“Those who stay behind don’t get to bitch,” Barb said.
“Disappointingly,” Frankie said glumly.
The three of them had spent at least an hour last night sitting around the firepit in the backyard, wrapped in woolen blankets, discussing today’s march. Barb had said that more than a dozen anti-war groups were scheduled to arrive in D.C. in the next few days. The VVAW wanted to separate themselves by marching first. They had big plans to draw attention to themselves. Make the news broadcasts.
“Just be careful,” Ethel said. “Be home on time, or I’m calling the police.”
Barb laughed. “If we get into trouble, it will be with the police.”
Frankie stared at her friend. “Comments like that are not helpful.”
“Come on, kid,” Barb said. “We’re making like the wind and blowing.”
Ethel hugged Frankie and said, “Go with God, girls. Change the world.”
Frankie followed Barb out to the car and got into the passenger seat.
Barb started the car and cranked up the music on Creedence.
Barb turned, smiling. “You ready?”
Frankie sighed. Her nerves were strung taut. This whole thing was a mistake. “Just drive, Barbara.”
* * *
It was nearing midnight when they pulled into D.C.
Their destination, Potomac Park, was a black expanse in the middle of the brightly lit city; in the darkness, Frankie could make out tents here and there. The VVAW had occupied the park, turned it into a campground.
“Let’s find a spot off to ourselves,” Frankie said.
Barb parked the car on the side of the street. “Get the tent out of the trunk.”
Across the street, a long line of policemen in riot gear stood shoulder to shoulder.
“Don’t say anything,” Frankie warned as they passed the policemen on their way to the park. “I mean it. I am not getting arrested before the march.”
Barb gave a curt nod. They came to the edge of the large park. Saying nothing—not to each other and not to the other VVAW campers—they pitched their tent, then set up two chairs out front. As they sat in the dark, listening to the din of tent spikes being pounded into the ground, more and more cars drove up, headlights spearing through the night. They heard music in the distance and the quiet buzz of conversations.
“I wonder if we are the only women,” Frankie said, drinking coffee from a thermos.
Barb sighed. “Aren’t we always?”
* * *
In the morning, when Frankie stepped out of the tent, she found herself standing amid a veritable sea of male veterans—thousands—most of them about her age, wearing worn, stained fatigues and jeans and boonie hats; some wore peace symbols and carried flags from their states, their units. Hundreds of cars were parked near the park, their doors emblazoned with slogans, convoys from California and Colorado. More had parked on the grass.
As she stood there, a battered, beaten-up school bus drove up onto the grass, stopped, and opened its doors. Veterans exited the bus, singing, “What’s it good for? Absolutely nothing!”
In the center of the park, a bushy-haired man with a bullhorn jumped up into the back of a pickup truck onto which someone had spray-painted NO MORE! “My brothers-in-arms, it’s time. We’re marching to be heard today, we’re raising our voices—but not our fists, not our guns—to say, Enough. Bring our soldiers home! Line up behind Ron in the wheelchair. A single, unbroken column. Be peaceful. Don’t give the Man any reason to stop us. Let’s go!”
The men slowly formed a column, led by several veterans in wheelchairs who held flags. Behind them were men on crutches, men with burned faces and missing arms, blind men being led by their friends.
Barb and Frankie were the only two women in the park that they could see. They held hands and joined their brothers on the march across the Lincoln Memorial Bridge.
Vietnam veterans: a river of them, marching and chanting, holding signs in the air.
More men joined them, rushed forward, yelling out slogans, signs raised.
Someone bumped into Frankie so hard that she stumbled sideways, lost her hold on Barb’s hand, and fell to the ground. She yelled “Barb!” and heard “Frankie!” but men swarmed in between them.
Frankie couldn’t see her friend in the crowd. “Meet back at the tent!” she yelled, hoping Barb could hear.
“You okay, ma’am?” A man helped her to her feet.
He was young, blond, with a scraggly reddish-blond beard and mustache. He held on to her upper arm, steadied her. He wore torn, stained jungle fatigues, with the sleeves cut off. He’d drawn a huge peace symbol on his helmet. In his other hand, he held a sign that read VIETNAM VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR.