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GIs Continue The Struggle

By VVAW

Homeporting in Japan

(The following is excerpted from a long letter sent by the GIs, GI families, and U.S. and Japanese civilians of the New People's Center in Yokosuka, Japan, a GI project. The letter describes some of the effects and reactions to the Navy's decision to homeport the USS MIDWAY in Yokosuka, effective for three years starting this month.)

Most people stationed or homeported here are now against the homeporting. The military has not substantially increased facilities even though the service population will jump from about 6500 to about 11,000. Yokosuka is already regarded as one of the worst places to be stationed in the Far East. Sailors involved in the VVAW/WSO chapter are working to build solidarity with the Japanese people opposed to homeporting. They wrote a letter to Yokosuka citizens explaining why they and other servicepeople are opposed to homeporting.

The Navy is taking its usual line. It claims that the demonstrators (such as the 20,000 people who staged a huge demonstration when the MIDWAY sailed into Yokosuka on October 5th) are paid agitators who will attack enlisted people and their families if given the chance. They do not allow entrance or exit to or from the base for even the smallest demonstration, and they have Japanese riot police and a Marine detachment guarding all entrances. But we are working to dispel these rumors and have regular Sunday night dinners with both servicepeople and Japanese people.

There has been an anti-homeporting movement on the MIDWAY since last spring. Sailors circulated a petition among crew members and their families, addressed to Congress. It protested U.S. military expansion, lack of facilities for servicepeople in Yokosuka, and the lack of civil rights in the military. They collected over 200 signatures in 2 days before the captain told them to stop. They also held an Armed Farces Day picnic in May and had a slide showing about Yokosuka and homeporting. The captain tried to quell the dissent by holding a barbecue on the flight deck. He also proposed an open discussion about homeporting, which backfired when 200 Black sailors stood up together and asked questions about Navy racism and about the homeporting! Many white sailors joined them in grilling the captain about U.S. military expansion and oppression of lower-ranking enlisted people. The captain then gave up and started looking for "volunteers" for the MIDWAY. Then he said that all but 400 of the crew had "volunteered"; but as it turned out, many sailors had been misled by tricky forms, and many others had been "volunteered" out of boot camp and didn't even know where they were going!

The day the MIDWAY sailed from California, current and former MIDWAY sailors sent a message of solidarity to the Japanese people.

"We wish to express our support of the rights of the people of Japan and all of Asia to determine their own future and to be spared massive U.S. military presence. (The Navy's claims of an all-volunteer crew)... does nothing to change the conditions and policies that the MIDWAY sailors are resisting and are oppressed by in the homeporting of the MIDWAY. As this becomes clear to the ?volunteer' lower EMs, we think they too will turn against homeporting and join with Japanese friends to fight homeporting in Yokosuka."

There is strong opposition to homeporting among Japanese labor unions, especially in Yokosuka. The Yokosuka baseworkers' union held a work stoppage in the spring and has taken a position against homeporting. The Navy is laying off many of the union workers and is subcontracting much of the work on base to a giant Japanese company, Sumitomo. This means that the new workers are forced to work for lower wages and many of the benefits the workers had struggled for will be eliminated. This saves the Navy money and creates profits for Sumitomo. Many of the baseworkers are in their 40s or 50s and can't work for the subcontractor. This also means that workers who would be eligible for Navy retirement in a few years lose all their eligibility. So American baseworkers who are being laid off should realize that it isn't Japanese workers who are the problem, because many of them are in the same position.

The coalition of Japanese unions and leftists that has been working against homeporting is learning more about the sailors' role in the struggle. In the past, one of their slogans was YANKEE GO HOME; they did not differentiate between enlisted people and policy makers. But they are beginning to realize that there are classes within the military and that there is a GI Movement. Individuals within this group are more progressive and we work together some; we work will all progressive groups against homeporting.

Anti-War P.O.W.s FREED

After months of harassment and brutality directed at them by the Pentagon, the four enlisted POWs who were charged with mutiny as a result of their actions in a North Vietnamese POW camp have been cleared of all charges by the Department of Defense. "Lack of evidence" was cited by the DoD as the reason for dropping the charges.

This victory has come at a very high cost. Eight men originally were charged with collaboration and other "crimes" because of their anti-war activities in the camp. Two officers were also charged, but charges against them were dropped in September. Of the eight GIs, one of them, Sgt. Larry Kavanugh, was driven to suicide by the intense harassment and baiting directed at him by the high brass in the Pentagon.

Of the others, three were discharged and no military charges could be placed against them. But the four remaining GIs -- Army Staff Sgt. James Daly, Army Staff Sgt. John Young, marine Staff Sgt. Alfonso Riate, and Marine Pvt. Frederick Elbert -- saw their charges dropped after Kavanaugh's suicide and then were charged again, by a different officer. It has been several months and it was not until early October that the Pentagon high powers decided that they didn't have a case.

These brothers tried to end the war in the same way that thousands of other GIs tried to: the only difference was that they were in a POW camp, under the watchful eyes of captive U.S. officers. The brass tried to destroy these men -- and, in the case of Larry Kavanaugh, the succeeded -- in an effort to discredit the major role that U.S. GIs played in bringing the direct U.S. combat role in Vietnam to an end. But the brothers have won their fight now. A number of them have been active in the amnesty and GI Movements, and several of them have done extensive speaking about the war and about amnesty. Now they will be able to do so without the brass muttering "mutiny!" in the background.

News from the USS AMERICA

(This is a press release sent by the AMERIKA INFORMATION COALITION, an organization of sailors present assigned to the USS AMERICA, one of the Navy's largest aircraft carriers.)

"The AMERIKA has been plagued by a particularly high rate of UAs (unauthorized absence). This can be attributed to the never-ending harassment which the enlisted (especially in the lower pay grades) have been subjected to!

"The situation is extremely serious in the two divisions directly involved in the operations of the main propulsion plant. These two divisions have been expected to stand "24 and carry on (24-hour duty) to correct mistakes made by others while the AMERIKA was in the yards. There have been several instances of enlisted protesting the unsafe working conditions in the machinery rooms. While the rest of the ship is in 6-section duty, two other divisions are being punished and are in 3-section duty. There have been several instances of sabotage and it will continue. Personnel are leaving en masse to protest the situation that exists on the AMERIKA!

UNITY-STRUGGLE-VICTORY

G.I.S PROTEST MIDEAST U.S. INVOLVEMENT

On October 13, as evidence continued to mount that the U.S. was willing to commit U.S. troops to the war in the Middle East, a group of GIs and civilians from four East Coast military bases staged a protest in Jacksonville, N.C., the base town for Camp Lejeune, the major Marine Corps base east of the Mississippi.

About 15 GIs from Fort Bragg, N.C.; Charleston Naval Base, S.C.' Camp Lejeune; and Norfolk Navy bases, Virginia joined 10 civilians in circulating a petition against U.S. involvement in the Mideast conflict. The petition was passed around at 3 shopping centers in the Jacksonville area, and in one day's leafletting about 200 signatures were gathered.

The petition read:
"To Senator William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
"Dear Sir,
"We, the undersigned citizens, soldiers, sailors, and marines, urge you to immediately introduce legislation forbidding the introduction of U.S. forces into the current Mideast hostilities. We do not want this to become another senseless Vietnam."

In an attempt to keep the brothers from distributing the petition, the Jacksonville cops arrested three of the GIs for supposedly "protesting and soliciting" (this is a crime in Jacksonville???), and threw them in jail. They were hoping to turn them over to MPs for a check to see if they were AWOL, and by the time all that got finished, the brothers wouldn't be able to go out and leaflet. But the other protesters got them out of jail without any formal charges being placed.

The protest was sponsored jointly by the Defense Committees, GI-civilian organizations at Lejeune, Norfolk, and Charleston, and the GI Union at Bragg. On November 2, a delegation of active-duty GIs from all four bases will go to Washington, D.C., to present the signed petitions to Fulbright.

Is there a real threat of the U.S. sending troops into the war? Well, there's a lot of evidence that plans are being made to do just that if it looks like the Arab nations are going to win. In Norfolk, for example, where most supplies and ships that go to the Middle East are loaded and unloaded, a lot of weird things have happened. The entire 6th Fleet has had all leaves cancelled; this isn't too surprising. But a lot of other ships have left Norfolk for parts unknown. The carrier ROOSEVELT with destroyers accompanying it, and the carrier INDEPENDENCE, with the LITTLE ROCK and two or three destroyers accompanying it, have headed for the Mediterranean; the INDEPENDENCE is now off the island of Crete near Greece. The ship GUADALCANAL, with the 2nd Marines, 6th Regiment aboard, is reported to be in the Mediterranean; and the helicopter transport IWO JIMA, with the 3rd Marines, 6th Regiment aboard, is leaving Norfolk on October 16th for the same area.

The U.S. runs on oil, and that's what the U.S. interest is in this war. The oil-producing nations are fighting Israel, and the U.S. is helping Israel in a big way -- Sidewinder missiles, bombs, and other apparatus were loaded onto Israeli planes at Norfolk from October 9th on. The Arab people might withhold oil from the U.S.; and the Nixon government doesn't like that prospect. So there's a real possibility that the Marines might get sent in to make sure that the "right" side wins! Just like a few military advisers that got sent to a small Indochinese nation in 1954......