"Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis -- COFFEE STRONG" -- Zoltan Grossman

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The "clashes" I remember were on Exit 119, not 122, but anyway... great article.

Portion below; whole thing here: http://www.counterpunch.org/grossman03102009.html

G.I. Voice Director Seth Manzel spent a year deployed in Iraq in 2004, assigned to the 1st Stryker Brigade from Fort Lewis. He wrote in the local newspaper Works in Progress, “For soldiers and their families to engage in resistance requires them to stand up for soldiers’ rights. The mere act of standing up for one’s rights in the Army is enough to slow down a unit’s deployment times. The Army could not function if it delivered on all its promises to soldiers and their families. In this way a moderate message (stand up for G.I. rights) could have a radical effect on the military. We don’t need to indoctrinate people in the military. If we inform them of their rights, they will come to anti-war conclusions on their own.”

Fort Lewis spokesman Joe Kubistek said the Army is aware of the coffeehouse, but acknowledges that since it is a legal business, the Army will not restrict soldiers from going there. Kubistek added, “We don’t have a position on the political views of an outside individual.” Manzel jokes that “if they blacklisted us, it would be the best publicity we could get.” He asserts that G.I. Voice does not want to push its political views on customers, saying “We’re anti-war, but we’re not ‘in your face’ about it.”

Perhaps nowhere else in the country is there such a stark juxtaposition between a large military base community and large progressive anti-war communities, in nearby Olympia and Tacoma. In this area, we see and hear the Iraq and Afghanistan wars almost every day. It is impossible to miss hearing the howitzer fire booming on the Fort Lewis artillery range, seeing the giant C-17 transport planes from Baghdad or Bagram landing at McChord Air Force Base, or overlooking the PTSD exhibited in local car accidents, robberies, bar brawls, domestic abuse, and sexual assaults.

The Iraq War has increased the polarization between the local communities, but also increased opportunities to work together—since both communities actually care that there’s a war going on. Pro-war and anti-war demonstrators have clashed on the Interstate-5 overpass at Exit 122, which the Lakewood City Council renamed “Freedom Bridge” to honor the pro-war group’s presence. The overpass and the gates of Fort Lewis (and of the Army National Guard’s Camp Murray) are only a few hundreds yards from the G.I. coffeehouse, on Union Avenue behind the Subway franchise.

Over the past two years, large direct actions at the Ports of Olympia and Tacoma have protested the movement of Stryker armored vehicles to and from Iraq. Manzel’s concern is that soldiers understand the reasons for these actions, and that anti-war protesters understand that G.I.s are not their enemy. He says of the new G.I. coffeehouses, “I think this is going to be a real link between the peace movement and soldiers on the bases that these are outside of.” Port protesters have noticed some Stryker soldiers flashing peace signs when their officers are not watching, even if a smaller number of soldiers have instead flashed “half a peace sign.”

Fort Lewis has become a national center of G.I. dissent against the Iraq War, as it was during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Ehren Watada was tried in February 2007 for being the first commissioned officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq. Peace activists staged a “Citizens’ Hearing” tribunal to present Watada’s case that the war is illegal. (His court martial ended in a mistrial, and has since won most of his legal case, but the Army has still not allowed him to resign his commission.) Other Army refusers, such as Sgt. Kevin Benderman and Spc. Suzanne Swift, have been jailed for a time in the harsh Fort Lewis stockade. G.I. Voice recently hosted a training of active-duty members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) who are organizing within the armed forces rather than seeking to leave the military.

G.I. Voice points to a new relationship between the growing G.I. movement and the larger civilian anti-war movement. Peace groups can support and do outreach to GIs, working with Iraq War veterans who best understand best how to communicate with the younger military generation. Peace activists could also educate themselves about issues of concern to soldiers, to open respectful dialogue with G.I.s and their families, as a step to working together. The G.I. Rights Hotline (800-394-9544) is a first stop for military personnel and families wanting to explore their options.

Fort Lewis is scheduled to deploy 10,000 more troops later this year, including three Stryker Brigades to Iraq and Afghanistan, making this a critical period for G.I. organizing in the area. The few other G.I. coffeehouses in the country have struggled to open their doors or to keep them open. Although COFFEE STRONG has an advantageous location next to the region’s busiest fast-food joints, it has competition from the Starbucks on post.

Any kind of support would help the nonprofit G.I. coffeehouse stay open as a “safe space” for soldiers and their families. For more information, contact G.I. Voice, P.O. Box 99404, Lakewood WA 98496, or on-line at http://www.GIVoice.org or http://www.CoffeeStrong.com. (Tax-deductible contributions can be made on-line, or with checks made out to "Seattle Draft & Military Counseling Center" or “SDMCC”).

As the German poet-playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote:

“General, your tank is a powerful vehicle.
It smashes down forests and crushes men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver….
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.”