Olive Drab Rebels: Military Organizing During the Vietnam Era

A friend who was in the U.S. military during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War told me that before President G.H.W. Bush visited the troops in Saudi Arabia, enlisted men and women who would be in Bush's immediate vicinity had their rifle and pistol ammunition taken away from them. This was supposedly done to avoid "accidents." But it was also clear to people on the scene that Bush and his corporate handlers were somewhat afraid of the enlisted people who Bush would soon be killing in his unsuccessful re-election campaign. The suppressed history of the last big U.S. war before 'Operation Desert Storm' shows that the Commander-in-Chief had good reason to fear and distrust his troops. Our rulers want us to forget what happened during the Vietnam war - especially what happened inside the U.S. armed forces during the war. Our rulers remember it all too well. They want us to forget what defeated their war effort, and the importance of resistance to the war by enlisted men and women. Also includes the pamphlet "Harass the Brass". "The morale, discipline and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States. By every conceivable indicator, our army that remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non-commissioned officers, drug-ridden and dispirited where not near mutinous. Elsewhere than Vietnam the situation is nearly as serious." -Colonel Robert D.Heinl, June 1971