Jeff Sharlet ( activist ) Jeff Sharlet ( 1942 – 1969 ) , a Vietnam veteran , was a leader of the GI resistance movement during the Vietnam War and the founding editor of " Vietnam GI " . David Cortright , a major chronicler of the Vietnam GI protest movement wrote , " " Vietnam GI " , the most influential early paper , surfaced at the end of 1967 , distributed to tens of thousands of GIs , many in Vietnam , closed down after the death of founder Jeff Sharlet in June , 1969 . " Biography . Early life . Sharlet was born and raised in Glens Falls , New York , a small town in the foothills of the Adirondacks , and later in the state capital of Albany . In 1960 he graduated from The Albany Academy , a private military academy . Military training and assignment : Philippines . Restless during his first year of college , Sharlet withdrew and decided to fulfill his military obligation . In return for a three - year enlistment in the United States Army Security Agency ( ASA ) , a communications intelligence outfit , he was promised a year ' s training in a Slavic language followed by a European posting . But at the Army Language School he was bumped into the Vietnamese language course . He and fellow students spent six hours a day in class over 11½ months . In early 1963 Sharlet was sent to Clark Air Base in the Philippines where he was assigned to the 9th ASA at Stotsenberg Field Station as a Vietnamese translator / interpreter . With a Top Secret / Cryptographic security clearance he and fellow linguists monitored Vietnam People ' s Army radio communications . Vietnam duty . In late August 1963 Sharlet and a small team of linguists were flown to Saigon on short notice and transferred to the Army Security Agency ' s 3rd Radio Research Unit , Davis Station , named after the first American GI killed in combat during the Vietnam War , at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside the capital . The transfer occurred at the time of the secret US - backed coup planning by South Vietnamese generals against the Ngo Dinh Diem regime . From Davis Station , Sharlet and seven others were dispatched to Phu Lam , a US Signals base , where they worked on a remote corner of the base apart from Army signals personnel . Each day ' s product was sent by heavily armed jeep down to Tan Son Nhut from where it was airlifted to Washington , D . C . for analysis at the National Security Agency . Very shortly before the November 1 coup which overthrew Diem , Sharlet and the special team were pulled out and ordered back to Clark Air Base in the Philippines . By then , as he later related to family , he was beginning to experience doubts about the U . S . mission in Vietnam . A few months later , Sharlet was shipped back to Vietnam , this time on the eve of the 1964 South Vietnamese coup by General Nguyen Khanh against the junta on January 30 . Following the quick success of the coup , Sharlet was re - assigned north to Phu Bai , an Army Security Agency base just below the 1954 boundary between North and South Vietnam , the DMZ . There he was attached to Detachment J , a branch of the 3rd Radio Research Unit providing communications support for commando operations in North Vietnam . Sharlet was also seconded to a nearby Marine intelligence unit for Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol s . By the time he finished his Vietnam tour late May 1964 , Sharlet had seen enough political corruption and military incompetence of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam ( ARVN ) , often compounded by exaggerated , upbeat reports by U . S . military advisors , to become thoroughly disillusioned with U . S . involvement in what he considered a Vietnamese civil war . SDS days at Indiana University . Sharlet returned to college fall of 1964 , re - entering Indiana University ( IU ) in Bloomington where he majored in Political Science . In early 1965 , the Vietnam War escalated with the launching of U . S . bombing raids against the North and the landing of Marine combat units in the South . By April , student protest against the war had begun to spread on U . S . campuses . At IU , early organizers of a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society ( SDS ) in 1965 included Bob and John Grove , Robin Hunter , Peter Montague , Karl North , Rick Ross , Bernella and David Satterfield , Jim Wallihan , and Sharlet . In the fall of 1965 Sharlet joined SDS , and during his following two years at IU participated in , helped organize , or co - led SDS demonstrations against campus visits by several prominent pro - Vietnam War speakers , including former Vice President Richard Nixon , General Maxwell Taylor , General Lewis Blaine Hershey , and President Lyndon Baines Johnson when he spoke in nearby Indianapolis . On campus , he supported the protest against the arrest of two members of the leftist youth W . E . B . DuBois Club , Bruce Klein and Allen Gurevitz . During his tenure as SDS co - chairman Spring term 1967 , with the help of Bob Tennyson , Sharlet took public issue with IU President Elvis Jacob Stahr , Jr . , a former Secretary of the Army , over his criticism of the New Left and later played a significant role in getting SDS activist Guy Loftman elected IU student body president . Sharlet won a Woodrow Wilson Graduate Fellowship which he chose to use at University of Chicago in its Political Science PhD program beginning fall 1967 . Chicago and ' Vietnam GI ' . During his IU years Sharlet had pondered the question of how to give voice to opposition to the war which he knew existed among many Vietnam GIs . In the summer of 1967 he went to New York City where he met fellow ex - Vietnam GI Jan Barry Crumb and joined his fledgling organization , Vietnam Veterans Against the War ( VVAW ) . Returning to Chicago Sharlet began graduate work , but by the end of the Fall term decided to withdraw to resume his anti - war work full - time . Using his Woodrow Wilson Fellowship funds , Sharlet launched the first GI - run anti - war paper addressed to GIs , calling it " Vietnam GI " ( " VGI " ) . The first issue was dated January , 1968 . His associate editor was David Komatsu , and the editorial board of ex - Vietnam GIs included Jan Barry , [ Joseph Carey ] , William Harris , Peter Martinsen , Dink McCarter , James Pidgeon , Gary Rader , Francis Rocks , David Tuck , and James Zaleski . A civilian conscientious objector , Thomas Barton , served as VGI ' s East Coast distributor and was responsible for unobtrusively shipping bundles of the paper to Vietnam . " Vietnam GI " quickly became a success among GIs stateside and in Vietnam where soldiers like Terry DeMott , a helicopter door gunner in the Americal Division stationed near Chu Lai , and a number of sympathetic unit mail clerks helped circulate the paper surreptitiously . It was free to GIs , and requests for individual subscriptions as well as multiple copies for distribution in stateside barracks and Vietnam combat units soared , with the print run reaching 30 , 000 copies by fall 1968 . Letters - to - the editor indicated that single copies passed through many hands . In August a separate " Stateside " edition of " VGI " was launched . Between issues , Sharlet worked wealthy liberal circles on both coasts for contributions to support production costs . Barbara Garson , author of " MacBird " , a widely performed anti - war play of the late 1960s , was an especially helpful West Coast contact . While traveling , Sharlet kept in touch with civilian activists running GI coffee houses outside major bases , including Judy Olasov at Ft . Leonard Wood , Missouri ; Larry Langowski at Fort Sill , Oklahoma ; and Donna Mickleson , national coordinator of the coffee house movement based in the San Francisco Bay area , as well as draft resistance groups which distributed " Vietnam GI " at induction centers , including CADRE ( Chicago Area Draft Resisters ) and the Boston Draft Resistance Group in New England , which not only helped by having the paper printed in Boston but also by shipping copies into Vietnam and distributing it throughout New England . In late 1968 Sharlet visited the Oleo Strut , the highly activist GI coffee house , and nearby Fort Hood in Killeen , Texas . Run by Josh Gould and Janet " Jay " Lockard , it was associated with the strike of the " Fort Hood 43 , " Black troops who refused riot duty at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago . Sharlet also represented the burgeoning GI anti - war movement at conferences in Japan and in Sweden where he worked with the theologians Harvey Cox , Michael Novak , and the late Richard John Neuhaus Illness and death . The success of " Vietnam GI " and the growing GI protest against the war led to national media coverage for Sharlet and the paper in " Esquire " , " New York Times " , and on NBC Nightly Television News as well as the AP and NEA newswire services . In early 1969 a problem first experienced in Vietnam resurfaced , and he underwent surgery for kidney cancer . As David Komatsu wrote in " Vietnam GI " , " From there it was steadily downhill all the way . At the end , he said he had many new ideas for our fight , but was just too exhausted to talk about them . " Sharlet died on June 16 , 1969 , age 27 . Posthumous recognition . Sharlet ' s work as a founder of the GI protest movement was eulogized in the underground press throughout the country , including " The Movement " , " Veterans Stars & Stripes for Peace " , " Guardian " , and " The Old Mole " of Cambridge , Massachusetts . David Dellinger with Barbara Webster published a long remembrance of Sharlet for the magazine " Liberation " . A new GI underground paper , " Next Step " , published in Heidelberg , then West Germany , was dedicated to him , while Fred Gardner , in the definitive account of the 1968 Presidio Mutiny 27 , The Unlawful Concert ( 1970 ) , dedicated his book to " Jeff Sharlet , founder of Vietnam GI , dead at 27 . " During past decades a number of scholars of the Vietnam anti - war movement have written about Sharlet and " Vietnam GI " in books and journals , including in recent years Andrew E . Hunt , " The Turning : A History of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War " ( 1999 ) ; David Cortright , " Soldiers in Revolt : GI Resistance During the Vietnam War " ( reissued 2005 ) ; Bob Ostertag , " People ' s Movements / People ' s Press " ( 2006 ) ; and a new middle school text , " The American Journey : Modern Times " ( 2009 ) . Most recently , in 2012 , the " Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award " , the first literary prize for military veterans was inaugurated at the University of Iowa , the nation ' s premier school for writers . The contest results appear in the Spring 2013 issue of the " Iowa Review " . The most dramatic tribute has been the award - winning documentary , " Sir ! No Sir ! " ( 2005 ) , on the Vietnam GI anti - war movement screened in theaters across the country and recently shown on Sundance Channel , co - dedicated to Sharlet , as the director David Zeiger put it , " for starting it all . " Notes . 1 David Cortright , a major chronicler of the Vietnam GI protest movement wrote , " " Vietnam GI " , the most influential early paper , surfaced at the end of 1967 , distributed to tens of thousands of GIs , many in Vietnam , closed down after the death of founder Jeff Sharlet in June , 1969 . " " Soldiers in Revolt : GI Resistance During the Vietnam War " ( 1975 ) , p . 324 . After Sharlet ' s death , three ex - GI ' s , John Alden , Joe Harris and Craig Walden carried on editing the paper until essential funding from the U . S . Servicemen ' s Fund ( USSF ) dried up after the final issue in August 1970 . For the front pages of each issue of " Vietnam GI " , written by and for enlisted men who were committed to ending the war , see http : / / www . sirnosir . com / archives _ and _ resources / galleries / cover _ pages / vietnam _ gi . html . ( see also Sir ! No Sir ! ) 2 See 9th United States Army Security Agency , http : / / www . 9thasastotsenberg . com / , select " About 9th USASAFS . " 3 ASA Specialist Four James T . Davis ( see Richard B . Fitzgibbon , Jr . ) was killed in a Viet Cong ambush outside Saigon on December 22 , 1961 . See http : / / www . comcenterspec . homestead . com / DavisStation . html . 4 On the South Vietnamese military ' s coup planning and the Kennedy Administration ' s involvement resulting in the overthrow and death of President Ngo Dinh Diem on November 1 , 1963 , see Grant , " Facing the Phoenix " , pp . 198 – 215 , based on extensive interviews with Lucien Conein , the CIA operative who served as liaison between the White House and the coup plotters ; Prados , " The White House Tapes : Eavesdropping on the President : A Book and CD Set " , especially the audio on JFK ' s meetings with his secret committee on the coup planning on disks 2 & 3 ; and Dommen , " The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans " , pp . 520 – 59 , based on declassified State Department cables and CIA reports between Saigon and Washington , D . C . , on the progress and final execution of the coup plans . 5 The Phu Bai military base was 9 miles SE of Huế , capital of one of South Vietnam ' s northernmost provinces . See the map at http : / / www . cswayne . com / huemap . html which shows the village of Phu Bai just south of the ASA base . 6 See " The Pentagon Papers " : As Published by the " New York Times " , p . 238 . 7 On the Marine 1st Composite Radio Company , see USMC , 1st Radio Battalion , Vietnam Veterans . On the composition and mission of the Marine unit , see Radio Battalion . 8 See Brigham , " ARVN : Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army " , especially ch . 5 . n the disastrous Battle of Ap Bac ( January , 1963 ) which became emblematic of the South Vietnamese Army ' s failures ; see Halberstam ' s firsthand account in " The Making of a Quagmire " , pp . 146 – 62 ; and Sheehan ' s detailed discussion in " A Bright Shining Lie " , pp . 212 – 65 . 9 On the launching of the bombing campaign , Operation Rolling Thunder , on March 2 , 1965 , and the landing of the first Marine combat battalions at Da Nang on March 8 , 1965 , see respectively Lewy , " America in Vietnam " , pp . 375 – 78 and 42 - 49 . 10 On the formation of the Indiana University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society in 1965 , see Wynkoop , " Dissent in the Heartland : The Sixties at Indiana University " , pp . 36 , 43 - 44 , 46 , and 51 . 11 On LBJ ' s appearance in Indianapolis on July 23 , 1966 and the preemptive arrests of many of the IU SDS protestors , see Wynkoop , " Dissent in the Heartland " , pp . 44 – 45 . 12 The first W . E . B . DuBois Clubs , Marxist discussion groups named after a prominent African - American civil rights leader , were organized in the San Francisco Bay Area during 1963 . The following year the national organization , W . E . B . DuBois Clubs of America , was formed . See Freeman , " At Berkeley in the Sixties " , p . 27 . By 1966 the national organization was under investigation by U . S . Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach . In September , Klein and Gurevitz were arrested on the IU campus for defying the university ' s ban on the DuBois Club participating in the fall activities fair at the student union . 13 See Jeff Sharlet , " The Role of the New Left on the Campus : State of the Students , State of the University " , The " Spectator " , March 13 , 1967 , pp . 3 – 6 , for Sharlet ' s reply to IU President Elvis Stahr ' s remarks in an address to the university faculty . 14 Sharlet , at the time SDS co - chairman , was a draftsman of the winning candidate ' s campaign platform . Guy Loftman , an SDS activist was declared victor in the election . See " Indiana Daily Student " , April 14 , 1967 , p . 1 . 15 Woodrow Wilson Fellowships were awarded for graduate study through a national competition to seniors showing the greatest promise of becoming college teachers and covered graduate school tuition , room , and board . See http : / / www . woodrow . org / fellowships . php . Recently the Woodrow Wilson Foundation honored Sharlet with a profile in its publication " Fellowship " ( Fall 2008 ) , pp . 7 – 8 . 16 Jan Barry Crumb , who later shortened his name to Jan Barry , was founder and first president of Vietnam Veterans Against the War . See Nicosia , " Home to War : A History of the Vietnam Veterans Movement " , pp . 15 – 17 . 17 See Barton ' s interview , " Jeff Sharlet and Vietnam GI " , an " extra " feature on the DVD " Sir ! No Sir ! : The Suppressed Story of the GI Movement to End the War in Vietnam " , Displaced Films , New Video Group , 2006 . Barton today sees himself carrying on Sharlet ' s work in his current role as editor of the daily online Iraq GI antiwar newsletter , " GI Special " , now known as " Military Resistance " archived at http : / / www . militaryproject . org / , which he conceives of as a continuation of " Vietnam GI " in the present context . He also assisted ex - Iraq GIs in organizing Iraq Veterans Against the War . 18 In " The New Winter Soldiers : GI and Veteran Dissent During the Vietnam Era " , p . 104 , Moser wrote that " Vietnam GI " " became one of the most successful soldier newspapers of the period . " While the press run for the first issue was relatively modest , Cortright in " Soldiers in Revolt " , p . 55 reported it was soon " exceeding fifteen thousand . " Reviewing the paper ' s history , Ostertag in " People ' s Movements / People ' s Press " , p . 126 , concluded that " " Vietnam GI " set a standard of excellence unmatched in the underground GI press . " 19 On Knutson , see Jim Pidgeon , " Mỹ Sơn the Newspaper " , " Vietnam GI " , April 1968 , p . 7 . 20 See Franklin , " Vietnam and Other American Fantasies " , p . 106 . 21 On the organization of GI coffee houses , see Cortright , " Soldiers in Revolt " , pp . 53 – 54 . For the military ' s reaction , see Ben A . Franklin , " Antiwar G . I . ' s and Army Head for Clash Over Vietnam " , " New York Times " , April 28 , 1969 , p . 22 . 22 Mickleson was co - founder with Fred Gardner of the GI coffee house movement . See Moser , " The New Winter Soldiers " , p . 98 . 23 See Foley , " Confronting the War Machine : Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War " , pp . 321 & 420 , n . 62 . 24 " Fort Hood Strike " , " Vietnam GI " , Stateside edition , September 1968 , p . 1 . 25 The conference took place in Kyoto in August , 1968 . On Sharlet ' s participation , see Halstead , " Out Now ! : A Participant ' s Account of the American Movement Against the Vietnam War " , pp . 427 – 28 . 26 The meeting took place in Stockholm in October , 1968 as reported in the Swedish press , " Sexton Faktasokare Fran USA ( Sixteen Factfinders from the USA ) " , " Dagens Nyheter " , October 28 , 1968 , p . 1 . 27 Robert Christgau , " Military Personnel Will Not Participate in Any Activity Having to Do with Creating a Union " , " Esquire " , August 1968 , pp . 112 & 116 . 28 Donald Janson , " Antiwar Coffee Houses Delight G . I . ' s but Not Army " , " New York Times " , August 12 , 1968 , pp . 1 and 41 . 29 The NEA ' s national feature by Tom Tiede , " GI ' s Aim Resentment at Brass " , ran in the Schenectady ( NY ) " Union - Star " , September 24 , 1968 , p . 19 . , while the AP ' s national feature by Fred Hoffman , " GI Protest Newspapers Add Fury to Army ' s Ire " , ran in the Albany ( NY ) " Times - Union " , May 25 , 1969 , p . A - 7 . " Vietnam GI " was highlighted in a feature on the UFO GI coffee house at Fort Jackson , South Carolina on NBC Nightly Television News with Huntley - Brinkley on August 9 , 1968 . 30 " Jeff Sharlet Dies " , ( obituary ) , " Vietnam GI " , August 1969 , p . 3 . 31 " Mr . Sharlet , Founder of GI Magazine " , Miami ( FL ) " Herald " , June 18 , 1969 , p . 3 - B . 32 Lincoln Bergman , " Jeff Sharlet , Editor of Vietnam GI " , The " Movement " , August 1969 , p . 17 . 33 " Jeff Sharlet Dies " , " Veterans Stars & Stripes for Peace " , Summer 1969 , p . 1 . 34 Jim Retherford , " Jeff Sharlet Dies of Cancer " , " Guardian " , July 5 , 1969 , p . 3 . 35 " We regret to announce the death of Jeff Sharlet , Founder and Editor of Vietnam GI " , The " Old Mole " , June 20 - July 3 , 1969 , p . 2 . 36 David Dellinger & Barbara Webster , " The first edition of Vietnam GI came out in January , 1968 . … Today Jeff died of cancer " , " Liberation " , July 1969 , p . 2 . The July issue was dedicated to Sharlet . 37 Published by Viking Press , see page v . 38 see pp . 23 , 26 , 30 - 32 , and 34 . 39 Originally published by Anchor / Doubleday , reissued by Haymarket Books , see pp . 55 and 324 . 40 Published by Beacon Press , see pp . 125 – 32 . 41 Published by McGraw - Hill , see page 476 . 42 In the late 1960s David Zeiger had been a civilian volunteer at the Oleo Strut , the GI coffee house near Fort Hood , Texas . For his filmography as a writer / director , see David Zeiger - Moviefone .