Anti-war activists open ‘coffeehouse’ near Fort Drum

When the news broke that anti-war organizers had set up the Iraq War’s first “coffeehouse” near Camp Drum in upstate Watertown, N.Y., Workers World contacted Tod Ensign of Citizen Soldier, one of the founders of the “Different Drummer Cafe.”

Ensign has organized GIs and veterans since the Vietnam War. Citizen Soldier provides legal and organizational support for resisters, veterans and anyone fighting grievances against the Pentagon.

During the Vietnam days the anti-war movement created an extensive GI coffeehouse and counseling network, starting first in Ft. Jackson, S.C., in late 1967 and spreading to 20 other major U.S. bases within a year.

In the same period resistance grew inside the barracks with the spread of groups like the American Servicemen’s Union. The troops became a formidable force that played a dynamic role in ending the war.

Ensign notes that while there is growing opposition to the Iraq occupation within the military—a Stars and Stripes poll reported that 72 percent want the U.S. out within a year and 29 percent want them out yesterday—“it would be a mistake to draw the parallels too closely to the Vietnam period.”

“We opened the Different Drummer Cafe at 1 Public Square in Watertown this fall,” said Ensign. It’s in one of the oldest shopping arcades in the country, right in the middle of town, close to a bar, a pizza shop and an espresso-type shop.

An eight-year Army veteran, Cindy Mercante, keeps the cafe open afternoons and evenings from Wednesday to Saturday. Five military veterans help out as volunteers. The Different Drummer offers free counseling, but so far “GIs aren’t asking for help to refuse or for help in changing their status,” said Ensign.

“The troops show us no hostility, but they have a realistic fear of repression and a confusion about what to do. Pay and benefits are more than what the troops would get if they left the service. It’s not like back in 1970, when enlisted troops were paid next to nothing.

“In the 1960s the troops came to coffeehouses to find books, especially Black GIs inspired by Martin Luther King or the Panthers and George Jackson. We don’t find that now. But if we hire bands that people in the area know, the GIs come in for Saturday night dance parties.

“We show films every Saturday afternoon. We showed ‘Iraq for Sale’ last Saturday. We showed ‘Poison Dust’ about depleted uranium, and discussed a bill providing testing for veterans who suspected DU poisoning. We showed ‘Sir, No Sir!,’ the film about the Vietnam GI movement.

“Fort Drum is no longer just a training base for National Guard troops. It’s now the home base for the 12,000-plus troops of the active-duty 10th Mountain (Light Infantry) Division, a highly mobile but not airborne division intended as a rapid intervention force, the kind Donald Rumsfeld likes. It has the highest rate of deployment of any Army division.

“Our project has potential,” said Ensign. “The troops face a grinding, vicious war and a military obligation much longer than in the Vietnam period. Troops coming home in March are back from second full-year deployment, and whatever the Iraq Study Group and Bush agree to do, these troops may face redeployment by the end of 2007. The issues are real to them. They are getting killed and maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We will build links with the troops and their families. The opposition to the war is very deep. And no one knows exactly how it will come out.”

For more information, see www.differentdrummercafe.org.

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