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Supporting Materials for Sir! No Sir!
GI Antiwar Actions In South Vietnam
The harsh reality of the U.S. war in South Viet Nam has gradually been awakening U.S. Servicemen to the dishonorableness and uselessness of an aggression directed against a people's independence and freedom and profitable only to a gang of warlike puppets.
Growing numbers of GIs have risen up to defend their personal dignity and their vital interests and those of the United States. Actions against this immoral war have been succeeding one another, especially since the end of December 1968. The biggest of them took place in a base of U.S. Infantry Division 25 stationed at Dong Du, 30 km northwest of Saigon, under the "repatriation" slogan. A few days later, came the protest by servicemen of Battalions I and 2, U.S. Infantry 9, garrisoned at Birth Duc, 64 km southwest of Saigon, who resisted the orders to go on a raid and demanded an end to the Viet Ham war. Despite the brutal repression by American Commanders who set up such jails as the Long Binh Jail, 20 km northeast of Saigon, and Da Nang Jail, in an attempt to intimidate the GIs and check their dissent', the movement keeps mounting even among the L.B. Jail inmates who set fire in August and end of November 1968 to several army barracks.
Since early 1969, when U.S. and puppet troops all over South Viet Nam came under PLAF violent attacks, war protest actions broke out in various American divisions Para Division 101, Marine Division 3, Division Americal, Infantry Division 1, First Air Cavalry Division, Division 25 and 90 in which American Servicemen disobeyed orders to carry out "sweeps" or to go on rescue missions, staged sit-in demonstrations, burnt barracks, fired at their commanders or put out anti-war and repatriation slogans.
Many waves of similar demonstrations have occurred in U.S. Infantry Division. 9. On Jan. 3 and 14, 1969, 160 GIs of 3 platoons refused to board a chopper bound for a raid and asked to be taken home. Some of them fired shots in the air, and frightened their C.0.s into giving way. On Jan. 28, in the same locality, the GIs ransacked their C.O.s' offices and many barracks, killing 23 men and wounding 12 others. They manhandled the American M.P.s, killed hundreds of police dogs, destroyed thousands of sand bags used in fortification, pushed into the river more than one hundred small trucks carrying food and ammunition. On Feb. 23, 1969, the GIs of a battalion of Brigade 3, Division 9 at Duc Hoa, 25 km west of Saigon shot at their COs, killing eight of them including a captain and a lieutenant. On March 18, American soldiers of a company of Brigade 2, Division 9, stationed at Son Phu, 75 km west of Saigon, took off their uniforms and lay on the road, refusing to take part in a terrorist operation and asking to return home. In April 1969, soldiers of two platoons-at Binh Duc and 300 GIs of Division 9 objected to raiding orders, set an M.ll3 ablaze and shouted "Send us back home."'
There is every indication that GI discontent will grow as the Nixon Administration clings to South Viet Wars and goes on throwing U.S. youths into it's senseless and costly war there.
As You Were, no. 7