When soldiers built a union
By John Catalinotto
As the threat that the United States will launch an invasion
of Iraq grows, the Pentagon generals' worries focus not on
Congress's willingness to fund their war, but on the troops'
reaction if battle drags on. Does the "Vietnam Syndrome" still
exist within the armed forces?
Workers World spoke with Pvt. Andrew D. Stapp (retired
1968). Stapp isn't like the usual military pundits paraded on
CNN. He led GI anti-war resistance during the U.S. war against
Vietnam and founded the American Servicemen's Union.
The following paraphrases an hour-long conversation on Oct.
19 between Stapp and this writer--who was himself a civilian
organizer for the ASU--reviewing Vietnam-era developments for
insights into the current crisis.
Experience sparks resistance
U.S. troop strength in South Vietnam reached 500,000 in
1967. U.S. control of the air and superior firepower caused
many casualties for the Vietnamese guerrilla fighters. But U.S.
troops also began to die in greater numbers.
In the January 1968 Tet offensive, guerrillas struck at
bases and headquarters across the country and even the U.S.
Embassy in Saigon. Thousands of ordinary U.S. enlisted troops
came home from the battle in body bags.
The Tet offensive was a body blow to political support at
home for what amounted to a U.S. invasion and occupation of
Vietnam.
Battle-weary veterans rotated back to the States in 1967 and
1968 after their year in Vietnam. They shared their war
experiences with newer recruits.
All over the United States, at basic and advanced training
bases, the new recruits heard one story about Vietnam from
officers and top sergeants and a completely different story
from returning veterans.
"The official propaganda was that the U.S. was there to help
the Vietnamese people," said Stapp. "By 1968 that was obviously
untrue. The Vietnamese were fighting like hell to get the U.S.
troops out."
From individual resistance to a union
Earlier, dissent in the military had taken the form of
individual resistance. Dr. Howard Levy, an Army captain,
refused to train Special Forces troops for Vietnam. At Fort
Hood, Texas, this resistance took a big step further when three
GIs refused duty in Vietnam.
In the spring of 1967, when Stapp was an enlisted soldier at
the artillery training center at Fort Sill, Okla., he was
court-martialed for refusing to open and turn over a footlocker
full of anti-war and pro-socialist magazines. This sparked a
struggle that shook up the base.
Activists from Youth Against War and Fascism supported Pvt.
Stapp's battle with the officers. The case ended without Stapp
having to serve time in the stockade. He already had the
backing of a core of his fellow enlisted GIs and the sympathy
of most people in his barracks.
"The civilian anti-war movement was tremendous," said Stapp.
"But the anti-war feeling among the GIs was even greater.
"At Fort Sill the brass baited me constantly, calling me a
communist, trying to drum up a frenzied reaction. I was in
contact daily with hundreds of fellow GIs. None of them were
openly hostile. Most were friendly. They loved that I was
dishing it out to the officers and attacking the war."
By the end of 1967 Stapp and other GIs, Marines, sailors and
airmen from around the United States founded the ASU. The idea
caught on fast. Within two years the ASU had over 10,000
members. Its newspaper, The Bond, had 75,000 readers and
correspondents wherever the Pentagon had troops.
"While we didn't win union recognition," said Stapp, "we
were a factor in ending the war."
Troops are workers in uniform
The ASU's demands included an end to racism, election of
officers by enlisted men and the right to refuse illegal orders
"like orders to fight in an illegal war in Vietnam."
The movement in the military was broad. Anti-war newspapers
sprang up at many forts. Anti-war activists from the civilian
movement set up "coffee houses" near many larger U.S. bases
where dissident GIs would hang out.
Many individual servicemen--in those days almost all the
troops were male--simply left for Canada or stayed among
civilians in Europe. Some even joined the Vietnamese liberation
fighters.
But the ASU was the single most effective organization of
enlisted men and women. The military reflected the unjust and
privileged structures of capitalist society. The ASU mobilized
around the class interests of the enlisted soldiers--who were
working-class youths in uniform.
"It was not just that the war threatened their lives, though
of course that was true," Stapp said. "But it was something
they considered wrong--killing Vietnamese peasants who wanted
to liberate their country. They felt bitter they were being
forced to fight an unpopular war that couldn't be
justified.
"By the later years of the war the anti-war feeling among
the troops in Vietnam was so great it led to direct action,
like refusing to go out on patrols.
"Officers who were particularly cruel or who tried to push
their troops into dangerous situations were taking a risk,"
Stapp added. "Several hundred officers and high-ranking
sergeants wound up 'fragged' by their troops, that is, killed
with fragmentation grenades."
Today's economic draft
Stapp continued: "That the personnel in today's military are
all volunteers doesn't mean they won't want to resist a war or
that they won't want to be organized in a union. Even back in
1970, when most of the Army were draftees, about half the ASU
members were young people who had joined up.
"In some ways a volunteer military means the rank-and-file
soldiers are drawn even more from the working class, poor, and
from the communities of color. It's an economic draft. Young
people--including women these days--join up to get education
and job training. They're not stockholders in oil and munitions
monopolies.
"The ruling class uses them in the military to fight in the
interests of the rich. So they have all the same reasons to be
part of a union that defends their interests.
"It's hard to say what will happen in a short war, fought
mostly from the air. But in a long occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan," said Stapp, "with guerrilla fighting and steady
casualties, a real opposition movement within the military is
possible."
Reprinted from the Oct. 31, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
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