Library - Reading Room
Supporting Materials for Sir! No Sir!
We Need A Union
SP/4 Dick Wheaton, Ft. Sill
Every minute of every day I spend in the U. S. Army serves to confirm what many of us GIs have been thinking and saying - - that we need a union!
The rank and file soldier feels helpless when confronted with the daily oppression meted out by the power structure of the military establishment. Individual resistance to this oppression has proved futile.
The only answer to military injustice is mass resistance. We GIs need a voice through which we can obtain redress for our many, and surely justified, grievances. The American Servicemen's Union can be our voice. Let us organize for the right to collective bargaining and an end to racial discrimination! Let us organize for a minimum wage and freedom of political association! Let us organize a soldiers' union.
Sure, the Brass will squawk, gripe and threaten, but we will never allow ourselves to be cowed by the bluster of the reactionary officer class. They have taught us to walk on our bellies in more ways than one. It is high time we stand up and demand the right to act like real men -- not puppets.
I, for one, pledge my full support to the American Servicemen's Union, its organizers and numbers.
Let us all begin organizing!
Let us all dare to struggle!
Let.us all dare -- to win!
The Bond, vol. 2, no.3