Cartoons from GI Papers published in April - The GI Movement (i) the clenched fist

I am reproducing these cartoons so the readers can get a fuller idea of the concerns and interests of the GI movement. If you own the copyright on any of these and want them removed, contact me at james_lewes@yahoo.com. If the content of the cartoons offends you, I apologize, but as Robert Crumb once wryly observed they are only lines on paper.

Before ... the only real outlet for grievances against ... the military was "barracks talk", "latrine bitching" and letters to congressmen that would usually end up in file 13. However, private and public interest  has increased and the channels of communication are more direct. Now is the time for all G.I.'s to add their voices collectively to the demand for immediate and constructive changes within the current military system. NOW! 

Now and not tommorow for to wait for tommorow is to wait for a rerun of yesterday. And this is exactly what a lot of brothers intend to do, to wait for tomorrow (ETS) and 'tom' in between. This is exactly what the Army wants of all it's draftees and enlistees! Complete and total submission to the system! Anything less would be considered a defect in moral character. And whenever some individual generates enough gall to stand up and raise his fist at the monster he is then said to be in need of discipline to correct the deficiency in his moral character. 

Thus one to the principle of the [movement] is to serve as a permanent reminder to the Westmorelands Throckmortons, and Tolsons ...  that because our bodies are controlled ... is no reason to think that our minds' are also.  

Freedom of thought is considered to be a communist plot by some of the babbling mentalities of our brass. The chains of oppression are being loosened and many of our brothers are walking out on the entire scene of being a military minded brainwashed uncle tom. These people have no desire to suffer those thousand unnatural shocks which their minds are not heir to. They have seen how a training program (Airborne, Ranger Green Berets, etc.) laced with nationalistic propoganda can instill a mechanical like obediance to the point of actually substituting his normal behavior. 

But other ... soldiers are still being sent to Nam to protect America's myths, ... still dying over seas as a result of obeying the prime directive established for a finished and brainwashed product of the system. There is no need for such systematic genocide to continue! Ideas have been put forward, letters have been written, telephone calls have been made, but still the same racist rhetoric abounds. Now is the time for action, the chains are loosening and the coming changes will bury those vho refuse to find out where it's at. (Bragg Briefs, vol. 2, no. 5)