At Ease! A new magazine for Australian military personnel and reservists has recently been released. At Ease! is an alternative news service published by a small collective of nonviolent activists in Melbourne and is perhaps the first magazine of its kind to appear in Australia. The aim of such a publication is not only to provide lowranking personnel with a source of alternative information about issues that affect them but also to encourage, support and create links with any internal dissent or resistance within the Australian military. At Ease! is inspired by similar magazines and newspapers that are distributed widely throughout the armies of numerous countries including the United States, Russia, South Africa and Europe. Produced either by civilian peace groups, veteran organisations or more commonly by the soldiers themselves, these newspapers play an important role in building and maintaining soldier resistance movements. During the Vietnam War, several hundred radical newspapers were being circulated throughout the United States military both at home and in Vietnam. With titles like 'Liberated Barracks', 'F.T.A' (Fuck The Army) and 'Resistance, (For Humans in the Army By Humans in the Army)', these newspapers provided a desperately needed source of information and expression for the GIs who were resisting the war in a wide variety of ways. The GI resistance during the Vietnam War grew to massive proportions by the early 1970's and, as it has since been documented, played a major role in forcing the U.S. withdrawal.1 Underground soldier committees were operating throughout the army, publishing newspapers and organising mass protests and sit-ins and supporting the many other creative forms of soldier resistance. The sabotaging of fuel and ammunition dumps, diverting or 'losing' military supplies, refusing orders and mass desertions became widespread by 1971. 'Search and evade missions' in Vietnam had become more common than 'search and destroy' missions by the end of the war. Most forms of resistance, apart from officer 'fragging' (killing) and some sabotage were nonviolent and included well-planned acts of protest and persuasion, noncooperation and nonviolent intervention, as well as the building of alternative decisionmaking bodies. Many of the tactics were drawn from the civilian peace movement while others were clearly spontaneous. Organised soldier resistance soon became apparent during the recent Gulf War at a much higher level than at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Often informed and encouraged by soldier newspapers, some of which were revived from the Vietnam era, on-base resistance appeared throughout the U.S. and West Germany well before the outbreak of war and mass noncooperation with orders to embark was widespread. There was even an attempt by sailors to take over the U.S aircraft carrier Ranger during the war. Most other countries involved in the Gulf War, including Australia, experienced acts of desertion and resistance, most of which received little or no publicity. Organised soldier organisations and even unions continue to exist in most of the highly capitalized armies of the world.2 While internal soldier resistance in modern armies is often widespread, highly organised and extremely effective in undermining military policies there is very rarely much genuine contact with civilian peace activists. Although most peace activists have recognised and perhaps even supported the individual stands of draft resisters, deserters and conscientious objectors it is still little known that leaving or avoiding the armed forces represents only one type of soldier resistance. Most forms of resistance and perhaps even the most effective forms, take place inside the military! The dominant perception of all military personnel, especially volunteers, as 'the enemy' or at least 'on the other side' is an unfortunate and naive characteristic of many peace and antimilitarist groups. Many activists simply see all soldiers as one conglomerate, classless mass, not distinguishing between soldiers and officers and not recognising that rank and file soldiers, like their civilian, working-class counterparts hold a fair degree of animosity toward their officer/bosses. As labour activism begins due to discontentment with wages and conditions on the factory floor, so too does soldier activism. The rigid authoritarian structures, discipline and working conditions of military life inevitably leads to dissent and resistance within the ranks. Because the military relies on strict discipline and rigid hierarchies to maintain its chain of command any disobedience or resistance often has effects far out of proportion to its size. The potential to support and work with internal resistance during Vietnam and more recently during the Gulf War was only realised by a small sector of the peace movement. Here in Australia there was little organised resistance within the military during Vietnam. There was a 'Servicemen Against The Vietnam War' group in Brisbane which called on personnel to march in the 1971 moratorium marches but it did not reach the level of resistance in the U.S. army. There were no Australian soldier newspapers and little, if any, interest or support from the civilian peace groups. This may have been due in part to the success of the large Australian antidraft campaign. The relative ease in which people were able to avoid the draft meant that few people were actually drafted to continue their antiwar activism inside the army. During the Gulf War about twenty Australian sailors refused to sail to the Gulf. One of these sailors, Leading Seaman Terry Jones, received international media attention for his stance when he jumped ship from the HMAS Adelaide in August 1990. His words became one of the first and most powerful media statements of the Australian peace movement: "I am not a coward and I would be prepared to die for my country, but I am taking a political stand because this is not our war, we are just following the Americans... Who gave the Americans and the British the right to impose their way of life on others and to get Australians to die for it?"3 Military personnel in particular are concerned with the threat or potential of being involved in a war and as such, have on many occasions been involved in antimilitarist campaigns. In West Germany in 1977, American units became involved in organising GI petitions against the deployment of the neutron bomb. Although the petition effort was continually silenced, it was circulated widely and even made it back to bases in the U.S. The soldier petition effort then became linked with the civilian anti-neutron bomb campaign run by SANE and other national peace organisations. When the NATO ministers met in Washington in 1978, civilian and active duty soldier activists joined for a mass protest demonstration against the neutron bomb. When more than 100 civilian peace activists picketed the U.S. State Department later in the year, several servicemen presented a strongly worded petition with the names of over 400 GIs to Congress. Examples of soldier-civilian alliances such as this give an indication of the potential of working with internal soldier resistance. While most internal dissent begins with conflicts over wages and conditions, organised soldier movements have continually confronted issues such as racism, sexism, discrimination, drug use, AIDS, nuclear weapons, unsafe weapons storage, foreign interventions and other issues that affect soldiers. It is clear that such grassroots organising deserves far more recognition and support from the wider peace movements. Military personnel who are actively struggling to gain greater freedom, dignity and human rights within the army are a crucial part of the wider grassroots struggle to end war and repression. By empowering soldiers with knowledge and creating a higher level of democracy within the army, soldier resistance challenges the state's ability to use the military for both internal repression of people's movements and imperialist wars overseas. The idea of actively supporting and working with soldier resistance is also an important move away from the peace movement's historical reliance on governments and elites to carry out peace initiatives for them, something that elites will clearly only do when and if it suits their own vested interests. When resistance becomes as widespread and as powerful as it did in the U.S. military during Vietnam it seriously challenges the ability of nations to wage unpopular wars. Soldier Resistance In Australia? It is with this perspective that the Australian magazine At Ease! was produced. Although the Australian Defence Force (ADF) is relatively small and an allvolunteer force there is still a degree of dissent within the ranks over issues such as discrimination against women, koori and gay or lesbian personnel. Other issues include the recent Force Structure Review changes which seem to favour expensive, high-tech weapons and systems over the personnel themselves. It is also important to recognise that many people have enlisted due to economic hardship or the lure of obtaining trade skills rather than a willingness to participate in wars or warfighting strategies. In Australia there is the possibility of there being even some resistance within the ADF to such things as; arms trading, nuclear warship visits, French nuclear testing in the Pacific, soldiers being used as strikebreakers and against civilians (i.e. Nurrungar '89) and even the bombing of environmentally sensitive areas for target practice and numerous other issues. Resistance, as we can see from overseas experience, can take many forms, from simply speaking out against an issue to outright refusal to obey orders. As even minor disobedience can receive severe punishment, any resistance can be expected to develop slowly. The aim of the At Ease! journal is to contact and support any such dissent within the ADF and help it develop. The project is experimental and will most likely take a long time to reach a significant proportion of enlisted personnel. Currently, the At Ease! collective is asking nonviolent activists around Australia for help in distributing At Ease! By handing out At Ease! at nearby bases, barracks or public transport depots activists can begin to communicate with individual personnel and help get alternative information and ideas into as many units across Australia as possible. Also anyone with friends, relatives or contacts within the military can send them copies of At Ease! by either passing on their postal addresses to us or giving it to them personally. Distributing At Ease! can become part of any peace group's campaign to educate their local community and a viable way of liaising with and deroling military personnel during nonviolent actions at military establishments. In the longer term, we hope to encourage enlisted personnel themselves to distribute and even produce At Ease! or a similar newspaper. The idea of At Ease! does represent an alternative approach to confronting militarism at a grassroots level and a project that any peace activists can participate in. For more information or to obtain copies of At Ease! please write to: At Ease! P.O.Box 167 North Carlton, Victoria 3054, or phone Anthony Kelly on (03) 383 5785. The second edition, published in October/November focussed on AIDEX '91. A third issue is due soon. "General, your tank is a mighty machine. It shatters the forest and crushes a hundred men. But it has one defect: it needs a driver." Bertolt Brecht Anthony Kelly, editorial collective of At Ease! Footnotes: 1. Cortright, David. Soldiers In Revolt, 1975. 2. Cortright, David and Watts, Max. Left Face, Soldier Unions and Resistance Movements in Modern Armies, Greenwood Press 1991. 3. Bring The Frigates Home Coalition, leaflet, "Appeal For Support", Jan. 1991. 4. Cortright, David Watts, Max, Left Face, Soldier Unions and Resistance Movement in Modern Armies, Greenwood Press 1991.