Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Andy Stapp, founder of American Servicemen's Union, dies at 70

Andy Stapp, who founded the American Servicemen's Union, has died at age 70. Click here for the New York Times obituary, which reports:
At its peak in the early 1970s, the union that Mr. Stapp formed, the American Servicemen’s Union, claimed to have tens of thousands of members. It issued membership cards, published a newspaper and helped form chapters at military bases, on ships and in Vietnam.
Although the Army never came close to recognizing the union formally, it certainly recognized it as a problem. Mr. Stapp brought colorful idealism to his counterintuitive cause, and the Army did what it could to silence him.
Since 1978 it has been a federal crime to organize or join a military union in the United States.

1 comment:

  1. As a card carrying member of the ASU I recall it said at the time there were 30,000 of us. The back side of the Union card had a list of ten rights, a bill of rights of sort and as I recall the first was the right to to refuse to fight in an illegal war. Since the Vietnam was was never declared, it was seen as illegal.

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