Turn the Guns Around Mutinies Soldier Revolts and Revolutions eBook John Catalinotto
Download As PDF : Turn the Guns Around Mutinies Soldier Revolts and Revolutions eBook John Catalinotto 
Draftees and enlistees — eighteen-year-olds from the South Bronx, factory workers from Buffalo, miners’ sons from Kentucky, unemployed youth from Watts — hate the military and the Vietnam War. They throw a wrench into the Pentagon’s war machine, becoming leaders of the anti-war movement and organizing a union in the conscript military to battle war, racism and their officers.
In three other wars — the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 that sparked the Paris Commune; World War I, which sowed revolutions in Germany and Russia; African liberation wars of the 1960s that incited a captains' revolt in Portugal — ordinary soldiers turn their guns around to make revolution.
Weaving together letters from servicemen and servicewomen, interviews with GI war resisters and first-hand narratives, memoir and historical research, the author — as participant and historian — highlights the relation between rank-and-file soldier resistance and the struggle for state power.
Turn the Guns Around Mutinies Soldier Revolts and Revolutions eBook John Catalinotto
This is a wonderful and lively history of GI resistance to the Vietnam War, focusing primarily on the American Servicemen's Union, a courageous effort to unionize rank-and-file soldiers who opposed the U.S. military's overseas adventures, as well as its racism and sexism. From its beginnings in defense of militant GIs under attack by the brass at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the ASU grew to become a global force with a newspaper (the Bond) that found its way to bases across the world. Catalinotto contextualizes the Vietnam-era resistance by looking at other soldier revolts in such armies as those of France, Russia, and Portugal over the past 150 years. He also personalizes his narrative by including excerpts from dozens of letters written by GI's to the ASU national office. At a time when the rumbles of further military conflict are growing louder, this book is a timely reminder that the rulers can't wage war if the ranks of their armies refuse to be used as cannon fodder.Product details
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Turn the Guns Around Mutinies Soldier Revolts and Revolutions eBook John Catalinotto Reviews
You don't have to have lived during the Vietnam war era to get a lot out of this book. But for those of us who were civilian protesters at the time, it answers a lot of propaganda about the attitude of GIs toward the ant-war movement. Most welcomed it. The official myth is that the soldiers were tormented by hordes of nasty brats who spat on them, but it wasn't the soldiers the protesters hated, it was the war. And so did the GIs. They particularly hated the autocratic officers who sent them halfway around the world to risk their lives killing people they knew nothing about. Soldiers who suffered racism at home were ordered to put down struggles for civil rights, like in Chicago 1968. Instead they rebelled, even when they knew they'd face the stockade. I like Catalinotto's use of the present tense to describe all the thrilling moments of resistance inside and outside the military that finally turned the war -- and the guns -- around. And the letters to the GI resistance paper, The Bond! Those GIs really told it like it was.
Very well written and documented account of a side of the military most would rather not Hope nothear about.
Excellent book on the role of rebellions within the armed forces during revolutionary periods. Anyone looking for more on the Russian Revolution, US troop resistance to Vietnam, all the way to veterans at Standing Rock today, this books covers it all!
I edited the first two chapters. Need I say more?
Eugene Debs said “if the capitalists did their own fighting, and furnish their own corpses there would never be another war on the face of the earth.” This is the story of the U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War who realized they were fighting a rich man’s war, and had nothing to gain. It is about their dignity and indignation. It is about their rebellions, strikes, demonstrations and mutinies, about their organizing against racism, about their refusals to fight, about their turning their guns on their officers. It is the story of the American Servicemen’s Union, through which they organized, educated and defended themselves. You will not find this story elsewhere. Read it.
Turn the Guns Around is one of the most essential reads for these dangerous and tumultuous times. Like a good novel, it’s a page-turner, chronicling the bravery of young people who refused to murder, maim, rape and pillage. It brilliantly ties together the true stories of men and women who spearheaded rebellions within the military, including, among others the French soldiers’ refusal to fire on Parisian workers during the Franco-Prussian War, setting the stage for the Paris Commune; the Portuguese armed-forces revolt against fascist rule in Lisbon after years of war in Portugal’s African colonies; the Russian armed forces mutinies and rebellions during the First World War, ultimately seizing power from the Czar and putting it into the hands of the workers and peasants; and, of course, the brave resistance by members of the United States armed forces during the Vietnam War, which made its own contribution to the ultimate victory by the Vietnamese people.
Without proselytizing, the book lays the groundwork for current moral imperatives and struggles. In the process, the reader learns about the history of unjust and manipulated wars, including “Remember the Maine” and the so-called and later debunked lie about “weapons of mass destruction.” The author’s analysis helps the reader understand and question the most recent demonizations of heads-of-state and the rapid-fire claims in order to justify military “retaliation.” It demonstrates how and why the mainstream media continues to whip up war fever among even the more left-leaning.
The book puts into context the rise of the LGBTQ, Feminist and Civil Rights movements. It honors the brave LGBTQ resisters who couldn’t come out of the closet during the Vietnam War. It documents the difficult struggle of women pushing against misogyny from within the activist movement as well as within the military (with chapters written by Joyce Chediac, a central leader in that struggle). It documents the racism within the armed forces, with the sharp contradictions facing Black and Brown servicemen ordered to fire upon People of Color at home and abroad to preserve “freedom” in the United States; it chronicles the stories of some of those very courageous resisters.
Then there are the latest heroes, such as transwoman Chelsea Manning, who are defending the right to turn the computer codes around, in an era in which the “enemy” is merely a blip on a screen.
The author, John Catalinotto, was a dedicated civilian organizer of the American Servicemen’s Union (ASU), which published and distributed The Bond, ASU’s newspaper that, though letters and articles by and about the GI’s struggle against horrific conditions within the military, let the GIs know they were not alone. Ultimately The Bond’s circulation reached tens of thousands of troops within the domestic and international barracks and stockades, validating and galvanizing rebellion among the rank-and file during the Vietnam War.
This is simply a human and humane must-read book, all accomplished with riveting stories from well-documented history, letters to The Bond, and personal anecdotes.
Finally, it is essential that Turn the Guns Around be adapted as a documentary or docudrama that captures the attention and imagination of all those who care about our troubled planet—and stirs them into action.
This is a wonderful and lively history of GI resistance to the Vietnam War, focusing primarily on the American Servicemen's Union, a courageous effort to unionize rank-and-file soldiers who opposed the U.S. military's overseas adventures, as well as its racism and sexism. From its beginnings in defense of militant GIs under attack by the brass at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the ASU grew to become a global force with a newspaper (the Bond) that found its way to bases across the world. Catalinotto contextualizes the Vietnam-era resistance by looking at other soldier revolts in such armies as those of France, Russia, and Portugal over the past 150 years. He also personalizes his narrative by including excerpts from dozens of letters written by GI's to the ASU national office. At a time when the rumbles of further military conflict are growing louder, this book is a timely reminder that the rulers can't wage war if the ranks of their armies refuse to be used as cannon fodder.
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