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GI Coffeehouse Opens at Ft. Drum in New York

By Hannah Frisch

When you come to the Different Drummer Internet Cafe, you'll be welcomed by Cindi Mercante, former military, Army '84-'92, mother, and local resident for the last five years. Cindi is the on-site manager of the six-month-old café near Ft. Drum, "the door-opener" she calls herself modestly. "I think of this as the big living room down on Paddock Arcade."

"The community here doesn't know quite how to take us. They first heard about us from a newspaper headline, 'Anti-War Café opens in Paddock Arcade.' The anti-war label loses people who don't understand that you can help service members while being anti-war. People ask, 'Are you anti-war or do you support the soldiers?' I ask them, Can't you do both? If you give people a minute to think for themselves, they do -- if you give them an atmosphere where they feel comfortable."

"I've had soldiers come in here and tell me, 'You guys are all wrong.' I ask them why. Then we talk. Soldiers need to feel they are in a safe place to share how they really feel."

"We don't all have to agree. We need to have compassion for the other's point of view."

Cindi describes the space to me over the phone: "Pretty big space, white walls. There are posters of bands that have played here. We also have maps on the wall, maps of the US, of Iraq and Afghanistan, New York maps, some of them antique. There is a water channel map. People are always looking at the maps. We have computers for internet access. Coffee, tea and hot chocolate mix are free. People can get a soda and a treat for $1."

"On another wall are 3,100 names of soldiers we've lost in Iraq. Sometimes I put the names in the window for people to look at. It's sad. Sometimes people see names of people they knew. You wish you could bring that person back for them. We have a small Vietnam wall going on right here in the Paddock Arcade. It would be nice not to add any more names to it but I'm not thinking that will be the case."

The coffee house started slowly with only a few service members coming in. Only 12 people, including 2 soldiers and one military family member, attended an appearance by Col. Ann Wright, although she drew a larger crowd earlier at the local junior college. Film showings of Sir! No Sir!, Iraq for Sale, the Ground Truth, An Inconvenient Truth, Poisoned Dust (about DU) drew modest crowds.

The Different Drummer hit its stride when it invited local bands to play. They were happy to have the chance to perform for a share of the modest door charge. They brought in young people, including soldiers. A local band will draw 65-70 people, including 15-20 soldiers. Just recently a soldier told Cindi that, "This place is the new word at Ft. Drum." Cindi says people are beginning to get the idea this is a cool hangout place, not a radical hippie place.

The Different Drummer is a project of Citizen Soldier. Director Tod Ensign believes that only a GI movement can stop the war in Iraq. He stresses how different things are now from the times when GI coffee houses flourished during the Vietnam War. "Back then we had the counter-culture and the drug culture. There were posters of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix on the walls."

"We were the only cool places around, but we aren't cool to today's soldiers. They have many more sources of information and much more money than soldiers used to have. They have expensive computers, ipods, they own cars, they can get into bars because they are older and some bars let underage soldiers in anyway. Nevertheless, we do have a niche with soldiers who are under 21."

"Soldiers used to buy up copies of books about Malcolm X and about the Black Panthers, but our books haven't sold very well. Today's soldiers get their information from the internet. Soldiers will pick up handouts about events, about the Appeal for Redress, about veterans' services. Having a lawyer available is crucial because you need to give guys in trouble the correct information."

Volunteers to help Cindi have been hard to come by. The nearest large city is Syracuse, 65 miles away. People in economically depressed areas don't have the leisure to volunteer. Students at the local college are married adults with children.

The café runs on $40,000 to $50,000 per year. Cindi is the only employee and the café is open only Wednesday and Thursday afternoons and Friday and Saturday evenings.

Like Cindi, Tod stresses the centrality of the base to the local economy, where wages are low and people struggle economically: "The community is totally economically dependent on the base. The community college would be welcoming in other areas but it is not here. We had to involve the New York Civil Liberties Union to be able to rent space at the college for veterans to talk about health care. We've found only two friendly professors. The mayor of Watertown was set to attend our opening press conference, but cancelled at the last minute."

If the Different Drummer succeeds, one factor will be the cordial collaboration between Tod, the longtime urban political activist and Cindi, the savvy, small town Army veteran. Cindi says of Tod, "He's a 60 year-old guy. I don't know if he knew what he was getting into. He drove through a couple of wicked snowstorms to get here. My hat's off to him. He has a passion for helping the soldiers for sure."

When I asked Tod why he thought the café could succeed in spite of all the obstacles he had laid out, he told me, "We have to try. Two years will be a fair trial." He estimates that 25 soldiers per week come through the café if a band is playing—not a bad start.