Political Violence

What experiences produce an armed rebel in a democracy? A generation ago, the Vietnam War was the catalyst, and not only for the children of the Summer of Love. 

Some soldiers who served were transformed not only by the carnage they saw in combat, but also by the daily degradation of the local noncombatants by their fellow soldiers. GIs swaggered down the main road near Long Binh, the Army’s largest base, insulting the locals who foraged in garbage cans for food scraps. The walking wounded were everywhere – men and women, young and old, missing limbs or teeth, or nursing weeping sores. 

It was enough to make some question if they were fighting on the wrong side, and those doubts were impossible to shake when they went home. “The war in Vietnam radically altered my life and left an impression on my heart and mind,” recalled one. “I saw the American government and the big corporations that profited from the war as being guilty beyond doubt of murder and a campaign of genocide against the Vietnamese people.” 

Less than a decade later, that veteran was one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives.