“In the 1960's an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn't take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on ships. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam.” (from the opening narration)
Like the Vietnam War itself, the GI antiwar movement started small and within a few years had exploded into a force that altered history. Like the times from which it grew, the movement involved organized actions and spontaneous resistance, political groups and cultural upheaval. Today, at a time when American troops are again fighting a protracted, questionable war, this military insurgency is all but eliminated from collective memory. Even though it profoundly impacted American society, it rarely appears in historical accounts.
The first film ever to retell the story of resistance to the war within the military, Sir! No Sir! features news reports from local and national television broadcasts and archival images, many only recently declassified, from newspapers and magazines, and the government. Interviewees include soldiers imprisoned for refusing to fight, train other soldiers or ship out to the frontlines; Vietnam veterans who became antiwar activists or joined the over 500,000 soldiers who the Pentagon listed as deserters during the war; GI’s and civilians active in the coffeehouse movement; soldiers who struggled against military racism; leaders of the Presidio 27 mutiny; soldiers who went on strike while in Vietnam; and Jane Fonda, whose anti-war FTA show traveled to military bases around the world. (adapted from text on the website www.sirnosir.com)
Books on the GI Resistance during the Vietnam War era include the recently republished Soldiers in Revolt by David Cortright (a comprehensive overview of the GI Movement: 1975, 2005); A Matter of Conscience by Bill Short and Willa Seidenberg (photo/text profiles of GI resisters: 1991); The New Winter Soldiers - GI and Veteran Dissent during the Vietnam Era by Richard Moser (1995); Bring the War Home by Barry Willdorf (novel about the GI Movement: 2001, www.Agauchepress.com); Flower of the Dragon by maverick Vietnam war reporter Richard Boyle (1972) includes his eyewitness account of the important GI mutiny at Firebase Pace in 1971; Unlawful Concert – An Account of the Presidio Mutiny by Fred Gardner (1970). Bloods by Wallace Terry (1984) and Soldados by Charley Trujillo (1990) include GI resistance as part of overall profiles of (respectively) African American and Chicano GIs’ experiences in Viet Nam.
For articles, see “Olive Drab Rebels by Matthew Rinaldi (1974,2003) www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3909/olivedrab; my article “Odyssey of Conscience” at http://www.objector.org/Resources/objectors/50thanniversary.pdf
Of related interest, the diary of Dang Thuy Tram, a female doctor who was killed while working with the Vietnamese resistance to the US war on Viet Nam, was recently given to Tram’s family in Viet Nam by veteran Fred Whitehurst and has become a national sensation in Viet Nam. Tram and Whitehurst have become national heroes. (not yet in English) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/GJ15Ae02.html