Hogtown Justice: The VVAW and the ’72 Republican Convention

As yet there are no plans to mark the event officially, but it could be handled nicely with a small plaque outside the Gainesville Federal Courthouse reading, “September 1, 1973. The Game Plan Died Here.” 

“I felt like I was signing the Constitution or something like that.” —A Gainesville Eight juror

Young Scott Camil first learned about conspiracies from his stepdad, a fingerprinter for the Miami police and an educator for the John Birch Society. The Birchers had a program called Let Freedom Ring, and Scott’s stepdad managed it. Just dial F-R-E-E-D-O-M on your phone, listen to the three-minute recorded message and watch the sweat trickle along your trigger finger. The message warned all about the Reds and how they were creeping in everywhere like underarm stain.

In high school, like every Florida youngster, Scott was required to take a course in Communism vs. Americanism that included a film cartoon of red slime oozing over the earth like Sherwin-Williams paint. Jack Webb, the narrator, explained how it was the duty of all patriots to fight this stain before it reached their sister. Scott’s eyes devoured the map right off the screen. Come graduation, he caught the bus for Parris Island with Jack Webb’s words still oozing over his brain.

The Marines had some words of their own, a chant the recruits repeated with both lungs at attention:

Another day in the Corps, sir,
For every day’s a holiday and every meal’s a feast,
God bless the Marine Corps,
God bless the drill instructors,
Pray for war,
Pray for war.
Private Camil called out to God, and Lyndon Johnson answered with a ticket stamped Da Nang.

At first, Scott was disappointed. Most Americans in Da Nang were driving cars and eating ice cream; it was like Pompano Beach. What kind of war was this? Scott found out just three weeks later.

He was south of the city then, in the Elephant Valley, at a pile of sandbags called Alpha North. When the infantry radioed for howitzer shells, Scott plotted them on a map and listened to the explosives whine off toward whatever slopeheads were fool enough to mess with the United States Marine Corps.

At night he pulled guard duty. The firebase was surrounded with three strings of concertina wire and a guard post at each corner. One evening none of the hardware made any difference. Fifty VC sappers went through the wall like it was so much Saran Wrap. An adjacent post disappeared in an orange ball, and rice-propelled bastards started coming every which way, sticking gun barrels in canvas flaps and firing.

It took 15 minutes for the Marines to form a perimeter and flush the black pajamas out of Alpha North. When PFC Camil walked to the landing zone for his first look at dead grunts, he discovered the remnants of a Jacksonville boy named Maines. Each sundown Maines had stood on his guard bunker and shouted at the jungle: “You chickenshit fuckin’ gooks, you got no balls.” A grenade hit Maines during the first rush and blew his legs off. Then a dink with a machine gun emptied 30 rounds into his chest and face.

Standing over Maines’ dismembered body, Scott Camil figured out right away that you didn’t get to call “fudge” and start over. This was 100% for real. “I’m gonna make it out of here,” he told himself, “if it means killin’ every fuckin’ slant that’s close enough to kill.”

During his 13-month tour there, he had some choice opportunities to keep his promise. On Operation Stone, Scott, now a scout sergeant, helped the officers read maps and search the undergrowth for fresh VC bodies. Pickings were a little scarce, but on the seventh day they found a whole nestful, neatly arranged in one village for easy counting. Just click your Sixteen up to rock & roll and splatter whatever moves—in this case 292 villagers. Then the Marines meandered through the ricestraw clumps, burning every hut—”consumed in the backblast from a zippo,” as the grunts liked to say.

“It was like a hunting trip,” Scott recalled later. “It was like someone said you can live in my country for as long as you want. You can hunt every day, and the more people you kill, the more medals you’ll get.”