Library - Reading Room
Supporting Materials for Sir! No Sir!
Presidio 27
The 27 have been on trial for mutiny, resulting from a sit-down demo they held in the Presidio Stockade last October. They were protesting the miserable conditions in the stockade, and the cold-blooded murder of a fellow prisoner by a stockade guard. Pvt. Nesery Sood one of the first to be sentenced, originally drew 15 years. Public furor about the vcase prompted 6th Army Commander General Stanley Larsen to reduce the sentence to seven years. His judgement was immediately undercut b the judge advocate's office in Washington, which reduced the sentence to two years. Three of the 27 have gone over the hill; six others have received sentences ranging from nine months to 14 years. Terence Hallinan, lawyer the 14 now on trial, says of the defendants " ....they are heroes, not mutineers. By their act they were calling attention to... an atrocious and illegal situation that existed at the Presidio stockade."
The AWOL Press, no 3