Pacific Counseling Service

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PCS 1971 Pamphlet Cover Page - GI Rights Organization

The Pacific Counseling Service (PCS) was a

underground newspaper in 1976.[5]

Background

By 1968 the

feigning insanity in an attempt to avoid orders to Vietnam.[9]

GI Help Office

After his arrest, Hirsch, expected an extended stay in

downtown San Francisco as a service to soldiers resisting deployment to Vietnam.[10] This office, in the Mission District at 483 Guerrero Street, was the first of its kind in the U.S.[11] Hirsch had recognized and been an early part of a rapidly expanding expression within the U.S. military of the growing antiwar and anti-military sentiment surrounding the Vietnam War. Military statistics have revealed "there were about 1.5 million AWOLS and 563,000 less-than-honorable discharges between 1964 and 1974." In other words, by 1969 there was a growing and acute need among disaffected GIs for legal counseling and support.[12][13]

West Coast Counseling

Other antiwar activists soon realized that Hirsch was on to something as many GIs contacted the GI Office asking for help. Sidney Peterman, a

Indochina, often sending more than a thousand a day.[8]: 272 [4]
: 78 

Expansion to Pacific Counseling Service

During 1969, the U.S. began a major tactical shift of U.S. combat operations in

Air Bases in Japan, and Honolulu.[16]
: 220 

Political evolution

The name change signaled more than the organization's expansion around the Pacific. In a 1970 report, PCS activists explained that much of their work was "directed towards the support of

prostitutes, and maids." PCS published a women's journal at two of its Asian offices.[10]

National Lawyers Guild

From its very early days PCS recognized the need for additional legal help when issues of law were involved. Non-legal counselors could offer advice, support and community, but when more serious questions of military or civilian law arose, actual lawyers were needed. The National Lawyers Guild provided many of the attorneys who volunteered to help, advise and defend GIs. Often the NLG would establish an office next door or in the same building as PCS, with the first of these being in Monterey in 1970 and the second in San Francisco in 1971.[18] All PCS offices received help at one time or another from the NLG and several Guild attorneys became regular PCS advisors. As PCS expanded around the Pacific region, the Guild opened offices in the Philippines, Japan and Okinawa, "offering free legal counsel to hundreds of G.I.’s opposed to the Vietnam War."[19][12][10] A Congressional Investigation into radical activity among GIs looked into the NLG's Southeastern Asian GI movement project and reported it "working with PCS at four PCS facilities in Japan." Investigators also reported that "NLG representatives" conducted workshops outside Clark Air Force Base in the Philippians "on such subjects as conscientious objector claims, UCMJ Article 138 complaints, and dissent activities in general." They also noted the use of a local GI underground newspaper, Cry Out, to advertise legal services.[20]

Turning the Regs Around

Turning the Regs Around Cover Page 1973 Edition

In 1972, PCS was instrumental in creating an influential pamphlet about GI counseling and organizing. Known officially as Turning the Regs Around: A Handbook on Military Law and Counseling, An Aid to Organizing for GIs and Civilians it started out as the handbook for a class on military counseling given in San Francisco to 40 or 50 GIs and civilians. It was written by Nancy Hausch, a PCS staffer, who described its purpose: "Teaching people how to stay on top of the military machine by knowing and using the various legal tools ordinarily used to keep them down, is a very important part of the struggle."[21] The initial pamphlet was so popular in the GI movement that within a year a second improved longer edition (124 pages) was released by The Bay Area Turning The Regs Around Committee. The handbook covered everything from correspondence with Congress to filing charges against officers to court-martials, and explained GI rights to demonstrate and exercise their freedom of speech. It applied to all branches of the military and was written "so that anybody can read and apply it, not just lawyers." It also cautioned that the knowledge in the handbook couldn't "stop the brass from using their power to harass, exploit and oppress enlisted people"; that it was "only one helpful tool in a long and difficult fight."[22] During the Vietnam War, the handbook could be found in GI coffeehouses and counseling centers around the world, as well as smuggled onto military bases and ships, and was frequently reprinted, excerpted and cited wherever GI resistance emerged.[23] One GI counseling project called the pamphlet its "biggest seller" and said they were "going faster than a speeding bullet."[24]

Turning the Regs Around ad in the Liberated Barracks GI underground newspaper, Oct 1973 Issue

Impact

Within the first six months of the opening of the Monterey office, the organizers "handled more than seven hundred legal cases involving GI rights, and helped 120 soldiers obtain ‘conscientious objector’ status."[8]: 272 [25] In early 1970 Oakland PCS activists began extensive leafleting of area airports informing incoming soldiers of their right to file for conscientious objector status, which at the time, automatically delayed overseas orders. By March that year, "twelve hundred men had successfully delayed their orders" through this process. In response, the Pentagon issued a special change in regulations for West Coast bases forbidding C.O. applications during transit to Vietnam forcing GIs to wait until they arrived.[4]: 17  In Japan, PCS started by providing legal assistance to a number of U.S. military deserters. From about 1965 to 1970, there was an alliance between unhappy U.S. GIs and Japanese antiwar groups. By some estimates, Japanese activists helped "two to three hundred GIs" go underground in Japan during that period, but improved cooperation between the U.S. agents and Japanese detectives made this increasingly difficult. PCS stepped into this breach by offering GIs advice and counseling about legal avenues to resist or exit the military.[17][16]: 190&219  PCS was also instrumental in helping the highly successful FTA Show come to several U.S. military bases in the Asia-Pacific region, including in the Philippines, Japan, and Okinawa. The show, an anti-Vietnam War road show for GIs starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and a number of other entertainers, was very popular with GIs everywhere it went. PCS provided show organizers with local contacts and helped spread the word to the many GIs who came to the shows. The historical evidence indicates that over its lifetime, PCS counseled and supported many thousands of disgruntled and antiwar GIs, many of whom found ways out of the military or to avoid combat. The military conducted extensive undercover investigations and surveillance of PCS as revealed in days of hearings and testimony by the House Committee on Internal Security, and reported that "numerous military personnel are known to have sought the support or assistance of the organization."[15]: 7088  The U.S. military was so concerned about PCS/NLG activities in the Philippines that in 1972 Naval commanders provided information to the new martial law regime of Ferdinand Marcos which led to the arrest, interrogation and deportation of several PCS/NLG staff, effectively bringing an end to PCS activities in the country.[26][27]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Fact Sheet on Pacific Counseling Service". wisconsinhistory.org. Wisconsin Historical Society. 1970. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  2. ^ a b Heinl, Robert D. (1971-06-07). "The Collapse of The Armed Forces". Armed Forces Journal. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  3. ^ Miller, Alan (2009-05-28). "Remembering A Very Good Man". Marin Independent Journal.
  4. ^
    ISBN 1931859272
    .
  5. ^ "Stars & Strikes". wisconsinhistory.org. Wisconsin Historical Society. 1976. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  6. ^ Sullivan, Patricia (2007-01-07). "War Resister Oliver Hirsch". The Washington Post.
  7. ^ "9 G.I. Foes of War Arrested in Church". The New York Times. 1968-07-18.
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-0-295-99360-7
    .
  9. ^
    ISBN 1879886324
    .
  10. ^ a b c d e "Pacific Counseling Services Pamphlet". wisconsinhistory.org. Wisconsin Historical Society. 1974. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  11. ^ Bryan, John (1969-10-03). "Riplin' Through the Mission". Berkeley Tribe.
  12. ^ a b Gaut, Greg (1991-05-21). "It's Time to Tell Truth About Peace Movement's History". In These Times. Chicago, IL: Institute for Public Affairs.
  13. ISBN 9780394412757
    .
  14. ^ "The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, A Political, Social, and Military History, Second Edition 2011". ABC-CLIO. pp. 275, 1759.
  15. ^ a b Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives (1972). Investigation of Attempts to Subvert the United States Armed Services Part 2; Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives (Report). U.S. Government Printing Office. Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives Ninety-Second Congress Second Session. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  16. ^ a b c d Shiratori, Noriko (2018). "Chapter 7. Gi Movements in Japan & Transpacific Activism". Peace in Vietnam! Beheiren: Transnational Activism and Gi Movement in Postwar Japan 1965-1974 (PDF) (Ph.D.). University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. p. 217. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  17. ^ a b Sklar, Robert (Oct 1971). "AWOL in Japan". Ramparts Magazine. Menlo Park, CA: Edward M. Keating.
  18. ^ "Guide to the Pacific Counseling Service and Military Law Office Records, 1969-1977" (PDF). The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. p. 3.
  19. ^ "A History of the National Lawyers Guild 1937-1987" (PDF). National Lawyers Guild Foundation. p. 48.
  20. ^ Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives (1972). Investigation of Attempts to Subvert the United States Armed Services Part 1 (Report). U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 7399 & 7532. Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security House of Representatives Ninety-Second Congress First Session. Retrieved 2020-11-25.
  21. ^ "Book Review: Turning the Regs Around". wisconsinhistory.org. Wisconsin Historical Society. 1972-10-15. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  22. ^ "Turning the Regs Around". wisconsinhistory.org. Wisconsin Historical Society. 1973. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  23. ^ Cohn, Marjorie; Gilberd, Kathleen (2009). Rules of Disengagement. New York, NY: NYU Press. p. 165.
  24. ^ Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws (1976). Organized Subversion in the U.S. Armed Forces (Report). U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 439–40. Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session. Retrieved 2020-11-25.
  25. ^ "Pacific Counseling Services Pamphlet". wisconsinhistory.org. Wisconsin Historical Society. 1971. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  26. ^ Kamm, Henry (1972-10-21). "Manila Says U.S. Navy Aided in Arrests". The New York Times.
  27. ^ "Monthly report (National Lawyers Guild Military Law Office)". wisconsinhistory.org. Wisconsin Historical Society. 1972. Retrieved 2020-11-30.

External links

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