David Cline

David Cline (January 8, 1947 – September 14, 2007) was an American anti-war and veterans rights activist. He was best known as National President of Veterans For Peace (VFP) from 2000 to 2006, Chapter Vice President of Alan Reilly - Gene Glazer VFP Chapter 21, and co-founder of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign. Cline was featured in the 2006 film Sir! No Sir!, which documented the GI antiwar movement during the Vietnam war as well as in the book "Winter Soldiers: An Oral History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War" by Richard Stacewicz.

Cline was known not only for his anti-war stance upon returning from service in Vietnam, but also for being a leader in the anti-Iraq War movement. As President of VFP, Cline built a relationship between VFP and the fledgling organization of military families opposed to the war in Iraq, Military Families Speak Out! (MFSO) in 2002 and provided guidance to returning Iraq vets who founded Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) in 2004. He is credited with helping to establish the Bring Them Home Now Campaign and served on the organization's coordinating committee until his death. In 2002, he led a group of activists to Puerto Rico to protest the U.S. Navy's use of Vieques as a bombing range. He was also instrumental in planning the Walkin' To New Orleans march from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans, Louisiana by veterans and survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Personal information
Born in Buffalo, New York, Cline was drafted into the U.S. Army when he was 20 years old, arriving in Vietnam in August 1967 and serving in the 25th Infantry Division as a rifleman and machine gunner. During his tour, he was wounded three times, the third time seriously enough to be sent back to the army hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey in 1968. He received three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star during his service.

Start of career
Returning to Fort Hood, Texas, Cline became an anti-war activist, serving as a civilian organizer of active duty servicemen at one of the first GI coffeehouses, the Oleo Strut, in Killeen, Texas and producing a one-sheet underground newspaper on politics and veterans issues called Fatigue Press, which was distributed clandestinely on the military base. He joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1970, where he served as a coordinator and national director, and remained a member until his death.

While working for the U.S. Postal Service in Jersey City, Cline was a post office union representative and served as vice president of Transportation Workers Union Local 600.