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Supporting Materials for Sir! No Sir!
The Logistic -- What's It All About
Logistics is a word which typifies the military way of life. Provide for the men; feed them, cloth them, give them a place to live, provided you continue to suppress their creativity and free thinking by imposing the totalitarian rule of the military upon then. Since the army major purpose is regimentation, its goal is to break down a man's ego, eliminate the individual, and force all to bow down in awe to the almighty order. Once the soldier is formed into the unit, his thinking is done for him and his mind and his rights can be ignored.
But the great paradox in the army is that it divides the men even as it unites then under the same yoke. A man is forced to stand alone with his original thoughts or new ideas because he has no real place to air his viewpoints. No incentives are of fered for individual thinking and even the suggestion program is too hopelessly tied up in red tape to be effective. It's the old method of divide and conquer working to defeat the soldier.
Though the GI may gripe about his lot in a group bitch session, he finds that any attempt at collective or individual resistance is crushed so savagely by the Uniform Code of Military Justice that only the extremely insolent would dare to buck the system. So the downtrodden GI appears to be playing a losing game, with any form of direct protest falling prey to a systen of justice designed - to perpetuate his subjugation.
But what if the protest is not direct? What if it chips away at the mountain of oppression with logical ideas and alternatives instead of reckless insolence? What if the individual is protected by anonymity so that he speaks not for himself alone but for every GI like him? The editors of this paper feel that if these conditions are met--and they are met in this publication--then an effective form of protest can be initiated which will yield tangible results and benefit all servicemen everywhere. We seek to provide in our paper what is lacking in the intellectual void of military service--what might be termed as an intellectual counterpart to military logistics.
Our “mental” logistics will be characterized by facts and ideas. Instead of moving troops, we will move minds. Instead of supplying troops, we will supply the facts-about the army, about the country, about the world Instead of quartering troops, we vow to make our paper a forum for your ideas and viewpoints. Then and only then will this post have a paper which brings the true issues into light. We aren't interested in telling you what to think, but we do wish to inform you about what others are thinking so that you can make your own decisions and form your own opinions.
You see, we're idealists. We haven't given up on the world, we only recognize the need for improvement. Others have spoken out before us, many more will speak out in the future. Because we are concerned, we will patiently continue what others have begun, hoping that still others will someday be able to bring to completion the reform that is so necessary in our society.
We've told you what the LOGISTIC stands for. What do YOU stand for? The LOGISTIC would like to know. Fort Sheridan would like to know. This is your chance to tell the army where it's wrong, or where it's right, or where to go. You can't afford to miss it!
Logistic, no. 1