The Winter Soldier

The name “Winter Soldier” is a reference to a special hearing that occurred after the Vietnam war called: “The Winter Soldier Hearings”. The soldiers who testified spoke about villages being destroyed, women and children being killed, and helped reveal to the public the secret war in Laos that to this day the U.S government still denies.

The term was explained by current Secretary of State John Kerry when he testified at the hearings on April 22, 1971, saying:

“We call this investigation the “Winter Soldier Investigation.” The term “Winter Soldier” is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough. We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.”

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