[Vision2020] Dissent landed Vietnam protester in prison - and then in law school

[Tom Hansen]

>From the January 16, 2006 edition of the Army Times (www.ArmyTimes.com
<http://www.armytimes.com/> ) -

 

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Dissent landed Vietnam protester in prison - and then in law school

 

By Kelly Kennedy

Times staff writer

 

No officer has been prosecuted for "contemptuous words against the
president" since Army 2nd Lt. Henry H. Howe Jr. marched with a protest sign
through a Texas park in 1965.

 

"End Johnson's Facist [sic] Aggression in Viet Nam," his sign read, a jab at
President Lyndon Johnson.

 

By the end of the day, Howe sat in jail and would later go to court-martial
under Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the provision
barring officers from "contemptuous words against the president." 

 

Howe ultimately was sentenced to one year at Leavenworth. He served three
months.

 

"I was off duty, out of uniform and off post," Howe said Jan. 4 from his
home in Grand Forks, N.D. "I understood the rule to be that you could
participate if you were off duty and out of uniform - that protesting was
acceptable."

 

As a gulf of opinion over another war, this one in Iraq, runs through the
U.S. public 40 years later, Howe said soldiers once again grapple with what
they can and cannot say as members of the armed forces.

 

"I think you understand that you hang up most of your rights going in," Howe
said. "People learn to keep most opinions to themselves, though you are
certainly encouraged to telegraph your agreement with a policy."

 

The court-martial meant to quiet Howe instead instilled in him a need to
speak his mind - loudly - and to fight for the rights of others to do so.
motivated by being imprisoned for speaking out, he went on as a civilian to
get a law degree and build a career defending people on First Amendment
issues.

 

On Nov. 5, 1965, Howe, an Army reservist on active duty, marched in a
protest in El Paso. He said soldiers in the crowd recognized him and had him
arrested. The police said a gas station attendant saw a military sticker in
his car window and called the police. In any case, Howe said he was arrested
for vagrancy by the El Paso police.

 

He was later charged with Article 88, using contemptuous words against the
president; Article 133, public use of language disloyal to the United States
with design to promote disloyalty among the troops and civilian population;
and Article 134, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The last
charge was dropped. 

 

He was convicted of the first two charges, dismissed from the service and
assigned to two years of hard labor, which was reduced to one year. 

 

"I was at Fort Leavenworth for three or four months," Howe said. "It was
completely surreal."

 

He spent three months in solitary confinement in what he called "the
basement of a crumbling, ancient prison."

 

He was the 115th soldier found guilty of "contemptuous words against the
President," according to a 1999 Army Lawyer article written by Lt. Col.
Michael J. Davidson of the office of the Staff Judge Advocate. During the
Civil War, a soldier went to prison for saying, "Jeff Davis was as good a
man as Abraham Lincoln." During World War I, a soldier called President
Wilson a "God damn fool." And during World War II, a soldier claimed
President Roosevelt was "the biggest gangster in the world next to Stalin."

 

But Howe said he hadn't learned about those cases.

 

"I didn't know what Article 88 was," Howe said. "I didn't have a clue."

 

He filed an appeal citing his First Amendment rights to speech, but lost the
case in a military court on the grounds that the prohibition was "Older than
the Bill of Rights, older than the Constitution, and older than the Republic
itself," according to court documents. The appeal did get him out of jail.
The Army released him from the disciplinary barracks while he waited for the
appeal and never required him to go back. 

 

In fact, he continued to protest, even appearing in uniform at marches on
the West Coast while still on probation.

 

Part of the reason Howe turned political was because he couldn't figure out
why his case was prosecuted, he said.

 

"I think it was this early run-up in the Vietnam War in 1965, and there was
interest in suppressing dissent within the Army," he said. "That was a
message. That was an example. Every once in a while, you have to burn a
witch."

 

Howe had graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a degree
in political science and said he had ideas about how the world should work
before going active duty. But after his Article 88 case, he decided to be a
lawyer. 

 

Since that time, he has fought to help a choir director at the University of
North Dakota after he was fired for being gay; represented a small school in
the class-action antitrust suit against Microsoft; and worked to help
children raised but not legally adopted by a couple have the same rights as
legally adopted or biological children. He also has defended people in drug
cases and defended soldiers in courts-martial. 

 

The Iraq war has caused him to think back on whether he would do anything
differently if he were to find himself again in a Texas park in 1965. He
would, he said, spell "fascist" correctly. He might also voice a more
general protest of the war rather than aim it at the president.

 

His advice to soldiers now is to be aware of the law.

 

"Article 88 is still out there waiting for someone," he said.

 

 
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Lieutenant Howe ended up serving one year at hard labor for his
demonstration of "disloyalty".

 

Jane Fonda went on to make more movies.

 

Take care, Moscow.

 

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

 

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.

 

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