Abstract

On the morning of April 23, 1971, a long line of Vietnam Veterans formed near the lower west terrace of the US Capitol building. Thousands of spectators and a contingent of journalists gathered around them. At 10 a.m., after an aged veteran in olive fatigues blew taps on a bugle, a 27-year-old former Marine sergeant named Jack Smith threw his combat medals over a crude chicken wire and wood fence that surrounded the Capitol. “We cast these [medals] away,” he announced, “as symbols of shame, dishonor, and inhumanity” (p. 113). Observers estimated that between 600 and 3000 vets followed him,…