G.I. Resistance Pacific NW - Opening Remarks
Channel: Ed Mays
Date: 2022-10-08

During the Vietnam War, tens of thousands of GIs stepped out of formation.  Some refused orders to Vietnam. Some joined anti-war organizations. Some demonstrated against the war.  Some deserted to Canada and elsewhere. Some organized within the military.  Some started underground newspapers.  Some scribbled graffiti.  Some worked in anti-war coffee houses.  Some held teach-ins.  Some sang anti-war songs.  Some wrote powerful poetry or books.  Some counseled other GIs about their rights.  Some mutinied.  Some monkey-wrenched the Green Machine.  Some wrote their congresspeople.  Some did prison time for their opposition to that murderous war.  They all found profound and creative ways to help stop the war.  When they got out, many joined VVAW and other antiwar organizations, and continued to oppose the war in other ways.

But this important slice of Vietnam War history is not widely known.  As a corrective, Ron Carver, Barbara Doherty, and David Cortright, have assembled a powerful exhibit introducing some of the men and women who opposed the war from within.  Please take the time to visit the exhibit—there are always new things to learn from history.

This testimony is a part of that exhibit.

Opening Remarks:

Christoph Giebel is Associate Professor of International Studies and History, Jackson School of International Studies, UW. His research and teaching interests concern 20th c. Viet Nam; Comparative Colonialisms and (French and US) imperialism in (Southeast) Asia; history, historiography, and memory; and the spatial representations of the wars in Viet Nam.

Randy Rowland is a member and a cofounder of the Seattle VFP Chapter 92 in Seattle established in 2003. He was an Army medic, taking care of the wounded when he turned against the war. In 1968 he refused to train with the M-16 weapon at Ft. Lewis and was later convicted of mutiny as part of the Presidio 27.

Presented by Seattle Veterans For Peace Chapter 92 and the University of Washington’s Southeast Asia Center at the Jackson School of International Studies.
Recorded 10/5/22 at the University of Washington.

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