Frankie and Barb held hands as they marched, but this time they understood the risks better and had agreed to meet at a local hotel if they got separated. Barb stuck her sign in the air, yelled, “Bring them home, bring them home!”
The marchers came to a stop at the Capitol steps, pressed in together, shoulder to shoulder. Men raised their voices and their signs, yelling, “Stop the war! Bring them home!” while television news crews filmed it all.
A man with long hair, wearing fatigues, stepped forward, stood alone for a moment. The crowd fell silent.
A wave of anticipation swept through the VVAW group, and then something flew through the air from the protest crowd, sailed over the barricade, and landed on the Capitol steps with a clink, glinted in a ray of sunlight.
A war medal.
One by one, veterans stepped forward, stood alone, ripped medals off of their chests, and threw them, clanging, onto the steps. Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars, Good Conduct Medals, dog tags. Some hit the steps and clanked against the sudden silence of the crowd. Barb let go of Frankie, pushed her way to the front of the crowd, and threw her first lieutenant’s bars onto the steps.
Police in riot gear—helmeted, with plastic shields up—arrived in a blare of whistles. They charged the crowd, began hauling the protesters away.
The crowd broke up; pandemonium filled the streets.
Frankie was knocked off her feet, fell hard. In the confusion, she curled into a small ball and rolled away, trying to protect herself from both protesters and police. She edged toward the chain-link fence barricade and lay there, panting, feeling bruised. Tear gas floated through the air, stung Frankie’s eyes, and blurred her vision until she could barely see.
How long did she lie there, blinking, her eyes on fire? She didn’t know.
Slowly, she got to her feet, trying to focus. The street was full of police in riot gear, hauling protesters away, cars honking, driving away, news vans following.
Half-blind, Frankie stumbled forward, unable to quite comprehend everything she’d just seen, the deep and utter wrongness of it. The street was littered with cigarette butts, protest brochures, broken signs, ripped-up draft cards.
On the steps of the Capitol, behind the temporary chain-link fencing, hundreds of medals glittered in the sunlight. Medals that had cost each recipient so much, thrown away in protest.
A lone policeman began picking them up. What would happen to them, the medals men had sacrificed and bled for?
Frankie grabbed the chain-link fence, shook it hard. “Don’t you touch those!”
A man grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t,” he said. “They’ll arrest you.”
She tried to pull free. “I don’t care.” Suddenly she was furious. How dare the American government do these things to her own citizens; stop mothers from honoring their fallen sons, ignore the meaning of a medal thrown through the air? She wiped her eyes again, tried to clear her vision. “They shouldn’t be allowed to touch those medals.”
“The vets made their point. A damn good one,” the man said. “That image will stay with people: a vet in a wheelchair throwing his Purple Heart away? Powerful, man.”
Frankie pulled back, wrenched her arm free. The man who’d stopped her wasn’t what she expected. In the first place, he was older than most of the protesters, certainly older than most of the Vietnam vets. Long dark hair fell in feathery layers almost to his shoulders and was threaded through with gray. A thick mustache covered his upper lip. He wore round John Lennon sunglasses, but even so she could see how green his eyes were.
“You’re a Vietnam vet?” she said, trying to find her calm again. All of this had upset her, dredged up emotions she didn’t want to feel. She had to dial it back. And fast. Loosing her Vietnam emotions was never good.
“No. Just someone who’s against the war. Henry Acevedo.” He held out his hand.
She shook it distractedly. “Frankie McGrath. Did you have a son in Vietnam?”
He laughed. “I’m not that old. I’m here for the same reason you are: to say enough is goddamn enough.”
“Yeah. Well. Thanks, Henry.” Frankie walked away.
Henry fell into step beside her.
“Do you think these protests will do any good?” she asked.
“We have to try,” was his answer.
Yeah, Frankie thought, it’s true. She’d seen people hauled away by the police today, risking their freedom to protest a war many of them hadn’t even fought. Civilians were being arrested for exercising the fundamental American right to protest their government; at Kent State and in Jackson, they’d been shot for it.