the underground GI press and Vietnam

This chapter deals with the role of the underground GI press in opposing the Vietnam War. Awareness of the underground GI press and the extent of its anti-war opposition was largely non-existent in the public mind (due to reasons that are obvious, i.e. no representation in the mainstream media), and as such was seperate from the civilian anti-war movement that holds a much more prominent place in our collective memory, again largely due to the influence of mainstream media. As such, the GI anti-war movement was essentially disconnected from the civilian anti-war movement. As sad as this reality is, it would be much worse if it were not for the existence of the GI press, for it allowed those who participated in real history (not the fabricated version we get on TV and in print) to tell their own stories...

Important note: The opposition amongst those in the military to America's involvement in Vietnam sprouted with its involvement there (early 60's), pre-dating the civilian anti-war movement by several years. The activists of the underground GI press were predominantly white.

Role of technology: The introduction of offset printing made it much easier to produce a newspaper than before.

Examples of dissidence within the military during the Vietnam era:

• refusing orders, going AWOL, drug use
• fragging
• combat refusal
• breakdowns in troop discipline, such that troops had to police their own soldiers
• mutiny
• sabotage
• riots

As resistance rose, the severity of the penalties issued against infractions began to decrease.

Notable underground GI press:

1) Andy Stapp's The Bond (1967)

2) Resistance Inside the Military (RITA)'s journal ACT (1967), which encouraged active resistance from within the military.

3) Jeff Sharlet's Vietnam GI (1968), whose target audience was soldiers in Vietnam, not at home. Featured stories/interviews from those in the field, of the atrocities, the realities, the insanities of the war. Most of the content of the paper was letters from soldiers, and views from all sides were published. Sharlet died from mysterious causes at the age of 27 (agent orange?) and the paper died with him in the summer of 1970. Circulation at peak-10,000.

Note: The Tet Offensive occured on January 30th, 1968, and the GI anti-war movement soon exploded...(by 1972 an estimated 245 underground GI papers had been published)

4) Roger Priest's OM...An outrageous newsletter whose goal was to pick a free speech fight with the Pentagon. (Priest worked for the Pentagon and purposefully made his identity explicit...)
Priest's actions highlighted the fine line between the first amendment right to free speech and military prohibitions against insubordination...

5) Paul Cox's Rage was published during the peak of the GI anti-war movement. The journal, among other things, documented cases of dissent throughout the military.

6) Fatigue Press, published at a coffee house (Oleo Strut) at Fort Hood, Texas, where half the troops were returning from, and the other half getting ready to leave for, Vietnam. Documenting, among other things, opposition to riot-control duty among soldiers (e.g. 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.).

The other side: Black involvement in the underground GI movement

For a long time, the Black Panther Party largely ignored the black GI's who were involved in the anti-war movement. (For example, black GI's sent letters to the BPP press, but simply published them with no editorial response or comment....) The BPP did come around to acknowledging their voice, by late 1969. Point: there were a large number of black GI's who were looking to the BPP for leadership, but it was hard to come by.

Effects of the 60's: On changing the nature of our political institutions? Practically nothing. On changing the social consciousness of the country? A lot. But the voices that contributed to that change would be cast aside by the hard swing of the political pendulum back to the right in the 70's when the stage for increased American imperial power was set, the effects of which are still very much with us to this day.