Many veterans came home from Vietnam with a mission: to tell the truth about the wartime atrocities being committed and demand an immediate end to the killing. In April 1971, a group of more than 1,000 veterans launched the Dewey Canyon III operation, a “limited incursion into the land of Congress.” They camped on the Washington Mall without a permit, defying a Supreme Court order that they be removed, and brought their antiwar message forcefully to the national government and the media. The week of action culminated in a dramatic scene, as veterans threw their military medals over a fence at the Capitol.
