David Cline

David Cline (January 8, 1947 – September 14, 2007) was an American anti-war and veterans rights activist. He was best known as National President of Veterans For Peace (VFP) from 2000 to 2006, Chapter Vice President of Alan Reilly - Gene Glazer VFP Chapter 21, and co-founder of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign. Cline was featured in the 2006 film Sir! No Sir!, which documented the GI antiwar movement during the Vietnam war as well as in the book "Winter Soldiers: An Oral History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War" by Richard Stacewicz.

Cline was known not only for his anti-war stance upon returning from service in Vietnam, but also for being a leader in the anti-Iraq War movement. As President of VFP, Cline built a relationship between VFP and the fledgling organization of military families opposed to the war in Iraq, Military Families Speak Out! (MFSO) in 2002 and provided guidance to returning Iraq vets who founded Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) in 2004. He is credited with helping to establish the Bring Them Home Now Campaign and served on the organization's coordinating committee until his death. In 2002, he led a group of activists to Puerto Rico to protest the U.S. Navy's use of Vieques as a bombing range. He was also instrumental in planning the Walkin' To New Orleans march by veterans and survivors of Hurricane Katrina from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans, Louisiana.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Cline was drafted into the U.S. Army when he was 20 years old, arriving in Vietnam in August 1967 and serving in the 25th Infantry Division as a rifleman and machine gunner. During his tour, he was wounded three times, the third time seriously enough to be sent back to the army hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey in 1968. He received three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star during his service.

Returning to Fort Hood, Texas, Cline became an anti-war activist, serving as a civilian organizer of active duty servicemen at one of the first GI coffeehouses, the Oleo Strut, in Killeen, Texas and producing a one-sheet underground newspaper on politics and veterans issues called Fatigue Press, which was distributed clandestinely on the military base. He joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1970, where he served as a coordinator and national director, and remained a member until his death.

While working for the U.S. Postal Service in Jersey City, Cline was a post office union representative and served as vice president of Transportation Workers Union Local 600.

See also

• Bring Them Home Now Tour
• Winter Soldier Investigation

External links

• Dave Cline Interview With Vietnam News Agency
• David Cline, 60; Veteran Led Antiwar, Vets Rights Efforts, by Keenan Steiner, in the Jersey Journal, Sept. 18, 2007
• David Cline, Vietnam Vet and War Critic Dies at 60, by Mark Mueller in The Star Ledger
• IVAW Memorial to Dave Cline
• A Death in the Family: A Tribute to Dave Cline, Friend, Mentor, Warrior for Peace and Justice, and Former President of Veterans for Peace by Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson
• Antiwar Vet Dave Cline is Dead
• Super Troopers: A Vietnam War Doc with Powerful Contemporary Parallels, by Bill Gallo, in The Village Voice, April 18, 2006
• Dave Cline Speech on January 1, 2007, Washington, D.C.
• VVAW: In Our Own Words, by Dave Kettenhofen, a review of Winter Soldiers: an Oral History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, by Richard Stacewicz
• Bring Them Home Now Campaign Coordinating Committee Biographies
• Spearpoint Part One, by Stan Goff
• Walkin' to New Orleans Movie
• Democracy Now! May 24, 2006
• Prisoner of Starvation, Sept. 17, 2007

Persondata
Name	Cline, David
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	January 8, 1947
Place of birth
Date of death	September 14, 2007
Place of death