John Heuer Bio

John was born in Detroit in 1946.  His father had come back from service in the US Army, and the young family picked up stakes to move from their New Jersey home.   His mother lost both of her brothers in WWII.  The young veteran dad took his family to Presbyterian Church.  He was a deacon at Calvin Presbyterian, and one of the leaders of the Northwest Churches United for Human Rights, a fellowship dedicated to ending Jim Crow in the racially divided city.  Observing his father’s courageous stand for first class citizenship for African-Americans was a great inspiration for young John, one that he carries with him to this day.

As a college freshman in 1966, John’s attention was riveted to a homecoming float, depicting Viet Namese in cages.  The next spring, he left Ann Arbor, MI and a stint on the deck of the HMS Pinafore (a production of the UM Gilbert & Sullivan Society) to travel to New York in search of a real ocean going vessel.  In between waits at the National Maritime Union Hall on 14th St. and 7th Ave, he worked nights sorting exchange tickets on the floor of the NY Coffee and Sugar Exchange.  Eventually he was assigned to a berth on the SS Express, bound for the Mediterranean.  Among many memorable events, one was an evening spent with a fellow 20 year Spanish lad.  The two boys hiked over the mountain, and walked back along the shore road singing Yellow Submarine.

In the fall of 1967, John joined a contingent from Michigan to march on the Pentagon to protest the war in Viet Nam.  One pro-war Viet Nam vet argued that “if you haven’t been there, you don’t know what’s going on—especially you ‘know-it-all’ college boys.  So John dropped out of college in the spring of ’68.  He found a ride to San Francisco, and eventually a birth on a merchant ship, the SS Whittier Victory, bound for Viet Nam.  He spent just a week in Qhi Nhon, but it was long enough to confirm his worst fears that his government was engaged in great crimes against the people of Viet Nam, their neighbors, and our own service men and women.  It was a long 35 days sea time back to the land of the free and the home of the brave.  18 months later, John refused induction into the army of Richard Nixon. 

Sifting through his choices, he settled on a small farm in Nova Scotia, his mother’s birthplace.  Raised a city boy, John had almost no practical knowledge of how to work with wood, metal, stone, dirt, or critters.  His one-horse farm in Annapolis County, NS was at least the equivalent of a graduate education.  

In 1974 Nixon resigned in disgrace.  His successor as US president, Gerald Ford, immediately pardoned Nixon of all un-indicted crimes, and offered a qualified pardon to all Viet Nam era war resistors.  John accepted an assignment as a VISTA Volunteer in Chatham County, NC, for a rural, low-income home rehab project to ‘qualify’ the restoration of his good citizenship.  The project went well, at first, but eventually, John exhibited his unspeakable yankee arrogance, and was invited to seek employment elsewhere.   At least his indictment for draft evasion was rescinded, and he began to dismantle his sense of yankee superiority.
In time, John went to work as a facilities designer at UNC Chapel Hill.  During his 26 years service, he enjoyed working with nearly all schools and departments at the school, the first public university in the US.   In the 80’s, John worked off-hours with Twin Streams Education Center, promoting economic justice in NC and throughout the South, and opposed the Reagan administration’s clandestine wars in Central America.  In the 90’s, he devoted much time to home, coaching his two young sons and other youngsters in soccer and basketball.  

The 90’s was a time of mistaken complacency for many peace activists.  Relieved to have endured 12 years of Reagan/Bush, John took his sons, aged 7 and 12, to Charlottesville, VA to cheer the Clinton/Gore cavalcade, beginning at Monticello, bound to DC for their inauguration.  As we have learned again, the defeat of a Republican war-making administration is not necessarily the change we seek.  The Clinton administration was a set up for Bush II.  Since his election in 2008, President Obama has increased the defense budget, increased spending for nuclear weapons, escalated the war in Afghanistan, delayed ending the occupation of Iraq, and has stonewalled every effort to achieve accountability for the crimes of the Bush/Cheney regime, including reparations to innocent victims of torture.