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RESERVISTS COMMITTEE TO STOP THE WAR P.O. Box 4398, Berkeley, California 94704 Brother Reservist or National Guardsman: The enclosed petition speaks for itself. We are the lucky ones. The military takes our weekends, not our lives. Commanders order us to trim sideburns, not to massacre civilians. Somebody got us into Reserve or Guards units just in time: the bodies coming back across the Pacific in black plastic bags each week are not ours. And so now we polish our brass and go to drills, but we assure our friends we*re against the war too« We need to speak. More than 700 soldiers have now signed this petition. With it we can show the American people that our wearing a uniform several times a month does not mean we support Nixon's brutal and unending war. We've been silent too long. We have a special right to speak out: in our own units we've seen the militarism behind our country's moral disaster in Vietnam. The gung-ho colonel with red white and blue bumper stickers has a counterpart who burns down Vietnamese villages to save them from Communism. The lifer sergeant who flaunts his war ribbons and cares only about following orders is the sort of person who shifts the blame for an atrocity to the next man up the line. The racism that lets so few black men into the Reserves is the same that lets helicopter gunners shoot down yellow women and children. You may have already heard about the Reservists Committee in the news. Our petition has been signed by Air and Army National Guardsmen, by Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard Reservists, by Vietnam veterans, by officers and men from all parts of the United States. We expect to soon have several thousand signatures, maybe more. Nobody needs to tell you Guardsmen and Reservists hate this appalling war as much as everyone else. We need to tell this to the American people* Please help: ♦Sign today. Even if you get no other signatures, we still need your own. ♦Take the petition to friends from your unit and get them to sign. It should be easy: in several San Francisco area Marine Reserve units, nearly half the enlisted men signed. To avoid any excuse for possible harassment, we suggest you get permission before soliciting signatures at drills. ♦Return the signed petition in the attached envelope as soon as possible. All signers of the petition will receive subscriptions to REDUNE, a newsletter the Reservists Committee publishes for anti-war Reservists and Guardsmen. It has news about peace organizing in units, discharges, legal rights, and anti-war actions of all kinds that Reservists and National Guardsmen can legally take. If you are not on active duty, you have the full Constitutional right to sign this petition. To be absolutely sure, we have gone over it carefully with both military and civilian lawyers. The military only controls you on-post and during drills; it cannot stop you from freely expressing your opinions the rest of the time. The law protects you. Even the Pentagon can't repeal the First Amendment. You risk nothing by signing this. The courageous soldiers who spoke out about the My Lai massacre risked a great deal. This petition is our way of keeping faith with men in Vietnam like them. If they protest, they can be sent out on a combat infantry patrol* We still have our right to free speech. The least we can do is use it.
Object Description
Title | Brother Reservist or National Guardsman |
Place of publication | Berkeley, California |
Publisher | Reservists Committee to Stop the War |
Publication date | 1970 |
Language | English |
Country | United States |
Digital Format | XML |
Publisher-Electronic | Wisconsin Historical Society |
Publication Date-Electronic | 2016 |
Rights | Copyright belongs to the individuals who created them or the organizations for which they worked. We share them here strictly for non-profit educational purposes. If you believe that you possess copyright to material included here, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org. Under the fair use provisions of the U.S. copyright law, teachers and students are free to reproduce any document for nonprofit classroom use. Commercial use of copyright-protected material is generally prohibited. |
Owner | Wisconsin Historical Society |
Type | Text |
Digital identifier | giNewsletter706000 |
Description
Title | p. 1 |
Language | English |
Digital Format | JPEG2000 |
Publisher-Electronic | Wisconsin Historical Society |
Publication Date-Electronic | 2016 |
Rights | Copyright belongs to the individuals who created them or the organizations for which they worked. We share them here strictly for non-profit educational purposes. If you believe that you possess copyright to material included here, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org. Under the fair use provisions of the U.S. copyright law, teachers and students are free to reproduce any document for nonprofit classroom use. Commercial use of copyright-protected material is generally prohibited. |
Owner | Wisconsin Historical Society |
Full text | RESERVISTS COMMITTEE TO STOP THE WAR P.O. Box 4398, Berkeley, California 94704 Brother Reservist or National Guardsman: The enclosed petition speaks for itself. We are the lucky ones. The military takes our weekends, not our lives. Commanders order us to trim sideburns, not to massacre civilians. Somebody got us into Reserve or Guards units just in time: the bodies coming back across the Pacific in black plastic bags each week are not ours. And so now we polish our brass and go to drills, but we assure our friends we*re against the war too« We need to speak. More than 700 soldiers have now signed this petition. With it we can show the American people that our wearing a uniform several times a month does not mean we support Nixon's brutal and unending war. We've been silent too long. We have a special right to speak out: in our own units we've seen the militarism behind our country's moral disaster in Vietnam. The gung-ho colonel with red white and blue bumper stickers has a counterpart who burns down Vietnamese villages to save them from Communism. The lifer sergeant who flaunts his war ribbons and cares only about following orders is the sort of person who shifts the blame for an atrocity to the next man up the line. The racism that lets so few black men into the Reserves is the same that lets helicopter gunners shoot down yellow women and children. You may have already heard about the Reservists Committee in the news. Our petition has been signed by Air and Army National Guardsmen, by Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard Reservists, by Vietnam veterans, by officers and men from all parts of the United States. We expect to soon have several thousand signatures, maybe more. Nobody needs to tell you Guardsmen and Reservists hate this appalling war as much as everyone else. We need to tell this to the American people* Please help: ♦Sign today. Even if you get no other signatures, we still need your own. ♦Take the petition to friends from your unit and get them to sign. It should be easy: in several San Francisco area Marine Reserve units, nearly half the enlisted men signed. To avoid any excuse for possible harassment, we suggest you get permission before soliciting signatures at drills. ♦Return the signed petition in the attached envelope as soon as possible. All signers of the petition will receive subscriptions to REDUNE, a newsletter the Reservists Committee publishes for anti-war Reservists and Guardsmen. It has news about peace organizing in units, discharges, legal rights, and anti-war actions of all kinds that Reservists and National Guardsmen can legally take. If you are not on active duty, you have the full Constitutional right to sign this petition. To be absolutely sure, we have gone over it carefully with both military and civilian lawyers. The military only controls you on-post and during drills; it cannot stop you from freely expressing your opinions the rest of the time. The law protects you. Even the Pentagon can't repeal the First Amendment. You risk nothing by signing this. The courageous soldiers who spoke out about the My Lai massacre risked a great deal. This petition is our way of keeping faith with men in Vietnam like them. If they protest, they can be sent out on a combat infantry patrol* We still have our right to free speech. The least we can do is use it. |
Type | Text |
Digital identifier | giNewsletter706001 |