Repression, Harassment, Intimidation

This chapter describes the various forms of resistance that coffeehouse activists faced from the towns and bases in which they built their projects. From physical attacks on coffeehouses from local vigilantes, to targeted legal campaigns from local law enforcement, to direct shutdowns and challenges from military officials, GI activism brought a wave of negative attention from a number of different social and institutional forces. This chapter shows how the towns and cities in which coffeehouses operated had significant socioeconomic interest in maintaining their historically beneficial relationships with the American military, and thus viewed coffeehouses and GI activism with a mix of skepticism, anger, and antagonism.

Moving On

This chapter outlines the coffeehouse network's later years, when the administration of President Richard Nixon dramatically shifted to tone and direction of the war in Vietnam. Coffeehouses evolved to become more dynamic institutions, responding to an entirely new set of issues. They also encountered significant financial and personnel setbacks, as national antiwar organizations struggled and split apart. This chapter pays particular attention to the "FTA Show," a celebrity-studded antiwar revue that toured the coffeehouse network in 1971.

Setting Up Shop

This chapter describes the impetus behind the GI coffeehouse concept, following writer and organizer Fred Gardner as he and other activists begin building a coffeehouse network in a number of base towns around the country. In 1968 a "Summer of Support" brings more people and resources, as large national antiwar organizations join the effort to bring attention to the growing GI movement against the Vietnam War. Placing the coffeehouse phenomenon within the wider context of GI and military dissent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this chapter shows how antiwar groups began to focus on the American military as an important site of resistance.

Epilogue

This epilogue considers the coffeehouse movement within the wider context of American military history, particularly with regard to dissent and activism. This chapter concludes with a consideration of 21st century GI resistance, profiling a number of projects that build on the Vietnam era coffeehouse model.

Getting Together

This chapter details the specific actions taken by GIs and civilians at antiwar coffeehouse projects. From publishing and distributing underground newspapers, to organizing major strikes, boycotts, and demonstrations, activists at coffeehouses brought the style and force of the youth antiwar movement to major sites of the Vietnam War effort, like Killeen, Texas (home of Fort Hood), Columbia, South Carolina (near Fort Jackson), and Tacoma, Washington (near Fort Lewis). By profiling a number of specific actions and their consequences, this chapter demonstrates the diverse range of issues that concerned American GIs during the Vietnam War, and reflects on the strategies of the individuals and organizations that attempted to address them.

Introduction

Although more than forty years have passed since its official end, the Vietnam War continues to occupy a prominent place in the collective American psyche. The word “Vietnam” exists as a kind of shorthand, regularly invoked to stand in for a whole range of lessons, moral platitudes, and political opinions. Despite its dominant place in public discourse, though, the ...