1965-1967: "A Few Malcontents" As the Johnson administration turns what was initially a small "police action" into an all-out war and the peace movement begins, isolated individuals and small groups in the military refuse to participate and are severely punished: Lt. Henry Howe is sentenced to two years hard labor for attending an antiwar demonstration; the
Fort Hood Three are sentenced to three years hard labor for refusing duty in Vietnam;
Dr. Howard Levy, a military doctor, refuses to train Special Forces troops and is court-martialed
1968-1969: "We Thought The Revolution Was Starting." The war escalates as the peace movement becomes an international mass movement, and soldiers begin forming organizations and taking collective action: The Ft. Hood 43, Black soldiers who refused riot-control duty at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, are sentenced for up to 18 months each; the largest military prison in Vietnam, Long Binh Jail (affectionately called LBJ by the troops), is taken over by Black soldiers who hold it for two months. The Presidio 27 – prisoners in the stockade on the Presidio Army Base in San Francisco – are charged with mutiny, a capital offense, when they refuse to work after a mentally ill prisoner is killed;
underground newspapers published by antiwar GIs appear at almost every military base in the country; the American Serviceman's Union is formed; antiwar coffeehouses are established outside of military bases. 92,000 soldiers were declared deserters, with tens of thousand fleeing to Canada, France and Sweden; thousands of soldiers organize and participate in
Armed Forces Day demonstrations at 19 military bases on May 15, 1971; drug use is rampant and
underground radio networks flourish in Vietnam as Black and white soldiers increasingly identify with the antiwar and Black liberation movements; combat refusals and
fragging of officers in Vietnam are epidemic. Thousands are jailed for refusing to fight or simply defying military authority, and nearly every U.S. military prison in the world is hit by riots. the Pentagon concludes that over half the ground troops openly oppose the war and shifts its combat strategy from a ground war to an air war; the Navy and Air Force are both riddled with mutinies and acts of sabotage. VVAW holds the
Winter Soldier Investigation, exposing American war crimes through the testimony of veterans, and stages the most dramatic demonstration of the Vietnam era as hundreds of veterans hurl their medals onto the Capitol steps.
Coffee Houses. Zeiger highlights the history of the coffee houses that sprang up near army bases where many of the activist meetings took place, including the
Oleo Strut, where Zeiger worked as a teenager.
Epilogue: The Myth Of The Spitting Hippie. As the U.S. military and its allies flee Vietnam in disarray in the spring of 1975, the government, the media, and Hollywood begin a 20-year process of erasing the GI Movement from the collective memory of the nation and the world.
Ronald Reagan's "Resurgent America" campaign re-writes the history of Vietnam and erases the GI Movement; by 1990, over 100 theatrical films have been produced about the Vietnam War, none of which portray the GI Antiwar Movement or any opposition to the war by soldiers.
The myth that antiwar activists routinely spat on returning soldiers is spread as part of the buildup to the 1990
Gulf War. ==Featured individuals and groups==