Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 13. August 2010 / Timeline August 13, 2010
Version 3.512. August 2010, 14. August 2010
08/13/2010
GI newspapers held in the Swarthmore College Peace
Collection
By James Lewes, PhD
For many years the Swarthmore College Peace Collection has been
collecting the newspapers and newsletters created by GIs protesting
against war and the conditions under which they served. By
publishing stories and voices never heard in the mainstream press
or the alternative anti-war movement press, these papers ...
[uniquely] ... reflect the charged relationship between enlisted
men and draftees with the institution commanding every aspect of
their lives . Scanning these important historical documents will
make this material accessible to a large, and international
audience … [and] … the voices of those GIs heard once
more. I applaud James Lewes' efforts to get this work off the
ground. (Wendy Chmielewski, George Cooley Curator, Swarthmore
College Peace Collection)
The GI Press Project has one simple goal, to uncover and preserve
-- without ideological bias -- all remaining anti-war manifestoes,
newspapers, pamphlets and posters produced by active duty
servicemen and veterans during the Vietnam-War. These rare and
fragile newspapers and pamphlets, that provide irrefutable evidence
of the breadth, and depth, of active duty opposition to the wars in
Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, are in danger of disintegrating and
crumbling to dust. If nothing is done to preserve this incomparable
primary source, it will become impossible to reconstruct the
debates that animated the GI Press and the actions of the GI
movement on which it reported.
To preserve this amazing and historically valuable resource I have
created The GI Press Project. The GI Press Project has already
garnered interest and support from veterans, activists, and
academics. Working evenings, weekends, and days off, I have already
scanned and saved to DVD more than 350 newspapers and pamphlets.
These include complete runs of 10 papers – including
Aboveground, Om, RITA Act, The Ultimate Weapon and Vietnam GI
– as well as partial runs of more than 70 other titles. Once
scanned each issue may be viewed on the computer screen and/or
reprinted at the size originally published. The individual pages of
these papers are saved as high quality scans. The GI Press Project
will achieve its mission when it is partnered with an
archive/special collection that can make these materials accessible
on the web. It is my intention to make these digital issues
available as pdf files to anybody interested in the Vietnam-era GI
movement at a nominal fee.
The GI Press Project is housed near two of the largest collections
of original GI Movement materials in the country. To devote the
necessary time to scan these holdings and fold them into to the GI
Press Project, I have had to adapt my schedule to the hours during
which the archives are open and quit the jobs that have funded the
project thus far. Consequently, I have to ask for your financial
support to make it possible to continue and complete this important
task. While the condition of these newspapers and pamphlets is not
uniformly dire, a great many are starting to crumble to dust. In
the 1980s a number of GI titles were committed to microfilm, in the
belief this would preserve the material for decades and the
original copies were destroyed. The remaining newspapers are
housed, in complete and partial runs, in various archives and
special collections. Despite the best efforts of archivists to
preserve them, the acid content of the paper is causing them to
become brittle and disintegrate.
Financially stretched, and swamped with appeals from worthy causes,
you might think the digitization of a couple of hundred newspapers
and pamphlets a luxury that can wait. This is not the case. Because
the monies you give to the GI Press Project will be used to
digitize these remaining, fragile newspapers and pamphlets in full
color, and at the size they were originally printed, scholars and
historians will no longer be at the mercy of the often poor quality
of microfilm.
As Dr. Howard Levy commented in the documentary film Sir! No Sir!,
there are not many times when people can act to try to change the
course of history and be successful in doing so. The voices and
actions of Howard Levy and thousands of other GIs must be preserved
and hopefully provide a road map to current and future activists on
how to stop the war machine in its tracks and force it to change
course. By contributing to the GI Press Project, your money will
enable this to be done.
With a staff of one, this project needs less than $1000 a month and
an untold amount of sweat equity to be completed. While it would be
nice to be able to rely on the assistance of interns and
volunteers, the project rests on my shoulders, a burden I am proud
to bear.
Our affiliation with Veterans For Peace Chapter 31, an independent
501(c)(3), allows donors to deduct their contributions to the GI
Press Project from their taxes. Given the fact the U.S. Government
is spending more than one hundred million dollars a day on the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, this project’s estimated budget is
less than the military wastes on these wars in the time it took you
to read this proposal. However it is comforting to know that every
dollar you donate to the GI Press Project is a dollar that cannot
be used to aid and abet these wars.
At the present time contributions to the GI Press Project may be
made payable to: Veterans for Peace Chapter 31, and sent to
Thompson Bradley, 11 Price’s Lane, Rose Valley, PA 19065,
with a note stating they are to be directed to the GI Press
Project.
If you have questions about, or suggestions for, the project,
please contact by email at either gi.pressproject@gmail.com or
james_lewes@yahoo.com. If you have copies of newspapers and
pamphlets you would like me to digitize and add to the project,
please send them to James Lewes, 4235 Sansom St., Philadelphia, PA
19104. These will be returned to you or deposited with an archive
as you request.
If you can think of persons that would be interested in aiding this
important project please forward this request to them.
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