Al Hubbard (activist): Difference between revisions

For other individuals with this name, see Al Hubbard.

Alfred H. Hubbard, a U.S. Air Force veteran, was also a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and one of the organizers of the Winter Soldier Investigation.

As noted in his military service record, Hubbard entered the Air Force in October 1952, re-enlisted twice, and was honorably discharged 14 years later in October 1966 when his enlistment expired. At the time of his discharge he was an Instructor Flight Engineer on C-123 aircraft with the 7th Air Transport Squadron, McCord Air Force Base, Tacoma, Washington.

Hubbard was awarded a Korean Service Medal, United Nations Medal, National Defense Medal, four Good Conduct Medals, Air Force Longevity Service Award, Air Force Unit Award and Air Force Expeditionary Medal. Hubbard was registered with the VA with a service-connected disability rating of 60 per cent.

During the publicity relating to the Winter Soldier Investigation, Hubbard claimed to have been an Air Force captain but NBC News revealed he did not achieve that rank. His highest rank was Staff Sergeant E-5. Hubbard explained that he did not feel people would take him seriously as just a black enlisted man in the Air Force. Although Hubbard did not testify at the Winter Soldier Investigation, his exaggeration of his rank in news media interviews is sometimes used to cast doubt on the credibility of the Winter Soldier Investigation.

Other criticisms of Hubbard deals with his undocumented but widely supported claims of clandestine entries into Laos and Cambodia, as well as the circumstances of his physical injuries during military service. He was widely believed to have been injured in a military plane crash in 1956.

There are claims of investigations by Nixon aide Chuck Colson, Congress, the Pentagon, and a number of independent authors and journalists. Records of many claimed investigations are not available.

From historian and author of Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veteran's Movement, Gerald Nicosia:

"Although Mr. Burkett has certainly done some good work outing fake vets, he ignores one critical factor -- that service people doing covert missions, such as rangers going across the border in Laos, into North Vietnam, etc., never had those actions put into their records. Al Hubbard was on similar covert missions, flying in a supply plane to the French when they were fighting the Viet Minh in the fifties. It doesn't surprise me that those flights were not in his record. He did lie about being an officer, when he was a career sergeant, because the press kept paying more attention to his co-leader John Kerry, a decorated officer. Also, Hubbard never claimed to have been wounded in combat; his back was hurt when his plane crashed on a runway. When I interviewed him in 1992, he was on medical disability from the Air Force."