Library - Reading Room
Supporting Materials for Sir! No Sir!
Fun, Travel, and Adventure (FTA)
Fun, Travel and Adventure (FTA) is a new underground paper published by a group of five GIs at Fort Knox. Ky. FTA tells it like it is.
Brass and lifers won't like it. GIs will.
The first issue of June 23 says:
We're going to say what most of say when talking to each other but we're going to put it in print. We want people to know they are not odd because they don't like what this man's army does to them. In fact we wont to show just how many GIs feel this way.... Any GI can write a letter or an article and we will print it, We won't print your name unless you specifically request it. If you are bringing smoke on an individual please make sure you have an accurate rendition of the facts. Also tell us how we can get in touch with you for verification.
On free speech, the GI editors nail the main point :
Don't get us wrong when we say we're dedicated to free Speech. That doesn't mean we haven't any bias. We don't intend to go looking for lifer ideas to balance out our picture. Their point of view is all over as it is. We're here to give the other viewpoints -- we won't pretend to be neutral. We definitely will favor the non-lifer-- the civilian prisoner in Army green.
The FTA supports the American Servicemen's Union by reprinting (from the June Bond) the bold union proposals which ASU organizer Pvt. Dave Ort of Fort Campbell, Ky. made to the CO of the nearby base.
This new and impressive base paper also carried an article describing the long fight of the Vietnamese for independence and the attempt of the US big money-men to take over the country after the French and Japanese had been kicked out by the Vietnamese people.
In a vehement, down-to-earth, tell–it–like–it–is article, a private blasts the Army for its abuse and its hypocrisy. The writer, a GI from the 16 Bn, 4th Bde. at Knox, says “We are given lectures by lieutenants, captains, majors and other lordly characters on our ‘rights’ under the UCMJ but we are told by the drill sergeants and other cadre that we, in fact. as basic trainees, have no rights at all.”
He call's for “the long hard fight for real freedom and equality.”The GI editors of FTA plan to print and distribute the paper around the base every two weeks.
To contact FTA you can write to The Bond and messages will be relayed.
The Bond, vol. 2, no. 7