Much Asian-Americans spoke against the war because of the way that the Vietnamese were referred within the U.S. military by the disparaging term "gook", and more generally because they encountered bigotry because they looked like "the enemy". One Japanese-American veteran, Norman Nakamura, wrote in an article in the June/July issue of "Gidra", that during his tour of duty in Vietnam of 1969-70 that there was an atmosphere of systematic racism towards all Vietnamese people, who were seen as less than human, being merely "gooks". Because most white Americans did not make much effort to distinguish between Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Korean-Americans, and Filipino-Americans, the anti-Asian racism generated by the war led to the emergence of a pan-Asian American identity. Another Japanese-American veteran, Mike Nakayama, reported to "Gidra" in 1971 that he was wounded in Vietnam, he was initially refused medical treatment because he was seen as a "gook" with the doctors thinking that he was a South Vietnamese soldier (who were clothed in American uniforms), and only when he established that he spoke English as his first language that he was recognized as an American. In May 1972, "Gidra" ran on its cover a cartoon of a female Viet Cong guerrilla being faced with an Asian-American soldier who is commanded by his white officer to "Kill that gook, you gook!".