page_title: A Matter of Conscience
section_title: Army
hierarchical_section_title: A Matter of Conscience / Contents / Army
caption_attribution_description: English: Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan GI resister during the Vietnam War, said "The whole thing was a lie."
context_page_description: A Matter of Conscience: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War is an artist book published in 1992 at the time of the Addison Gallery of American Art exhibition, “A Matter of Conscience” and “Vietnam Revisited.” It contains oral histories of Vietnam era GIs gathered and edited by Willa Seidenberg and William Short and 58 photographs by William Short. Each oral history is complimented by a portrait in which the Vietnam veteran holds an object of some significance such as a newspaper clipping, a legal document, a book, or photograph. The large black and white photographs allow readers to see the veteran while reading the brief but moving oral histories to learn why they turned against the Vietnam War. The veterans' stories and portraits were collected over a five year period and have been exhibited throughout the United States, Vietnam, Japan and Australia. A number of them were also included in the book Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War edited by Ron Carver, David Cortright, and Barbara Doherty. It was published in September 2019 by New Village Press.
context_section_description: Captain Howard Levy became one of the most well known GI resisters during the Vietnam War when he refused to train combat medics. His photo radiates this defiance as we see him, arms crossed with a determined look on his face. During his court-martial he recalls trying "to put the war on trial, but the military court said the truth is no defense."
  John Tuma was assigned to military intelligence and soon realized he was expected to participate in torturing the prisoners. When he refused and reported the use of a torture device he was transferred and then almost killed twice by his own side. His photo reveals a wiser and sadder man.
  Andy Stapp, who burned his draft card while a student at Penn State, may seem like an unlikely Army enlistee. And he was — he agreed to be drafted in order to organize soldiers against the war. He gave the Army so much trouble they tried court-martialing and transferring him numerous times. In late 1967, he met with dissident GIs from nine different bases and started the American Servicemen's Union, which had ten demands, including an end to racism in the Army and the right to refuse illegal orders. His portrait shows him holding his autobiography Up Against the Brass and an Esquire magazine cover story about the Union.
  Carl Dix, a black man from Baltimore, recalls arriving at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and seeing a big sign outside the base — "Welcome to KKK Country". He was influenced by the "developing black consciousness" and especially Malcolm X who spoke against black Americans going to oppress the Vietnamese when they were being oppressed at home. He also read about police murdering Black Panther members in Chicago and Los Angeles and realized there was a war in the U.S. too. He knew he had to decide what side he was on. "I decided I couldn't be a part of the war in Vietnam. I couldn't go fight for America." In his photo he holds The Autobiography of Malcolm X in one hand and Mao Zedong's Little Red Book in the other while he wears a t-shirt with a large image of Mao on the front.
  Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan spent 10 1/2 years in the U.S. Army before publicly announcing "I quit" on the cover of Ramparts Magazine. "The administration and the Generals were deceiving the American people and betraying its troops." His photo shows him holding that fateful issue of Ramparts along with his autobiography The New Legions.
  Dave Cline recalls reading Donald Duncan autobiography The New Legions while recovering from an NVA bullet through his knee. Duncan "basically wrote we're fighting on the wrong side" — "it made a lot of sense to me". He returned home to organize other GIs against the war and join Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He is pictured holding the Fort Hood GI underground newspaper Fatigue Press.
  Returning from Vietnam, Skip Delano was "very committed to fighting this whole machine that sent us there". He co-founded Left Face, the GI underground newspaper at Fort McClellan in Alabama and was one of 1,366 active-duty servicemen who signed an antiwar petition printed in The New York Times on November 9, 1969. In his photo he wears a button saying "To Hell with Rambo and all He Represents" and holds copies of Left Face.
  Dave Blalock's photo shows him holding the full page in NY Times petition which Skip Delano had signed. He tells how seeing this led him, with several other guys in the 1st Cav, to organize the other GIs in their unit in Vietnam to wear black armbands. At the next morning's formation all the enlisted men and some of the doctors and helicopter pilots were wearing armbands - the commanding officer was so shocked he gave the whole unit the day off.
  The picture of Terry Irvin shows him holding a GI underground newspaper called Free Press and a copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. And therein lies his story. He and other GIs had been trying unsuccessfully to get approval to distribute Free Press on Fort Lewis and McChord Air Base. In protest, about a dozen soldiers and some civilian supporters went to the base on the Forth of July 1971 and distributed co
caption: Donald Duncan photo by William Short from A Matter of Conscience
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