Contents of this path:

1. 1 media/Ari S. Merretazon mic set up.jpeg media/Bloods.jpg media/Ari Sesu Merretazon photo.jpeg 2023-01-19T15:43:46+00:00 Jason Higgins b37c4072bc57250df5afb301955a9262a5b86f21 Ari Sesu Merretazon 83 image_header 118 2023-07-19T16:34:34+00:00 Jason Higgins b37c4072bc57250df5afb301955a9262a5b86f21

This page is referenced by:

• 1 media/Ari S. Merretazon mic set up.jpeg media/Bloods.jpg media/Ari Sesu Merretazon photo.jpeg 2023-01-19T15:43:46+00:00 Ari Sesu Merretazon 83 image_header 118 2023-07-19T16:34:34+00:00 Introduction
  In April of 1968, when Ari Sesu Merretazon first came home from Vietnam, he returned to a nation on fire in the aftermath of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 
  
  Ari Sesu Merretazon, formerly known as Haywood Thomas Kirkland, is a Vietnam War veteran from Washington, D.C. He currently resides in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, and is the Chief of Staff at Pointman Soldiers Heart Ministry. Ari is most known for his work as an activist for racial justice and reparations to the descendants of enslaved people in the United States, including Black veterans.
  
  In 1966, Merretazon was drafted under Project 100,000 during the Vietnam War in 1966 as a recon infantry soldier. This program lowered draft eligibility standards to meet the demands of the escalating war in Vietnam. President Johnson and Robert McNamara argued that the program would uplift poor, semi-literate Black men out of poverty, but in reality it funneled poor, semi-literate Black men from the South into combat. During the first years of the war, Black men were twice as likely to die in combat compared to whites. 
  
  The realities of violence and experiences of racism in the military radicalized many Black soldiers and Merretazon found solidarity with other "Bloods" in the field. Counting down the days of their tours in Vietnam like prison sentences, Black soldiers would often daydream about what they would do if they made it back to the "world." Merretazon planned to continue the fight for civil rights in his community. 
  
  Life after Vietnam
  After the war, he returned home to Washington, D.C., where he was later arrested and incarcerated for an armed robbery of armored vehicle transporting more than $300,000 in cash to be incinerated by the Treasury Department. Merretazon served five-and-a-half years at Lorton Reformatory, a federal prison with a 99% Black population. While incarcerated, he organized a group of incarcerated veterans and launched the first VA office inside a prison staffed entirely by incarcerated veterans, called the Incarcerated Veterans Assistance Organization. A self-help program, the IVAO helped veterans in prison file for disability rights. 
  
  These efforts drew national attention when the Washington Post published a news article in 1975. While still incarcerated, Ari Merretazon was invited to the White House to meet with then-President Jimmy Carter, who issued an executive directive to the Department of Justice to collect data on incarcerated veterans. 
  
  Advocating for Incarcerated Veterans
  Once released from prison, Merretazon began visiting prisons across the United States and recreating the Incarcerated Veterans Assistance Organizations in facilities. He also enjoyed key support from Congressman Ronald V. Dellums-- vocal critic of the Vietnam War, civil rights activist, member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and the first African American to serve on the Armed Services Committee. “We were able to move in and out of prisons,” said Merretazon. “People from the president's office came down to visit us. That gave us a lot more protection and freedom to move around within the administrative processes and procedures of the prisons.”
  
  With support at the highest levels of political office, Merretazon began building a network of incarcerated veterans across the United States and gathering evidence that he would present to Congress in 1979. During that time, they discovered at “almost every prison in the United States, they had like 20-25 percent Vietnam veterans.” Merretazon engaged with prison administrators at other institutions and attempted to replicate the model first established at Lorton Reformatory with VA offices staffed entirely by incarcerated veterans. He would advocate for this model before Congress as a way to redress the inadequate VA outreach efforts to prisons at the time.

  In July 1979, Congress held hearings on incarcerated Vietnam veterans before the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, highlighting key issues and structural barriers they faced.

  The complete lack of information and reliable estimates on the actual number of incarcerated veterans seriously limited any efforts to provide VA services to veterans in prison. Based on GAO studies, VA records, and direct access to prisons, Ari Sesu Merretazon estimated, “We got over 500,000 Vietnam era veterans in prison, jail, on parole, or awaiting sentence . . . Over half of them are Black.” A GAO report estimated that 60,000 veterans were incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and that 50 percent incarcerated in federal prison were convicted of armed robbery or drug-related offenses. Chairman of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Alan Cranston noted that “educationally disadvantaged veterans constitute a large segment of the incarcerated prison population.” Many veterans also believed they automatically lost disability benefits in prison. An estimated 40 percent were ineligible due to less than honorable discharge status. According to the Government Accounting Office, 44,000 incarcerated veterans were denied disability benefits in 1975. By 1978, another study found that over half of incarcerated veterans had received less-than-honorable discharges, and half of them were Black Vietnam veterans.  

  After testifying before Congress, Merretazon moved to Little Rock, Arkansas to help start a Vet Center. He earned a law degree from Antioch School of Law in 1980 and decided to take his knowledge where it would be more useful. He explained, “I didn't want to stay in the major cities because they have so much more resources. I felt that based on my experience inside of prisons . . . that the worst conditions for veterans to exist was in the Southern prisons: Angola, Arkansas State Prison, and Parchman Farm in Mississippi.” But he came into conflict with a psychiatrist at the Little Rock Vet Center. Merretazon lamented, “I went there with expectations that I could continue to work with veterans in prison. . . He refused to allow me to go into the prisons and assist veterans.”
  
  In 1984, he helped revitalize the Arkansas State Press, a historically Black newspaper that had not published an issue since 1959. At the newspaper, he worked with Daisy Bates, a long-time serving President of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, who helped integrate Little Rock Central High. JET magazine ran a featured story on Merretazon and Daisy Bates in April 1984. Throughout his life, Merretazon has continued to be an advocate for incarcerated veterans, for education, and for reparations. His organizing undoubtedly played a pivotal role in incarcerated veterans becoming a priority for national veterans organizations. Beginning in the summer of 1979, the Vietnam Veterans of America, a national organization made up of and dedicated to the needs of Vietnam veterans, would take the lead on raising awareness to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and in 1983, it established a legal services program for veterans in the criminal justice system. 

  Legacies
  Today, Ari Sesu Merretazon is advocate for justice, for veterans in his community, and an activist for reparations. Most recently, he filed a lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia because, although it is required by state law, there was no director of Veterans Affairs for the city of Philadelphia. His story has been told in Bloods, an oral history collection of Black Vietnam veterans, by Wallace Terry, and imaginatively adapted in the 1995 film Dead Presidents. But these accounts only tell a partial story.
  
  Merretazon is perhaps the single most influential advocate for incarcerated veterans in American history. 

  Interview Part One    

       The first interview with Ari Sesu Merretazon recounts his early life in Washington, D.C., with his family. Ari discusses how his parents, his upbringing, and the historical protests that occurred during his childhood shaped his outlook on the military and the United States. In 1966, Merretazon was drafted for the Vietnam War and served from 1966 to 1968. According to him, the relationships between black and white people in the military were severely strained. The protests surrounding civil rights, Kennedy’s  assassination, and racism significantly contributed to the division. Ari’s occupation in Vietnam was as a recon infantry soldier and emphasized ‘search, kill, and destroy’ missions. A major connection between soldiers within the war was the solidarity among black soldiers. Ari emphasizes how the only way they survived was through their blood love. 95% of the stockade in Vietnam was Black soldiers, further enforcing solidarity. Ari also stated that this solidarity transferred into sympathy for the Vietnamese people. The power struggles made both groups gravitate towards each other; however, the ‘search, kill, and destroy’ missions destroyed Vietnam and broke the Vietnamese spirit. The kill-or-be-killed mentality ran rampant. The long-lasting psychological effects of the war were also imperative to understanding the conditions of black soldiers in and out of Vietnam.

  Interview Part Two

       The second interview begins with Ari’s diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the efforts made to gain disability benefits through Veteran Affairs (V.A.). The interview then discusses the use of drugs such as marijuana and heroin. The use of drugs was very prevalent due to the explosion of drugs in black communities. Ari attempted to provide resources for those affected by drug use within his community. Rap sessions also played a vital role in assisting with war trauma. Not only did surviving the war impact Ari’s mental state but impacted the relationships he had with his parents. Ari also discusses how he was imprisoned at Lorton Reformatory for five-and-a-half years (1969-1979) for the armed robbery of a mail truck transporting more than $300,000 in US currency scheduled to be incinerated.

  Ari mentions the large racial difference in rates of incarceration. More specifically, how Lorton Reformatory consisted of 95% black men. However, Merretazon’s work in the Reformatory was revolutionary. He introduced higher education, base camps, and self-care programs. This work was so critical to achieving veteran reparations that Ari was able to meet with Jimmy Carter while incarcerated and testified before congress after he was released. Eventually, the work reached a point where veteran rights and reparations reached the Senate, and proper procedures and movement of veterans were established. The interview concludes with a powerful statement Ari made: “war is prison too.” This statement has profound sentiment toward the harsh conditions faced by imprisoned persons and the inability to forget or move past it, just as war.

  Interview Part Three

  The third and final interview with Ari dives into his work with the Vietnam Veterans of America after his release from prison. The work began with a fruitful education, part of which he earned from the Antioch School of Law as a legal technician. With his background, Ari could assess the significant number of incarcerated veterans without disability benefits and set up the Incarcerated Veterans Assistance Organization and regressed to a partnership with governments in Washington, D.C. This work led to alliances with Daisy Bates and made its way into a major African American newspaper Jet Magazine. However, this work was not easy, Ari faced major battles with team leaders of his organization, the Arkansas county school board, and other influential organizations. Despite these struggles, Ari was able to create an effective veterans assistance program, make a name for himself, and initiate great change outside the political office. The interview also discusses how Ari’s traumatic brain injury occurred and how it has impacted different aspects of his life. From there, Ari discusses his relationship with his children and how his son’s health helped them to develop a close relationship. Discussing reparations for veterans is an important part of the final interview. Ari continuously talks about the impediments he faces with organizations like N’COBRA, the IBW 21st century group. Because of all these different organizations influencing governmental policies and lobbying, competing visions for reparations emerged. Reconciliation and reparations are two important factors that must be evaluated in order to combat the struggles faced by all veterans. Although it is not a perfect solution, Ari mentions how it is an important first step. The interview concludes with Ari’s connection to his culture – how his name is a representation of his spirit: hard-working and determined – how Ari’s work has aided many veterans, and how hard veteran reparation struggles have been.
  
  The three interviews illuminate the determination of Ari Merretazon, among many other black veterans, to obtain reparations for the trauma and suffering they endured. As the war in Vietnam raged on, so did the war of racial inequality. Ari’s experiences and advocacy beyond Vietnam helped fuel his work with the V.A., reparations for racial division on institutional levels, and ensuring a sense of community and blood-love remained. Not only is this work essential to creating equitable conditions for the black community in all aspects of American society but for promoting equality in a public manner.
• 1 media/Bloods.jpg media/Dead Presidents.jpg 2023-07-19T15:34:36+00:00 Coming Home to a Nation on Fire 41 Ari Sesu Merretazon part 2 image_header 139 2025-08-09T16:43:17+00:00

  Part 2

  The second interview begins with Ari’s diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the efforts made to gain disability benefits through Veteran Affairs (V.A.). The interview then discusses the use of drugs such as marijuana and heroin. The use of drugs was very prevalent due to the explosion of drugs in Black communities. Ari attempted to provide resources for those affected by drug use within his community. Rap sessions also played a vital role in assisting with war trauma. Not only did surviving the war impact Ari’s mental state but impacted the relationships he had with his parents. Ari also discusses how he was imprisoned at Lorton Reformatory for five-and-a-half years for the armed robbery of a mail truck transporting more than $300,000 in US currency scheduled to be incinerated.

  Ari mentions the extreme racial disparities in rates of incarceration. More specifically, how Lorton Reformatory consisted of 95% Black men. Merretazon’s work in the Reformatory was revolutionary. He introduced higher education, base camps, and self-care programs and founded the Incarcerated Veterans Assistance Organization. Their organizing efforts captured the attention of the Washington Post in 1975 and eventually the White House. Merretazon met with President Jimmy Carter and later testified on issues facing incarcerated veterans before Congress in 1979.

   

  Coming Home in the Summer of 1968

  Jason Higgins: I'm curious about how did the killing of an icon of nonviolence, of civil disobedience. He was an anti-war activist. He was an organizer against poverty. How did that affect your own ideas about the United States?
  
  Ari Sesu Merretazon: Well, you have to go back to the short bit of time, my last six months in the war. That's when the Black soldiers really came together. We really understood we had a common bond and we understood what was happening in Vietnam in terms of Black, white relationships. We always received the bad end of the deal. The worst jobs, the last to be promoted. Even in combat when clearly can be seen that you made some heroic act that should have been acknowledged and they just don't do it. They give you a little commendation medal and stuff like that, but it has to be very obvious and the Black soldier had to totally put his life on line for the whole period of that particular battle.
  
  Look, the Black soldier in Vietnam was very heroic. Don't let anybody tell you that they were not. Some of these military pictures, army pictures, Vietnam movies showed them in a calorie mode like Platoon. Platoon for me reflected my recon platoon because it was the same division, the 25th Infantry Division. It was a headquarter platoon. I mean, we went anywhere for any 25th Infantry Division action was or any soldiers were. That for me, coming home had that traumatic effect. I understood that DC was on fire, Martin Luther King had got assassinated, other cities on fire. I knew I needed to take a step back and I stayed with my mom and dad for 30 days. Then I went and enrolled myself into a computer operating course that flimflam me, took my money and ran off, closed down and all that type of thing.

  Disconnected after the War

  We actually disconnected because nobody was talking to me. It was just me and my readjustment issues which was anger. Anger was not at anybody but the federal government. My anger was because I had to fight two wars in Vietnam. One against the Vietnamese in the Viet Cong, and also the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, and [NOISE] the racism in the military in Vietnam. Now, I'm not going to attribute [NOISE] all the soldier who ended up in the stockade in Vietnam Long Binh Jail, 95 percent of the Long Binh Jail population was Black soldiers. Now, there's something wrong with that. We all knew what was wrong with that. It was the racism in the military. You get the wrong end of the stick. You get to bad end of the deal. I came home understanding. In fact, the group that was with, my 4, 5 brothers, we was basically talk to us about what we're going to do when we got home. We knew that we were going to come back and help our communities out. We used to talk about that. We used to reinforce each other about that. When I saw an opportunity to do that, that's what I did. I got back involved in my community, all the culture as things of being a descendant of African slaves in the United States. I went to work for the post office for a while and doing that dynamic a year period of working for the post office. In my reconnecting with my culture and the community, I saw an opportunity to bring some resources into the community level, that was the Dead Presidents piece.

  
  An Act of Repair

  Jason Higgins: I want to talk about that a little bit more because in Bloods, it talks about you donated some of the, I think it was $320,000 total that was robbed. What specific organizations did you donate that money to?
  
  Ari Sesu Merretazon: Well, there was a Student Medical Center at Howard university. We gave them some money. We gave the tip of Blackness also money, we gave the Capital East Business Management Associates some money. We was doing those types of things with the resources we had and then there was just one of the participants decided to just start throwing money anywhere. Police that we were giving money, they had the wherewithal to clean up the money. One of the actors on my side of the fence, he started passing money all out in DC, New York, California and all that type of stuff, and that's what lead back to [00:25:00] our capture and incarceration.
  
  Jason Higgins: Because that's federal money and you're trying to give it back to the community, did you see it at the time as an act of reparations?
  
  Ari Sesu Merretazon: Yeah. Absolutely. I saw it as an act of repair. The federal government is the major enslaver of descendants of Africans here in the United States. I always been clear about that. I always be in the clear about Blacks and White relationship in this country and if you're not clear about why you're in the military, you'd never get clear. They promote that there's no races in the military, if it is, low and whatnot, don't believe that. Government developed a system around it where those below the command can still engage in those type of relationships. Denied promotion, denying of good jobs or in the military or what is it?
  
  MOS's and that type of thing, promotions. My whole thing was I'm ready to go back into the workplace now. I enrolled in school, hired at the post office, and I'm socializing with people at the post office. I come to find out what's going on. I understood what was going on. I thought I could make it happen. I could make sure that happened, all the resources to come back to our community and I did without putting anybody's life in danger. It had high social community notary about the crime, was a half public, they thought somebody else other than Black folks did it. That's really what went down because nobody's life was put in danger. The guard in the driver of the truck, they said they'd never feared anything. It's all based on what I've found out about the sources of money is coming into the post office in Washington DC.

  
  Hollywood Portrayal

  Jason Higgins: It's been awhile since I've seen the Hollywood version of that story but it doesn't seem to fit what you're talking.
  
  Ari Sesu Merretazon: It doesn't fit. Look when I went out to Hollywood to the producers premier, where all the producers come together and watch the movie and make comments, whatever, I stood up, I said, "That's not my story." I told him, it's not my story. They told me, we said it's loosely based on your story. That's how it went down. I took my position on that and they took theirs and we got along. I got paid. Obviously, they made a pay of $20 million off the movie and maybe more now because it's still out there.
  
  Jason Higgins: For someone who's trying to understand the struggles of Black Vietnam veterans, how would you explain that difference between how Hollywood portrays it versus reality?
  
  Ari Sesu Merretazon: Well, you see Hollywood usually, very rarely show and depict Blacks in leadership in the military in those movies. They either make a squad leader, some lower level like that, down on the ground type folks. Even there, there is really no real Black leadership is allowed. That type of thing just connected me with my readjustment problems because I came back home angry. I was angry when I came home. Based on what I understood was happening to the degree I understood it, it was enough to get out, my anger just explored it and I said, "I've got to do something." I just didn't feel right just being having that presence again in my community and not doing anything. Because in Vietnam, where we came out in the field, the Blacks talked about who was going to do when he came home. I was committed to that and I did something and I was going to go out and let them know that did my piece. I did that to a certain degree in terms of connected with few of the veterans that came home with me.

  The Trial

  Jason Higgins: Let's talk about from the trial until your incarceration. What was that experience like for you?
  
  Ari Sesu Merretazon: Well, I tried, I didn't testify, I didn't get on the stand. None of us got on the stand and the law's basic issue was to distinguish what extra crime was committed, whether or not it was an armed robbery or just a mail robbery. Because the sentence structure is different for both. For mail robbery, which we actually did, we leave in the custodians of the mail or the US mail, that's how it leaves out in the statute. That was a mandatory five years. You couldn't get him no more than five, but you had to get five. They knew the crime was got a lot of publicity about it and what have you.
  
  The courts decided they're going to make an example of us and gave me 10-30 years. I told you before that I had this vision from the creator that I was going to go to war, and went to war and I was going to be imprisoned for five years. Imprisonment, you not staying home for about a year-and-a-half of that time. But on an occasion when I was being realized that it was a losing battle for me to continue to go up against that system as one individual, because I protests and everything as an individual. I wasn't cooperating with none of the system and the do's and dont's they've been doing. I stayed in home for quite awhile in and out. I wouldn't work. They finally decide and say, "Look, this guy is not going doing it and this guy, this is a veteran and so we got to be a little sensitive with him." When I came back out of maximum security the last time, instead of putting me into one of their regular job like the print place, the print office or whatever. I was able to manipulate the situation where I end up just being a custodian around the main office of the prison. I would just sweep up, and what have you and that type of thing around the cabinet of that type of thing. I loved that because it gave me all my independence. That took for 30 minutes. Mark Davis totally mine from that point on in that incarcerated environment. That's what every man in prison want; being able to have his own independent space, and time, and not be hunted into working. Grouped into work, and demanded that you work, and cover that. There is no law that required us to work while incarcerated. At least it wasn't in DC. I say, look, I don't have to work. Okay, I came here to do my time. That's the attitude I had for a while.

  Solitary Confinement and Veterans

  Jason Higgins: What prison were you incarcerated in?
  
  Ari Sesu Merretazon: DC Department of Correction. It had a facility outside of DC, about 26 miles outside of DC called Lorton Reformatory, the infamous Lorton Reformatory. It's no longer existing. It was crazy. It's like being on the street. [LAUGHTER] It was just like being on the street, anything that you wanted you could get. You could do anything in the penitentiary because it's an open dormitory type of setting except when you go behind the wall, which is maximum security. You could do anything in Lorton Reformatory. There's a lot of background information about that dynamic by Lorton Reformatory, and it was like 26 miles from DC, and so it's close to home than most prisons.
  
  The last time I went to the hole, it dawned on me my status of being an honorably discharged veteran, and that I could use that to organize around, and they would have to respect my organization, organized around veterans affairs in prison, which we'd call an incarcerated veteran. That's to the bone and it's called Incarcerated Veterans Assistance Organization.
  
  Jason Higgins: Quick follow-up question, Ari. I'm really interested in the effects of solitary confinement on human beings. But it seems to me that if you're dealing with undiagnosed trauma, and PTSD, you would survive the Vietnam War. That would be especially hard to deal with. How did you survive or cope with a year-and-a-half in the hole?
  
  Ari Sesu Merretazon: This unit have over different time frames of that five years. . . Total, a year-and-a-half in the hole. It's about 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. There was a rare amount. That's been about over the five years, probably about a year and a half in the hole. I realized I was working against myself.
  When I came back up to the general population, I realized there was other Vietnam veterans. Twenty-five percent of Lorton Reformatory were veterans. I decided to organize and that's in my blood and so I organized them into what we call the Incarcerated Veteran Systems Organization, and was approved by the VA. We had an office approved by the VA inside the prison. For that development, I was acknowledged at the White House by Jimmy Carter, with Jimmy Carter doing the acknowledgment. I think I should share a picture with you at the time. That type of commitment to veterans that I had because it means we were to war together. Anytime you go to war with somebody, and they're on your side, and you all survive, there's a very close blood, love, bond. That's what happened. Just with blood, love is all about in the war. You're willing to die for the man next to you. Simple as that.

  Full Interview Part 2