison and discharged from the military.

Interestingly, this anti-war woman later became the President of the Veterans for Peace organization in New York. Every year on May 25th, veterans in New York gather in Battery Park to reminisce about the painful memories of war and remind Americans fortunate enough to live in peace of the exorbitant cost of war.

Previously, Susan Schnall worked for the Indochina Medical Relief Fund, an organization that provided aid and medicine to victims of the American war in Indochina and several Vietnamese hospitals. In 1972, she persuaded the organization to donate and transfer $3,000 to the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam.

She collaborated with the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign and the American Veterans Association, traveling to many places in Vietnam, interviewing people affected by Agent Orange, and supporting efforts to clean up Agent Orange in Vietnam. “The war, and then my involvement in the anti-war movement, changed my life,” Susan Schnall confided.

Nguyen Thu

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/vi-viet-nam-vi-hoa-binh-post244150.html