GI Movement Calendars

These calendars, and those that will be published over the next 11 months, represent the most detailed timeline of the GI movement available online. A new set for May will be published in the first week of May. This will continue through March 2012. If you find errors with any of the calendars, or know of events that should be included, please let me know, either by leaving a comment, or emailing me at james_lewes@yahoo.com.

Each of the actions and events, listed here has been taken from the GI Movement's published record, which includes more than 370 newspapers, 100 pamphlets and project reports. I hope that by publishing these detailed calendars, to draw attention to the breadth and depth of opposition to the Vietnam war in the United States Armed services, a question that is not just taboo, but a fact that has been deliberately erased from the historical record.

This feat of revisionism is made all the more remarkable by the fact that in spite of these actions largely being ignored by the mainstream press, hundreds of thousands (April 6 1969)to more than a million people (April 24 1971) participated in demonstrations, organized and led by active duty GIs and Vietnam Veterans. It is these people, who are our parents and grandparents, who were never asked and now for what ever reasons do not speak up when conservatives and revisionist historians make the claims that Vietnam Veterans were isolated and shunned by the civilian antiwar movement, that they were spat on and abused and that they were never given the chance to parade. As is shown by the events, listed in the April 1971 calendar, not only is this a lie, but over 2,000 Veterans paraded through Washington DC, with hopes to a lay a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier (the gates of Arlington Cemetery were locked to keep them out.

They, unlike the paid contractors who have unlimited access to congressmen and their staffs to lobby for the defense industries to keep defense spending artificially high and prolong the wars their children do not die in, found the doors of their congressmen locked as their representatives were not in town for some reason.

Lastly, they attempted to hold a rally on the steps of the Capitol, only to find it blocked to them by a fence over which they had to throw their medals because their congressmen were out of town and so could not receive them back in person.

These men deserved better in 1971, and they do not deserve to be written out of history any more. If these calendars can help draw attention to them as well as generate interest in the slowly decaying newspapers where their exploits are chronicled. I will have achieved my goal.