Concerned Officers Movement

COMs genesis sprang from the participation of Marine Captain Bob Brugger in the November 1969 March on Washington against the Vietnam War. The Washington Post carried an article about Brugger and his wife that caused his superior officers to enter an unsatisfactory mark for loyalty in his fitness report and generated supportive phone calls from other officers. Brugger's opposition to "blind patriotism" and his stand against racism at home and in Vietnam had struck a chord with other officers who read the article. Over several months a group of officers agreed to work together and on March 14, 1970, they participated as ''Officers' Resistance'' in a G.I. Rally for Peace and Justice in Washington, D.C. By the end of March 1970 they had changed their name to the Concerned Officers Movement. COM's first newsletter, published in April 1970, described the organization's political views: While stating they were "loyal, responsible military officers", they supported "a cease-fire and the rapid disengagement of American troops from Southeast Asia", opposed the "preponderant share of national resources devoted to the military", and called for the "free expression of dissenting opinion" within the military. ==Media coverage and growth==

The fact that military officers had formed a group openly speaking out against the war and the U.S. military was unprecedented and quickly reached the national media. On June 3, 1970, The New York Times announced that the "antiwar movement has reached the United States military officers corps." "Calling themselves the Concerned Officers Movement, about 25 officers based in Washington, most of them Navy men, have banded together to provide a forum for what they say is growing disillusionment among their ranks with the Indochina war." COM continued to grow and on September 26, 1970, 28 members representing about 250 others on active duty from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps held a press conference in Washington, D.C., to announce "their intention to speak against the war in Vietnam" and "to encourage other officers to express antiwar opinions". Font told the press, "I reject this war....I have asked myself time and again: 'When the law becomes a crime, consensus and conformity becomes a crime, am I to condone it?' My answer is no." Major Albert Braverman, a physician at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, stated that COM had active chapters at the Marine base at Camp Lejeune, NC, at Navy and Marine bases in Norfolk, VA, Pensacola, FL and San Diego, at Army bases at Fort Bragg, NC, and Fort Jackson, SC, at the Air Force base in Grand Forks, ND, and in Iceland and Hawaii. COM carried out a variety of antiwar activities throughout 1970 and 1971. It published a newsletter, which by the fourth issue was called COMmon Sense, distributing it throughout the armed services. It bought newspaper ads calling for an immediate withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam, wrote leaflets, printed posters and held press conferences. COM's Norfolk Naval Base chapter paid for a billboard outside the base that read Peace Now. In May 1971, 29 officers from Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base took out a "scathing antiwar" ad in the Fayetteville Observer which they openly signed with name, rank and military branch. This was the first time this many military officers from one place publicly opposed the war. Soon, officers from Fort Jackson, Fort Knox and Minot Air Force Base were signing similar ads in their local papers. On September 13, 1971, over 130 officers from all over the U.S. signed a full-page antiwar ad in the Washington Post. == Military retaliation ==

Initially, many COM members wanted to stay within the military and felt they had a right to express dissenting views. In fact, their third newsletter argued that responsible dissent "can and must be allowed to exist in the military, if it is to keep pace with the times in which we live." "We believe that such expressions of our convictions are within our rights, and that in expressing them, we are following our obligations as officers to defend the Constitution." The organization felt the armed forces were an insular and hidebound world and explored ways to establish the right of free speech for active duty servicemen, both officers and enlisted. As a result, COM had a high turnover rate as the military discharged or transferred its members. This, combined with its focus on active duty officers, meant the national organization was relatively short-lived, tapering off considerably by the end of 1971. ==Unprecedented activity==

In early 1971 COM created quite a stir by holding press conferences on both coasts calling for an investigation into the military's top brass for possible war crimes. Under the auspices of The National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam (Citizens Commission of Inquiry), COM held press conferences on January 12 in Washington, D.C., and January 20 in Los Angeles calling for an investigation into the "responsibility for war crimes of key military figures", including Generals William Westmoreland and Creighton Abrams, and Admiral Elmo Zumwalt. While formally they were only calling for an investigation, they presented evidence of war crimes and catastrophic environmental damage, leaving the impression they were accusing their own commanders of war crimes. The Washington, D.C. COM members involved were CPT Robert Master, USA, CPT Grier Merwin, USA, Fox, Font and LTJG Peter Dunkelberger, USN. In Los Angeles were LT Norman Banks, USAF, LTJG Ted Shallcross, USN, LT James Skelly, USN, and Kent. Later that same year COM members used the military's own practice of encouraging the wearing of uniforms to religious services to conduct antiwar demonstrations in uniform, a prohibited activity under military regulations. On April 23, 1971, ignoring warnings from higher ups that their actions would be considered a political demonstration, COM organized a memorial service at Washington's National Cathedral involving more than 250 officers in uniform honoring all the war dead, on both sides of the war. As one of the men who participated later recalled in his memoir: "Thus, with one of our men playing the haunting lament on his bugle that is heard at military funerals, we marched with [a] coffin draped with the flags of the Viet Cong, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States." No one was ever reprimanded or punished for these actions, probably because the military decided it would be better to ignore the whole thing and pretend it never happened. == The San Diego Chapter ==

The San Diego COM, located in the principal homeport of the Pacific Fleet, may have been the most active chapter and was certainly the longest lasting, continuing actively until late 1973. The Chapter was initiated by Kent and local antiwar activist Jeannie Boyle and formally founded in July 1970 by Kent, LT Harold Appel, USN, Skelly and Shallcross. Very quickly it broadened its outreach to include enlisted men and women and by 1972 had changed its name to Concerned Military. Constellation Vote As veteran antiwar activists, including Joan Baez and David Harris, became involved, Harris suggested organizing a citywide referendum on whether the Constellation should set sail. This Constellation Vote became a major antiwar campaign over several months that led to a citywide straw vote in late September 1971 with 54,721 votes counted. Over 82% of voters elected to keep the ship home, including 73% of the military personnel who voted. While not a "real" vote, the impact on public opinion was appreciable. Even an unsympathetic observer deemed the overall effort to stop the Constellation "an impressive campaign", and the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet was quoted as saying "never was there such a concerted effort to entice American servicemen from their posts." A considerable amount of research was conducted into the role of aircraft carriers in modern warfare by Professor William Watson of MIT who was then a visiting Professor of History at UC San Diego. He argued in a widely distributed pamphlet that aircraft carriers had become weapons "used to crush popular uprisings and to bully the weaker and poorer countries of the world." Creative protest methods The involvement of large numbers of antiwar officers and enlisted men created significant debate in the traditionally pro-military town. It also permitted creative methods not normally available to other antiwar groups, such as the CONSTELLATION STAY HOME FOR PEACE banner frequently seen being towed over the city by recently retired navy flight instructor LT John Huyler, and the Constellation Vote stickers found everywhere on board the USS Constellation, including in the captain's personal bathroom. Bathroom stickers weren't the only complication the captain had to deal with. Over 1,300 of the ship's sailors signed a petition requesting the FTA Show be allowed on board. The captain refused this request but then got himself in hot water by intercepting and destroying 2,500 pieces of U.S. mail sent by antiwar activists to crewmembers. Faced with a possible court of inquiry and health problems, the captain was removed from command before the ship sailed. This action led to other Stop Our Ship (SOS) campaigns in San Diego and other Navy ports in a wider effort to prevent navy ships from heading to Southeast Asia. "A strong resistance movement within the Seventh Fleet was led by COM and its local chapter." == The Kodiak Chapter ==

The chapter in Kodiak, Alaska, was the only one started from the beginning to include all ranks, modifying its name accordingly to Concerned Servicemen’s Movement (CSM). It was initiated by Lt(jg) Norman Bleier from the San Diego COM chapter after his commanding officer deemed him such a problem that he was transferred to Kodiak "to freeze until your enlistment is up." This was not an unusual tactic for the Navy as another member of the Kodiak group, EM3 James Kelly, was also ordered there after initiating a Congressional investigation against the Navy for ignoring his medical condition. Kodiak CSM, which included both U.S. Navy and Coast Guard personnel, became the most influential GI dissent group in Alaska, both by publishing a well written underground newsletter, FID, ==Significance==

At its height, COM had as many as 28 chapters in all the military branches and has been estimated to have "had approximately 3,000 members, including many supporters from the enlisted ranks." At one point it even had a chapter in the Pentagon. It had no formal leadership, although various people stepped forward at different times to play central roles. COM did not attract the media attention as dramatically as its more well-known partner and ally, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, but it played a key and underappreciated role in the antiwar movement of the early 1970s. The fact that officers not only resisted the war, but spoke out publicly and formed a significant organization, speaks to the depth of the anti-Vietnam War and anti-U.S. military sentiment in the U.S. at the time. ==See also==