Barry Romo, Vietnam vet and protester, 76

Barry Romo, a former Army officer in the Vietnam War who became a leading antiwar organizer and bore witness to devastating U.S. bombing runs on Hanoi during a 1972 visit to North Vietnam with activists including folk singer Joan Baez, died May 1 in Chicago. He was 76.

His death was announced by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group for which Romo served as a national coordinator for more than four decades. A spokesman, Roberto Clack, said Romo had a heart attack at home and was taken to a hospital, where he was declared dead.

During the height of the antiwar movement, Romo was a prominent voice among former military members who challenged Pentagon and White House narratives of a conflict that was winnable and necessary. Romo and other veterans — often wearing their old uniforms and fatigues — also added powerful symbolism to the wider protests by students, draft resisters, religious groups and others.

In April 1971, Romo organized convoys to bring thousands of veterans to Washington for an antiwar encampment known as Operation Dewey Canyon III, named after two U.S. military operations seeking to strike North Vietnamese bases. The veterans, camped on the National Mall, attended Senate hearings and staged rallies at Arlington National Cemetery and outside the Supreme Court and Pentagon.

On April 23, Romo joined hundreds of the veterans who lobbed their medals, discharge papers and war mementos onto the Capitol steps. Romo, who fought in the 1968 Tet Offensive launched by North Vietnamese forces, hurled his Bronze Star Medal and Combat Infantryman’s Badge.

In an essay in 1988, Romo looked back on the protest at the Capitol — “painful and angry thoughts filled our minds” — and recounted the death of nephew Bob Romo,who was killed by a North Vietnamese sniper in May 1968. “He drowned in his own blood,” Romo wrote.

He often retold the story of his nephew. For Romo, it was a key moment in his evolution from an eager Army enlistee to an antiwar leader. Romo signed up in 1966 as a supporter of the war. “I bought all the lines,” he recalled. His nephew was later drafted and put in an infantry brigade under Romo, who rose to become a first lieutenant.

“[My nephew] begged me to help him get out of the field,” Romo told NPR’s “Morning Edition.” “But I couldn’t help him.”

When his nephew was killed on patrol, the body couldn’t be recovered for 48 hours because of North Vietnamese fire. Already, Romo said his view of the war had changed, seeing the destruction of villages and the growing enmity at the U.S. military even among South Vietnamese. The death of his nephew was a tipping point.

“My mind started to change when I could see the people didn’t give a damn, our allies didn’t want to fight and senior officers flew around in helicopters while we ran around the jungle with barely enough water to drink,” Romo told the Chicago Tribune in 1996. “My nephew’s death made me face the reality I was killing people for all the wrong reasons.”