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Supporting Materials for Sir! No Sir!
Armed Forces Day: 500 Rally At Great Lakes Naval Station
In a park outside the Great Lakes Naval Station, 500 supporters of anti-war sailors demonstrated and held a rally on May 16, The scheduled Armed Forces Day activities never happened. They were cancelled and the base was closed. The Brass wanted to keep anti-war friends of the servicemen from reaching the men on the base.
Speakers at the rally included Roger Priest who had just been given a bad conduct discharge for publishing OM, an anti-war paper for Navy EM. John Cat, circulation manager for The Bond spoke for the ASU. There were speakers from the Black Panther Party, Rising Up Angry, the Women's Liberation Union, Vets for Peace and other Chicago area groups.
The rally was sponsored by NAVY TIMES ARE CHANGIN' and staff members of this group addressed the rally.
In spite of harassment by the Brass, 50 sailors defied them and attended the rally and many others flashed fists and "V's" from barracks inside the fenced-in base to the people marching around the base.
The Bond, vol. 4, no. 6