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August 1964
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False claims of North Vietnamese attacks in the Gulf of
Tonkin lead to U.S. airstrikes and an escalating air war
over the coming years that becomes the heaviest bombing
campaign in the history of warfare, with more than 7
million tons of bombs and ordnance used against Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos.
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1965
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Major escalation of U.S. ground troops begins.
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January 1965
|
Lt. Richard Steinke becomes the first U.S. serviceman to
refuse to fight after arriving in Vietnam. In November that
year, Lt. Henry Howe of Ft. Bliss, Texas, attends antiwar
protest in El Paso and is sentenced
to two years hard labor.
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June, 1966
|
Privates James Johnson, Dennis Mora and David Samis—the Ft.
Hood Three—publicly refuse orders to Vietnam.
|
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October, 1966
|
Capt. Howard Levy, MD, refuses orders to train Green Beret
combatants at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina.
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December 1967
|
Andy Stapp and others at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, form the
American Servicemen’s Union and organize chapters at dozens
of military installations and ships.
|
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Late 1967
|
Vietnam GI
, one of the first known GI antiwar newspapers, begins
publication. Hundreds of other GI papers appear throughout
the military over the next five years.
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1968
|
U.S. troop strength in Vietnam exceeds 500,000. Over the
next two years the intensity of combat and casualties among
frontline ground units reach levels equivalent to the
heaviest combat in U.S. military history.
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January 1968
|
The first GI antiwar coffeehouse, the UFO, opens near Ft.
Jackson.
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Summer 1968
|
Veterans and civilian activists launch the “Summer of
Support” project to establish coffeehouses around other
military bases. Over the next three years more than two
dozen GI antiwar coffeehouses open at Army, Navy and Marine
Corps bases in the U.S. and overseas.
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|
July 1968
|
Major racial rebellion occurs at the Ft. Bragg stockade in
North Carolina.
|
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August 1968
|
Soldiers at the Army’s overcrowded Long Binh jail in
Vietnam rebel, burning parts of the prison and occupying a
section for more than a month.
|
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October 1968
|
Navy nurse Lt. Susan Schnall leads GI antiwar march in San
Francisco.
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October 1968
|
In an incident described by military lawyers as ‘mutiny,’
27 inmates at the Presidio stockade in San Francisco hold a
sit-down strike and refuse to report for duty following the
fatal shooting of an unarmed fellow prisoner.
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July 1969
|
Nixon announces beginning of troop withdrawals.
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July 1969
|
Major racial uprising occurs at Camp Lejeune, North
Carolina.
|
|
August 1969
|
A New York Daily News headline reads “Sir, My Men
Refuse to Go,” describing an incident of mass mutiny by an
Army unit of the 196th Infantry, one of many
examples of combat refusal and avoidance in Vietnam.
|
|
October 1969
|
Soldiers at military bases in the U.S. and in some units in
Vietnam join millions of Americans in locally based Vietnam
Moratorium protest events.
|
|
November 1969
|
A full-page ad calling for an end to the war signed by
1,365 active duty service members appears in the New York Times. Hundreds of active duty soldiers
join hundreds of thousands of protesters in the massive
November 15 antiwar march in Washington.
|
|
1970
|
Antiwar protest and resistance spread to the Navy as the
tempo of naval air operations intensifies along with the
scale of U.S. bombing in Southeast Asia.
|
|
May 1970
|
The shooting deaths of two students at Jackson State
University in Mississippi and of four students at Kent
State University in Ohiotouch off a massive wave of antiwar
resistance across the country.
|
|
May 1970
|
Soldiers rally for peace simultaneously at more than a
dozen military bases in the first “Armed Farces Day” event.
|
|
July 1970
|
Nearly 1,000 mostly black soldiers gather in Heidelberg for
a “Call for Justice” rally protesting the war and racial
oppression.
|
|
1971
|
Antiwar dissent increases in the Air Force as underground
newspapers appear at dozens of air bases in the U.S.,
Europe and Asia.
|
|
January 1971
|
Nixon announces the beginning of the transition to an
all-volunteer force.
|
|
April 1971
|
Statements on the floor of the U.S. Senate express concern
about fragging as reports multiply of violent soldier
attacks against superiors in Vietnam.
|
|
May 1971
|
The second annual “Armed Farces Day” is marked by antiwar
protests at dozens of Army, Navy and Air Force bases.
|
|
November 1971
|
More than a thousand civilians gather at Alameda Naval
Station to protest the sailing of the U.S.S. Coral Sea aircraft carrier, as 35 sailors stay
behind.
|
|
May 1972
|
Racial clashes involving hundreds of airmen touch off the
largest mass rebellion in Air Force history at Travis AFB
in California.
|
|
July 1972
|
Two aircraft carriers, the U.S.S. Ranger and the
U.S.S. Forrestal, are put out of action by
sabotage.
|
|
October 1972
|
A large-scale racial rebellion erupts aboard the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk while on duty at Yankee Station off the
case of Vietnam.
|
|
November 1972
|
Sailors aboard the U.S.S. Constellation protesting
racial conditions are returned to shore and offloaded at
San Diego. A few days later more than a hundred sailors
raise clenched fists at a dockside rally and refuse to
board as the ship departs, an incident Time
magazine calls a mass mutiny.
|
|
December 1972
|
Nixon unleashes massive bombing attacks against Hanoi,
Haiphong and other cities in North Vietnam. Some B-52
pilots refuse to fly and join a law suit against the
bombing filed by Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY).
|
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January 1973
|
Paris peace agreement ending the war is signed.
|
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March 1973
|
POWs return and the last U.S. ground troops leave South
Vietnam.
|
|
June 1973
|
Congress cuts off funding for any further U.S. military
action “in or over or off the shores” of Vietnam, Cambodia
and Laos, which takes effect in August 1973.
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