Library - Reading Room
Supporting Materials for Sir! No Sir!
Servicemen Need Help
The need for an effective organization to support the efforts of men within the Armed Forces who are engaged in anti-war activity has ben demonstrated by several cases which have been brought to the public's attention.
The three soldiers, Pfc. James Johnson, Pvt. Dennis Mora and Pvt David Samas who have become known as the Fort Hood Three were originally part of a group of twelve men at Fort Hood, Texas, who got together and decided to refuse order to go to Vietnam. Of the twelve only three were ordered to Vietnam and the consequences of their actions are known to millions of people across the country. They were court martialled on Sptember 6-9, 1966, received dishonorable discharges, reduction to the lowest rank, and total forfeiture of all pay. Johnson and Mora were given maaximum sentences - five year prison terms at haard labor. Pvt. Mora was sentenced to three years in prison.
The Fort Hood Three are not the only military men who have suffered because of expressed opposition to the Vietnam War. More recently, Pfc Howard Petrick, also stationed at Fort Hood, is threatened with a court-martial for voicing anti-war and socialist ideas and for distributing radical literature. His locker, and those of several fellow GIs have been broken into and literaature removed. On April 1, 1967, Petrick was advised that there was a definite prospect that he would be court-martialled on the charges of subversion, creating disaffection within the Armed Forces and making disloyal statements.
On June 2, 1967, a 3 year sentence was given to Army Captain Howard Levy, who was convicted of 5 counts of wilful disobedience, sending an anti-war letter to an Army sergeant in Vietnam, and talking against the war to patients at his clinic... Captain Levy refused an order to train Green Beret medical aidmen on the grounds that the "U.S. was committing war crimes, and genocide in Vietnam. The other four charges relate directly to freedom of speech. Upon hearing the charges against Levy six soldiers from Fort Sill... sent a telegram in support of his courageous stand.... Of these six, Pvt. Andrew Stapp, a revolutionary socialist was subsequently court-martialled and sentenced to 45 days hard labor for refusing an order to open his locker so his commanding officer could confiscate his antiwar literature.
The Bond, no. 1