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Supporting Materials for Sir! No Sir!
Report On FT. Lewis Invasion
Jim Algeo was one of the 100 civilians who staged a daring raid on Ft. Lewis, Friday, April 4, to publicize the infamous GI peace conference in Seattle. Here is his report on what happened.
Terrified at the prospect of seeing Ft. Lewis overrun by hordes of screaming peaceniks, the army girded its loins to repulse our attack. At the Seattle rally military agents wrote down the license numbers of all the cars they could see, and radioed them down to the Fort, so many of us were stopped at the gate. Some used devious peacenik tricks to get through, such as the girl who dressed up as a nurse and was waved right past the roadblock. Others used devious back entrances to the fort and got through that way.
Our group was among the many who were stopped at the main gate and then taken in to the Provost Marshall's office. After an hour, a Lt. gave us a written statement which told us why it was illegal for us to have done what we hadn't yet had a chance to do, namely, to leaflet and talk to GIs about GI-CAP. When we refused to sign the statement, they obligingly signed bt for us.
Some of the group were searched "for not having proper identification." The officerr in charge told us there were no charges and we weren't being detained but that if we tried to go we would be apprehended for disrespect for authority???
We were finally released, after a stirring lecture on the sovereignty of the Ft. Lewis parking lots. The sgt. who escorted us off the base was obviously incensed by the fact that every soldier we. passed exchanged the peace sign with us.
Counterpoint, vol. 2, no. 8