McCarthy, Viet Vets Hold Antiwar Protest

About 250 Vietnam Veterans Against the War and 250 sympathizers marched from their campsite at the foot of Bunker Hill to the Boston Common Monday, where they were greeted by 3000 supporters celebrating an "alternative" Memorial Day.

The veterans, with plastic rifles slung over their shoulders, retraced in reverse, Paul Revere's famous ride of 1775 to dramatize their opposition to the Vietnam war. Their arrival on the Common climaxed their participation in several days of antiwar activities, including a Saturday night encampment on the Lexington Battle Green which led to mass arrests Sunday.

Monday, the veterans-many of whom had been arrested at Lexington-marched from the Bunker Hill monument in Charlestown to City Square, across the Charlestown bridge, and along the Freedom Trail to Faneuil Hall, where they rested for twenty minutes before going to the Common.

Former Senator Eugene McCarthy, on his way to the rally at the Common, stopped at Faneuil Hall to greet the veterans. "It's a little like a religious pilgrimage. They always said they were good for the people," McCarthy said.

McCarthy said the rally was "just as patriotic as a traditional Memorial Day rally."

At the Common, McCarthy said, "Finally the men who are fighting this war have come home to call this country to a judgment of itself. One of the marks of a first-class nation is what it does to satisfy its own conscience. We are in the process."

Earlier McCarthy told newsmen he is working for reform in the Democratic Party but is "not excluding participating in a third party movement if that's necessary."

Chris Gregory, a former evacuation medic in Vietnam, followed McCarthy at the platform and said that the rally was "an alternate Memorial Day, a day to celebrate life."

"All Americans are prisoners of this war," Gregory added. "The majority is no longer silent. The government is deaf."