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.
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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