Cafe provides forum for anti-war soldiers

Some 80 active-duty soldiers, their friends, families and supporters gathered Sept. 1 at the Different Drummer Cafe in Watertown, N.Y., just outside the Fort Drum military base, as part of a sendoff party organized by the Fort Drum chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).

The IVAW called the event for a brigade of young soldiers from the Fort Drum-based 10th Mountain Division that is about to embark on yet another 15-month tour in Iraq and Afghanistan. For many soldiers in the brigade, this will be their second or third tour through those countries’ hellish battlefields, where they bring an even greater hell to the Iraqi and Afghan people.

In Watertown and in base towns across the U.S., it is easy to see that the so-called “volunteer army” of the U.S. is composed primarily of working-class young women and men. Faced with few employment opportunities and astronomical college tuition costs, working-class young people are funneled into the ranks of the army by the economic draft. While the corporations continue to rake in billions of blood-soaked dollars from the occupation of Iraq, it is working-class young women and men who will risk life and limb everyday for the next 15 months for a war that an increasing number of them oppose.

The Sept. 1 sendoff featured speakers from IVAW who stressed a message of solidarity with their brothers and sisters who were about to be redeployed into harm’s way. Speakers expressed their opposition to the war in Iraq and spoke of the need to bring all the troops home immediately so that not a single additional soldier will lose their life in this imperialist conquest. The sendoff also featured live musical performances that expressed anti-war sentiments.

The sendoff was the latest in a series of important events and performances hosted by the Different Drummer Cafe, which opened in the fall of 2006. The cafe is modeled after the famous GI coffeehouses of the Vietnam era, which helped to organize GI opposition to the war against Vietnam. During that other U.S. war of aggression, anti-war activists established G.I. coffeehouses in base towns across the country. These coffeehouses provided a safe space for soldiers to get away off their bases and express their opposition to the war, away from the watchful eyes of commanders on base. They complemented the work done by active-duty GIs organizing in the barracks, such as those with the American Servicemen’s Union (ASU).

The Different Drummer provides an open forum for GIs and anti-war activists to share ideas and experiences from the current war. Film showings and town-hall style meetings are held there regularly, with a high priority placed on open discussion and the free exchange of ideas. Film showings have included such titles as “Poison DUst,” about the effects of depleted uranium, and “Sir! No, Sir!” about GI resistance during the Vietnam War. Live musical performances regularly draw in sizable crowds of young people to the Different Drummer, many of them active-duty soldiers from Fort Drum.

Recent polls of active-duty soldiers have shown that more than a third of them no longer support the mission in Iraq. An additional third want a firm troop withdrawal date set within this year.

But the politicians in Washington, both Republican and Democrat, have shown that they are in no rush to end this war. Every day the war continues is another day that the politicians’ real constituents, the corporations and banks, continue to profit off the blood of the U.S. troops and the Iraqi population. And after all, the politicians are not the ones that have to see their buddies lose their limbs to roadside bombs. They are not the ones who return home racked by post traumatic stress disorder from the indescribable horrors faced on the battlefield.

The Republicans and Democrats in Washington have proven that they are unwilling to end the war. But a surge in active-duty troops refusing to fight or finding ways to resist could end the war in a heartbeat, and help preserve the collective heartbeat of an entire generation of working-class young people, besides bringing relief to millions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Active-duty organizing, mobilization of Iraq veterans, confrontation of recruiters and places where GIs can meet and discuss like the Different Drummer can all play a role in organizing the struggle against the war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Through the mediums that speak to our generation—music, film, poetry, spoken word, etc.—soldiers and civilians can come together, united in their commitment to end the war, and freely exchange ideas and strategies. As the Iraq war slogs through its fifth year, the need for innovative collaborations between anti-war soldiers and civilians has never been more apparent.