Citizen Soldier (Organization)

Established in 1967, Citizen Soldier is an educational, research organization, staffed primarily by ex-soldiers, concerned with the long-term effect of military justice, defense policy, and planning. Its effort is to unionize the American armed forces to improve the quality of military life. It is a project of ATOM (Alternatives to Militarism, Inc.) along with the Military Affairs Project (MAP).

From the description of Collection, 1976-1980. (Swarthmore College, Peace Collection). WorldCat record id: 27369647

The Citizens' Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes was an offshoot of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. CCI staff organized the early chapters of Vietnam Veterans Against War (VVAW) in 1970-71. This work is the subject of two books: The Dellums Committee Hearings on War Crimes in Vietnam (Ensign, Rifkin, Uhl, editors, Vintage Book) and Standard Operating Procedure, by James Simon Kunen (Avon Books).

The Safe Return Amnesty Committee worked to win full amnesty for all military resisters to the war, the thousands of men who went AWOL or deserted and were given less-than-honorable discharges. This work is the subject of the book The Amnesty of John David Herndon by James Reston Jr. (McGraw Hill Books).

Citizen Soldier, a successor of the above two groups, has been in existence since 1976. CS has worked largely around issues of concern to active duty GI's, including unions, and has concentrated on veterans' health issues like Agent Orange and radiation exposure. Tod Ensign and Michael Uhl wrote the book GI Guinea Pigs (Playboy Books, 1980), which reports on the U.S. Defoliation program in Indochina and the Open Air A bomb test of the 1940s and '50s and the subsequent perception by veterans that these events have contributed to their decline in health.

From the guide to the Citizen Soldier records, 1966-1994, (Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library)