Des Moines, 1995
Chris and Mary Beth have just done a good job of describing the horror that the [Vietnam] War was back then. ... I think it was in February of '65 that the United States started dropping bombs from B-52's on Vietnam.
We belonged to a segment of the population that was getting news from different routes, not just from the mainstream media. Chris's parents and our parents were involved in peace and justice issues. [Chris's mother] Maggie belonged to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. As did my mother. My father worked for the American Friends Service Committee [A Quaker organization, as Secretary for Peace Education]. We as kids had access to information that was not generally available to our peers.
We also had inherited a deep philosophical tradition that believed in the value of human life and taught us to be empathetic to pain and suffering. Empathy really was not taught to us especially in school. It came from a culture that was outside of the schools. It came through the churches and the social justice tradition. We inherited it, really, from our parents, I'd have to say. ...
At the time that this happened, 1965, the Vietnam War was really just getting rolling. It was to go on for another ten years. In my opinion, the Vietnam War was part of a bigger problem of militarism generally, ... taking away from us the potential that we really have as the human race. ...
There was a time when the United States championed civil liberties as one of its principal reasons for being. They taught us that in school. What happened, maybe, was they taught us that too well. I know I was idealistic, and I think children tend to be idealistic naturally, because they don't have a backlog of lots of historical details to deal with. ...
As children, maybe we were able to look at the bottom line, and not feel that we needed to run all the calculations of right and wrong -- if it's right because of this, if it's wrong because of that. There were [many] hundreds of thousands that lost their lives over the Vietnam conflict. And the image of huge, ugly B-52's dropping streams of bombs on villages of thatched roof huts -- the bottom line was too convincing. That was all we needed to know. The pictures of burning kids. What else did you have to know? ...
The simple human juxtaposition between this machinery of death, and the flesh that it was being directed against, was something that children could understand. We were the surface between two movements: the one a human movement, and the other a military movement. The event of the armbands happened right at that surface. ...
When I got to school I didn't have my armband on, I had it in my pocket. I had put on a white shirt and tie because I wanted to be dressed up good when I was suspended. Mary Beth and Chris had been suspended the day before. ...
I went to homeroom and I was too embarrassed to put it on there. After homeroom, I went into the bathroom to put it on. A friend came in and saw I was having a struggle with it, trying to fasten a safety pin with only one hand, and he helped me put the armband on.
I went through the morning classes with my suit and tie, and of course I was the only kid in school wearing a suit and tie. The suit jacket was pretty dark and the armband didn't really stand out. I was getting dressed after gym class and I realized, well, if I really wanted to make a statement, I'd better put it on without the jacket. Then I had a white shirt against the armband and the contrast was pretty good. So everybody started to notice, and some people made comments. ...
My first class in the afternoon -- English class -- Mr. Lory got a call on the phone and he said "John Tinker, they'd like to see you in the office." ...
I went to the principal's office. He asked me to come in and please sit down. And he became very fatherly with me. He said "You know, I fought in World War II and back then people supported their country." I said "Well, you know, I support my country too." He said "If you try to get into college, it's going to be a problem if you have this on your record." I said "That's okay, this is what I want to do." He said "I don't suppose you're going to take it off, are you?" I said "No, I'm not." ... He was patronizing, but he wasn't mean to me.
We appealed to the School Board ... and they voted five to two to support the principals [in their decision to ban the armbands]. ... So during the Christmas school vacation we decided to take the armbands off and pursue the issue in the courts. And that's what we did. ...
People asked "Did you think you were right to do it?" I was sure we were right. I was sure that we had the constitutional right. We'd been taught about the Constitution, and I was sure we had the right to do it. People were wearing political campaign buttons all the time, and crosses, crucifixes. People were wearing iron crosses. Sure, we had the right.