GI Movement

Between 1965 and 1972, U.S. involvement in Vietnam was the target of protests by a range of citizens, including active duty soldiers and veterans protesting a range of issues related to the Vietnam War, as well as life in the military. The collection of staged events and activism involving active duty soldiers and veterans was eventually considered a political movement. In a droll reference to being interchangeable parts in the military machine, soldiers were called GI (government issue). The image of uniformed troops symbolically returning their medals dramatized the paradox of individual soldiers denied a voice in the service of guaranteeing free speech.

Targets of criticism varied among local groups and over time: immoral justification for U.S. involvement, incompetent leadership, insufficient support, intolerable racism, and inconsistent implementation of policies. The strident tone was fueled by the moral imperatives of the Nuremburg trials, the civil disobedience of Gandhi, and the opportunities of mass communication. In addition, Martin Luther King, Jr., became aligned with the anti-war movement, and in turn the issues of racism became a part of the GI movement after his assassination.

One focus of early advocacy was to provide legal counsel to individual soldiers seeking exception to [Page 619]rules or how to withdraw from enlistment. Some of these became celebrated court cases, as when a federal judge ruled that Seaman David Crane could resign from the military with conscientious objector status. Local efforts included hundreds of underground newspapers (such as Bragg's Briefs), coffee-houses, and counseling centers (The Haymarket). Individual actions ranged from insubordination, desertion, whistle blowing (public documentation of abuses), fragging (firing upon one's own commander), and large-scale letter-writing campaigns. Acts of nonviolent civil disobedience were staged for media attention (e.g., teachins; prayins; chaining oneself to gates of military bases; the ceremonial return or burning of discharge papers and medals; and the wearing of black armbands). On one occasion the Fort Ord band was reported to have deliberately played out of tune in protest. In April 1971, hundreds of protesters camped on the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C. The 1972 political conventions sparked multiple aspects of the movement; for instance, soldiers were ordered to deploy to Chicago for controlling riots that included protesting veterans.

New alliances and new organizations emerged. World War II veterans marched in an early protest in 1965 against Vietnam; 2 years later Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) formed following a peaceful protest march by a handful of active duty soldiers. Incarcerated soldiers became celebrity causes (such as the Fort Dix 38) in a nod toward radical civilian activistism. Faux tribunals were staged, such as the Winter Soldier Investigation in early 1971, the subject of impassioned congressional testimony by returning veteran and VVAW leader (and later senator and presidential hopeful) John Kerry.

The movement peaked in the early 1970s and dissipated soon after the official end of the war in 1973. Two internal dynamics contributed to the decline in membership: infiltration of local cells by federal agents and increasingly radical leftist control, both of which further alienated “regulars” who remained patriotic but disillusioned. In addition, Watergate proceedings galvanized attention to the internal affairs of the president's office rather than the military commanded by it. Surviving organizations shifted emphasis to amnesty for draft resistors, later granted by President Carter in 1980.

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