{"id":387,"date":"2019-01-21T17:35:56","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T01:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/basewatch\/?p=387"},"modified":"2019-05-28T22:53:23","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T05:53:23","slug":"zoltan-grossman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/basewatch\/zoltan-grossman\/","title":{"rendered":"Military Dissent at Fort Lewis during the Iraq War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) rally at the Fort Lewis gate (Credit: Zolt\u00e1n Grossman).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zolt\u00e1n Grossman<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The early morning scene could have been at any one of the innumerable coffeehouses in the Pacific Northwest. Two baristas served steaming mugs of espresso, while their co-worker produces graphics on a computer. Another employee played Rachmaninoff on the piano. Customers sipped their coffee as they read the morning newspaper.<\/p>\n

Yet at second glance, both baristas were Iraq War veterans wearing t-shirts against the war. One served in Iraq as an Army machine gunner, and the other as Marine machine gunner. The guy on the computer was an Army counterintelligence agent in Mosul, and the guy playing the piano was a private first class in the Army National Guard. Most of the customers were wearing khaki fatigues, and reading about their imminent deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

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Coffee Strong G.I. resource center near Fort Lewis in Lakewood, Washington (Credit: Zolt\u00e1n Grossman).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

G.I. Voice and Coffee Strong<\/h2>\n

This was Coffee Strong, a G.I. coffeehouse and resource center outside the gates of Fort Lewis, renamed Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) in 2010. It was located in Lakewood, Washington, between Olympia and Tacoma. The coffeehouse\u2014whose name spoofed the recruitment slogan “Army Strong”\u2014was opened on Election Day 2008 by G.I. Voice, a local veteran-led nonprofit project, and closed in 2015.<\/p>\n

Coffee Strong was modeled after the G.I. coffeehouse movement from the 1960s, including the Shelter Half coffeehouse near Fort Lewis (see Vietnam Era<\/a>). The G.I. movement against the Vietnam War is\u00a0 described in the book Soldiers in Revolt <\/em>(Cortright 2005), and the documentary Sir! No Sir! <\/em>(Zeiger 2005). But G.I. Voice used 21st-century outreach tools to connect with soldiers and their families, such as computers for soldiers to access the Internet without Army interference. Coffee Strong was only the second G.I. rights coffeehouse to open in the country since the Vietnam War; others were opened during the Iraq War in New York, Texas, and Virginia.<\/p>\n

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Coffee Strong G.I. resource center near Fort Lewis in Lakewood, Washington (Credit: Zolt\u00e1n Grossman).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The goal of Coffee Strong was to provide soldiers, their families and recent veterans a place away from the base where they can learn about resources available to them, meet with G.I. rights counselors, veterans\u2019 health care advocates, and access alternative information (Murphy 2009). It held hosted films and speakers, hiphop, punk, and folk concerts, art workshops, and other events.<\/p>\n

G.I. Voice described its mission as “pro-soldier, anti-war.” The group was independent of any other organizations or political parties, as an autonomous expression of the community of soldiers, veterans and their families affected by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Antiwar veterans often felt unrepresented both by mainstream veterans\u2019 groups that support the wars, and peace groups that do not understand the experiences and grievances of soldiers. Through G.I. Voice, and other groups such as Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and Military Families Speak Out, they organized among themselves to speak for themselves, and to provide servicemembers and their families with a place to freely express themselves.<\/p>\n

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Washington Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) rally in Tacoma (Credit: Zolt\u00e1n Grossman).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fort Lewis spokesman Joe Kubistek said the Army was aware of the coffeehouse, but acknowledges that since it is a legal business, the Army would not restrict soldiers from going there. But at times, soldiers reported, commanders told them privately not to go to Coffee Strong.<\/p>\n

G.I. Voice addressed issues of concern to soldiers during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars\u2014such as repeated \u201cStop-Loss\u201d deployments to war zones, command abuse, repression of constitutional rights, Military Sexual Trauma (harassment and rape), health and safety conditions, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The group maintains that once servicemembers are actively struggling with their command around issues of working conditions, they can start to see the connections between the occupation of other countries and their own situation in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Former G.I. Voice Director Seth Manzel spent a year deployed in Iraq in 2004, assigned to the 1st Stryker Brigade from Fort Lewis. He wrote in the local newspaper Works in Progress<\/em>, \u201cFor soldiers and their families to engage in resistance requires them to stand up for soldiers\u2019 rights. The mere act of standing up for one\u2019s rights in the Army is enough to slow down a unit\u2019s deployment times. The Army could not function if it delivered on all its promises to soldiers and their families. In this way a moderate message (stand up for G.I. rights) could have a radical effect on the military. We don\u2019t need to indoctrinate people in the military. If we inform them of their rights, they will come to anti-war conclusions on their own\u201d (Manzel 2008).<\/p>\n

Soldiers and civilians<\/h2>\n

Perhaps nowhere else in the country is there such a stark juxtaposition between a large military base community and large progressive antiwar communities, in nearby Olympia and Tacoma. Civilian residents of the area see and hear Middle East wars almost every day. It is impossible to miss hearing the howitzer fire booming on the artillery range (see Noise Issues<\/a>), seeing the giant C-17 transport planes from Baghdad or Bagram landing at McChord Field, or overlooking the often-untreated PTSD exhibited in local car accidents, robberies, bar brawls, domestic abuse, and sexual assaults (see Social Crises<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Iraq War increased the polarization between the military and antiwar communities, but also increased opportunities to work together\u2014since both communities actually care when there\u2019s a war going on, when the rest of civilian society casually ignores the war.<\/p>\n

Veteran Cesario Larios said he was involved with Coffee Strong \u201cso we can encourage soldiers who have huge moral reservations about what the military is doing. Some of them are choosing alcohol and drugs to avoid the reality of feeling trapped within their military contract and a future that includes more deployments that they don\u2019t wish to take part in\u2014that\u2019s why we\u2019re seeing more suicides. I think that if we can show them that there is a broad base of support from vets and civilians, they will begin to see there is another way\u201d (Paton 2011).<\/p>\n

In 2006-08, large direct actions at the Ports of Olympia and Tacoma protested the movement of Stryker armored vehicles to and from Iraq (see Civilian Dissent<\/a>). Port protesters noticed some Stryker soldiers flashing peace signs when their officers were not watching (even if a smaller number of soldiers instead flashed \u201chalf a peace sign\u201d). Pro-war and anti-war demonstrators clashed on the Interstate-5 overpass at Exit 122, which the Lakewood City Council renamed \u201cFreedom Bridge\u201d to honor the pro-war group\u2019s presence. The G.I. coffeehouse was only a few hundred yards from the overpass and the base gates.<\/p>\n

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Vigil for Sgt. Kevin Benderman on the I-5 Exit 122 overpass (Credit: Kevin Benderman Defense Committee).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Center of dissent<\/h2>\n

During the Iraq War, Fort Lewis became a national center of G.I. dissent against the Iraq War, as it was during the Vietnam War. The G.I. movement both contested space, by holding rallies and protests at the base gates, and reclaimed space, by providing a resource center that offered a haven and services to soldiers. Dahr Jamail\u2019s book The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan <\/em>(Jamail 2009), and Lisa Gilman\u2019s documentary Grounds for Resistance<\/em> (Gilman 2011), detail some of stories of dissenting soldiers at the base.<\/p>\n

Army refusers were jailed for a time in the harsh Fort Lewis jail, also called the stockade or brig. They included Sgt. Kevin Benderman, who had applied for Conscientious Objector (C.O.) status and was jailed in the brig (Benderman 2007).\u00a0 Spc. Suzanne Swift went Absent Without Leave (AWOL) from her military police unit after being raped (Barber 2006).<\/p>\n

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Army Specialist Suzanne Swift, who was convicted for going AWOL after reporting being sexually assaulted (Credit: Suzanne Swift).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Army interrogator Ricky Clousing went AWOL after witnessing abuses of power in Iraq, and turned himself in at Fort Lewis (Clousing 2006). Sgt. Travis Bishop, who had served\u00a0served 14 months in Baghdad, was sentenced to a 12 months for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan, as he was seeking a C.O. discharge based on his Christian beliefs (Amnesty International 2009).<\/p>\n

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Ricky Clousing speaks at national convention of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and Veterans for Peace (VfP) in Seattle in 2006 (Credit: Zolt\u00e1n Grossman).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lieutenant Ehren Watada was tried in February 2007 for being the first commissioned officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq (Yardley 2007). Peace activists staged support rallies, and a \u201cCitizens\u2019 Hearing\u201d tribunal to present Lt. Watada\u2019s case that the Iraq War was illegal (Citizens Hearing 2007).<\/p>\n

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Vietnam War whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg with Lt. Ehren Watada at Citizens’ Hearing on the Legality of the War in Iraq (Credit: Zolt\u00e1n Grossman).<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Tribunal hearing panel members, half of whom were military veterans, at the Citizens’ Hearing on the Legality of the War in Iraq, held in Tacoma in January 2007 (Credit: Zolt\u00e1n Grossman).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n