George Duggins

1943-2005

President of Vietnam Veterans of America

One evening in 1985 George Duggins heard a radio announcement about a meeting of Vietnam War veterans. He turned his car around, drove to the meeting, and joined the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). Prior to that evening Duggins had never discussed his war experience. His wife of 15 years did not even know that he had gone to war. Duggins became a passionate and articulate spokesman for veterans' interests on the local, state, and national levels. In 1997 he became the first enlisted man to be elected national president of the VVA and the first black president of any major veterans service organization.

Served Two Tours in Vietnam

George Calvin Duggins was born in 1943, the son of James M. Duggins. He grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, graduating in the last segregated class at Booker T. Washington High School. His friend and classmate, Lester V. Moore, Jr., who became Norfolk's first black judge, told Liz Szabo of the Virginian Pilot in February of 1997: "The teachers we had were committed, dedicated and supportive. They went out of their way to make sure we stayed on track, that we followed through with our goals."

Duggins attended Norfolk State College for two years before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1965. He told Szabo in February of 1997: "All my life I'd been taught the Communists were the big bad guys. I thought I was making a difference." Duggins served in Vietnam from May of 1966 to December of 1967 as a Morse code interceptor. He told Szabo that when he reenlisted and returned to Vietnam in April of 1968, "I had a rude awakening. I realized we were wasting a lot of lives…At first I was hostile to those people who had gone to Canada. But those people had to make a decision. Using hindsight, knowing what we know now, I wouldn't have fought in it either."

Duggins later wrote about his change in perspective. In the Virginian-Pilot, Duggins wrote: "there was death all around me. My unit was under constant rocket and mortar fire…The war and its aftermath took a great emotional toll on me. We who went to Vietnam were treated as outcasts when we returned. And it was doubly hard for black veterans. We were accused of fighting a white man's war. I found that people who had been my friends were not anymore." But it took many years before Duggins articulated how the war impacted him.

Joined the VVA

Duggins returned home from war to earn an associate degree in computer technology from Tidewater Community College. He married Blanche L. Neal, a middle-school art teacher, and they raised two daughters in Chesapeake, Virginia. Duggins worked as a computer-support specialist for Options Health Care, Inc., in Norfolk, until 2003. Although his only war injury was a piece of shrapnel in his hand, Duggins suffered from nightmares for years. He told Liz Szabo of the Virginian Pilot in January of 1997: "I used to wake up in the middle of the night shouting ‘Incoming!' and my wife had no idea what I was saying." He hated the rain after those years of monsoons and avoided fireworks displays. "The sound that's made when they shoot the fireworks out of the tube sounds just like a mortar fire."

After that evening in 1985 Duggins became a life member of the VVA Tidewater Chapter in Chesapeake. He had found his avocation. Over the years he held numerous elected and appointed positions within the organization, including nine years on the national board of directors. He became an outspoken advocate for veterans, particularly on issues of healthcare and homelessness.

Duggins hoped to recruit more minorities into the VVA. Although blacks accounted for 25% of those who served in Vietnam, they comprised less than 1% of the VVA's 50,000 members. When Duggins was elected the first black VVA vice president in 1995, he was quoted in the Michigan Chronicle as saying that the "VVA is for all Vietnam veterans. My election shows this philosophy to be true. I want all Vietnam veterans to be able to look at VVA as their veterans service organization." In February of 1997 Duggins described to Szabo how the Vietnam War influenced the Civil Rights Movement by inspiring blacks to demand equality from the country they had fought for: "Vietnam was the first integrated war, in which black officers led white troops into combat. These guys had just gotten back from Vietnam, they had just fought a war, and they found they couldn't go into this establishment or that establishment, and many of them just said, ‘Uh oh. No.’"

Returned to Vietnam

In 1996 Duggins returned to Vietnam as a member of President Bill Clinton's delegation assigned to gather information about Americans still missing in action. When the tour bus stopped near a rice paddy Duggins was overcome with fear. He told Szabo in January of 1997: "I couldn't get out of that bus…I was right back in 1968." Duggins returned to Vietnam in 2000 as a member of a congressional and private citizens delegation.

Upon his election as president of the VVA in 1997, Duggins proposed using closed military bases to house homeless vets. In January of 1997 he told Szabo that "There's no reason why a guy who served his country should be sleeping in a doorway." He remained vocal about the government's responsibility to veterans.

On April 30, 1998, Duggins addressed a joint session of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees. He expressed alarm over President Clinton's proposed budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs and outrage at Clinton's proposal to divert VA benefits for smoking-related illnesses: "The military did much more than tolerate smoking among its ranks—it irrefutably encouraged and subsidized smoking…VVA is strongly opposed to any attempts by Congress to build these new pork-barrel transportation projects on the backs of disabled veterans." In 1999 Duggins denounced Clinton's decision to delay the declassification of documents that the VVA believed might contain information concerning the fates of service members unaccounted for from Vietnam and other wars.

At a Glance …

Born George Calvin Duggins in 1943, in Norfolk, VA; died on August 1, 2005; married Blanche L. Neal, 1970(?); children: Stacey Davida, Shana Tenille. Education: Norfolk State College; Tidewater Community College, AA, computer technology. Military service: U.S. Army Security Agency, Specialist Five, 1965-69, 8th R.R.F.S. in Phu Bai, Vietnam, 1966-67, 330th R.R. Co. in Pleiku, Vietnam, 1968-69. Religion: AME.

Career: Options Health Care, Inc., Norfolk, VA, computer-support specialist, (?)-2003.

Selected memberships: City of Chesapeake, Mayor's Committee of Veterans Affairs, chair; Commonwealth of Virginia, Veterans Services, board member; Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church, chairman of the board of trustees, steward board, choir president; National Veterans Business Development Corporation, National Task Force on Veterans Entrepreneurship, board member; VVA, national chair of membership credentials, convention, scholarship, and minority affairs committees, board of directors, president, 1997-2001.

Awards: Commonwealth of Virginia Senate Joint Resolution No. 22 Celebrating the Life of George Calvin Duggins, 2006.

Fought for Redress

Duggins was most passionate in his demands for redress for veterans suffering from the effects of Agent Orange, the herbicide used extensively in Vietnam. After the San Diego Union-Tribune uncovered major flaws in the $200-million Pentagon "Ranch Hand Study" on the health effects of Agent Orange and found that information on cancers and birth defects had been withheld, Duggins called for congressional hearings and a thorough examination by the General Accounting Office. In 2000 he petitioned the VA to add diabetes to the list of diseases linked to Agent Orange and other herbicide exposure and to consider "in-country" effects in determining disability compensation, claiming that Vietnam vets suffered disproportionately from aging diseases as a result of their Vietnam tours.

Duggins was also outspoken in his support of veterans affected by Gulf War syndrome. He was quoted by CNN in 1997 as saying that "[the Pentagon has] learned absolutely nothing. I think the government position should be (to) give the veteran the benefit of the doubt. He's the one that put it on the line for this country." Duggins also lobbied the U.S. Senate for ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

In subsequent congressional testimony Duggins fought for the classification of hepatitis C as a service-connected condition. "Veterans, particularly those who served in Vietnam, need to be acutely aware of hepatitis C and its potential consequences," Duggins said in a news release by the American Liver Foundation's Veterans Council. "Getting tested is the first step in properly fighting this disease, and the VVA and other veterans service organizations are working closely with medical experts in this field to ensure that veterans do not face this fight alone."

Duggins took a regular turn in the Saturday washing of the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, "The Wall," on the Mall in Washington, D.C., a ritual which always made him cry. On November 10, 2004, he gave the Invocation and Benediction at the dedication of the In Memory Memorial Plaque for vets whose service-related postwar deaths were not recognized on the Wall.

Throughout his two terms as VVA president Duggins battled non-Hodgkins lymphoma caused by his own exposure to Agent Orange. He died on August 1, 2005, at the age of 61, in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Selected writings

Articles

"Vietnam Revisited," Virginian-Pilot, April 30 1995, p. J1.

"Legislative Presentation of the Vietnam Veterans of America before a Joint Hearing of the House and Senate Committees on Veterans' Affairs," House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/schedule105/mar98/hearing3-25-98/vva3-25.htm (December 5, 2007).

"Testimony of George C. Duggins…Before the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees," House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/schedule107/mar01/3-22-01/gduggins.htm (December 5, 2007).

Sources

Periodicals

Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2005.

Michigan Chronicle, October 25, 1995, p. 8A.

Virginian Pilot, January 18, 1997, p. B1; February 2, 1997, p. 6.

On-line

"Clinton Announces New Money for Gulf War Syndrome Research," CNN,http://www.cnn.com/US/9711/08/gulf.war.illness/index.html (December 5, 2007).

"Senate Joint Resolution No. 22," Legislative Information System,http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?061+ful+SJ22ER (December 5, 2007).

"U.S. Veterans to Get Free Hepatitis C Test Kits," American Liver Foundation Veterans Council,http://www.state.nj.us/military/news/archive2000/hepc070500.htm (December 5, 2007).