Vietnam War Protest
October 24, 2009 – 1:17 am
ARRESTED– San Luis Obispo police officer Preston Simmons takes Richard Birchler to patrol car after he was arrested for obstructing traffic at Higuera and Garden
May 6, 1971
Today’s young generation sees the word hippie and often gloss the era with thoughts of Halloween costumes or style choices.
There was an earnestly moral activist component that relied on political theater more than cold realpolitik.
As the Vietnam war marched on, support for the conflict began to be questioned.
San Luis Obispo was not the hotbed of anti-war protest that say a U.C. Berkley or Kent State were but there were protests. Often hecklers would challenge protests in this area. This protest was organized by Students for New Action, Politics (SNAP) and began about noon at Mission Plaza. About 25 people marched to the courthouse and walked through stores and banks with placards urging customers and workers not to conduct business as usual in protest.
Quoting from the story:
Eight antiwar demonstrators, five of them Cal Poly students, were arrested in downtown San Luis Obispo Wednesday evening after the protesters began blocking rush-hour traffic.
The article goes on in the dry style of the TeeVee show Dragnet to list the names, time and location of arrest and address of the arrestees. The arrests were scattered from 5 to 7 pm.
Richard Lee Birchler, 25, Raymond H. DeGroote Jr., 21, Michael Steff, 18, Thomas Sandercock, 21, John Coe, 20, Eugene W. Clark, 19, Stephen J. Crummy, 22, Paul A Castiglioni, 21, were all caught up in the dragnet.
The men were all draft age. The charges ranged from disturbing the peace to resisting arrest and obstructing traffic. All were released on bail.
The arrests were made by San Luis Obispo police with the aid of sheriff’s deputies. Officers said those arrested for obstructing traffic were marching back and across the street, stopping in the crosswalks and shouting at drivers.
***
They walked to the Bank of America at Osos and Higuera and went inside, chanting “give peace a chance” and shouting accusations that the bank was involved in the war.
Protests in other parts of the state yielded more arrests. Santa Barbara area had 1,000 people show up for two protests where 42 were arrested. In San Francisco 102 were arrested. Another story floated the idea that all American troops could be withdrawn by late 1972. The last U.S. troops withdrew in March 1973 and the last deaths were Marines assisting in the evacuation of Americans as the South Vietnamese government collapsed during a 1975 offensive from the North.
One photo published here for the first time show protesters walking through a hardware store.
Is this the building that SLO Brew is in now?
Photos were by Wayne Nicholls
6 Responses to “Vietnam War Protest”
this makes me so sad. you have a right to what say what you want, but you should also think how that makes others feel too. the poor guys in the trenches were drafted and had to do what others told them. so why when they came home were there no parades, and cheering like now? same situation, different society. no wonder there are so many vietnam vets who are in mental hospitals and out on the streets. even today that war and the vets are looked down on. what a country we have! some times it isn’t very nice.
By nancy on Oct 24, 2009
Look how small and new the sidewalk trees are!
By SSG David Medzyk on Oct 24, 2009
According to one website two thirds of those who served in Vietnam volunteered and 74% of those who went would serve again, even knowing the outcome.
The Vietnam War divides the nation to this today.
Some news stories make me sad as well. However my view is that society makes better decisions when they are fully informed. Censoring the events of the day to try make people happy is a recipe for failure.
An interesting observation: The two most commented pages on this blog are from veterans who served at Fort Ord or the Cambria radar station. The war protest pages don’t get the same number of comments.
By David Middlecamp on Oct 24, 2009
This ‘hardware store’ looks more like Forden’s to me. They’re still in business on Monterey Street and are really more of a housewares store. The hardware store you’re thinking of on Garden Street was (I think) Hana Hardware. This photo doesn’t look like the Hana Hardware store I remember from the 1970s.
By Kristi on Oct 26, 2009
Hana’s was much more dark and “hardware-ee”.
That’s Fordens.
By SSG David Medzyk on Oct 27, 2009
Thanks for the comments Nancy, SSG David, and Kristi. I saw electric drills on one shelf and assumed it was a hardware store but there were a lot of housewares on the shelves. Thanks for the help captioning.
By David Middlecamp on Oct 27, 2009