Oleo Strut (coffeehouse)

The Oleo Strut antiwar GI coffeehouse in 1971. Photo by Alan Pogue

The Oleo Strut was a GI Coffeehouse located in Killeen, Texas, from 1968 to 1972.[1] Like its namesake, a shock absorber in the landing gear of most large aircraft and many smaller ones, the Oleo Strut’s purpose was to help GIs land softly.[2] Upon returning from Vietnam to Fort Hood, shell-shocked soldiers found solace amongst the Strut’s regulars, mostly fellow soldiers and a few civilian sympathizers. The GIs turned the Oleo Strut into one of Texas’s anti-war headquarters, publishing an underground anti-war newspaper, organizing boycotts, setting up a legal office, and leading peace marches.[3]

The coffeehouse was an organizing center for the support of the Fort Hood 43, a group of Black soldiers who had been disciplined for refusing to perform riot control duty at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.[4][5][6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Estados Unidos. Congress. House. Committee on Internal Security (1972). Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security, Ninety-second Congress, Second Session. 1972. U.S. Government Printing Office.
  2. ^ "If War is Hell, then Coffee Has Offered U.S. Soldiers Some Salvation". NPR.
  3. ^ H. Bruce Franklin (September 2001). Vietnam and Other American Fantasies. Univ of Massachusetts Press. pp. 107–. ISBN 1-55849-332-8.
  4. ^ David L. Parsons (13 March 2017). Dangerous Grounds: Antiwar Coffeehouses and Military Dissent in the Vietnam Era. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 45–. ISBN 978-1-4696-3202-5.
  5. ^ Parsons, David L. (9 January 2018). "Opinion | How Coffeehouses Fueled the Vietnam Peace Movement". The New York Times.
  6. ^ Jonathan Neale (2001). The American War: Vietnam 1960-1975. Bookmarks. ISBN 978-1-898876-67-0.