ASU Victory In Wisconsin

NEW YORK, N.Y., August 19, 1970. Today the last of several members of the American Servicemen's Union (ASU) stationed at Camp McCoy, Wièorsin were released from restriction on the Army base. The ASU members had been restricted to the base and interrogated by CID and FBI in connection with several bomb explosions at the base on Sunday, July 26. Two buildings were destroyed by the blasts. One was the Central Telephone Exchange and the other housed a Western Electric transformer. The men released were SP4 Thomas Chase, SP4 Steve Geden and PFC Dan Kreps. All three men have been punitively transferred to Ft. Carson, Col.
Their release came as a result of solidarity among the men in the ASU Chapter at Camp McCoy, and the efforts of the national office of the ASU in New York City. The national office, on receiving a phone call from SP4 Geden on July 31, was able to obtain legal counsel for the men. David Heitzman, a lawyer from Madison, Wisconsin, immediately got on the case and filed a writ of habeas corpus in Federal Court in Milwaukee, demanding that the army release the men or charge them. Also, the national office of the ASU sent out National Field Organizer, John Lewis, to Camp McCoy to organize support for the men among the GI's on the base. The habeas corpus hearing was cancelled on Wednesday, August 18, when the army decided to release the men.

Andy Stapp, Chairman of the ASU, said today: "The Brass backed down at Camp McCoy when they saw the Union was going to make a fight out of their illegal harassment of ASU members on the base. The reason they backed was because of the organizational capabilities of the ASU to respond to its membership in this most repressive period of the struggle for liberation and justice for GI's. The ASU members at McCoy remained strong in the face of terriie harassment and 3rd degree interrogation. In addition to this they continued their organizing work on the base for the Union. The men transferred from Camp McCoy have every intention of carrying on the struggle at Ft. Carson. There is no way the Brass can stop our fight against the war, racism and the Brass."

The Green Machine, no. 6

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ASU Victory In Wisconsin