Fort Lewis Six

[2][3] According to the local GI underground newspaper at Fort Lewis, this was the largest mass refusal of direct orders to Vietnam at the base up to that point in the war.

[6][7] The Shelter Half and GI-CAP began working together and soon active-duty soldiers and local activists organized antiwar activity.

On February 16, 1969, an estimated 300 GIs led around 1,000 demonstrators through downtown Seattle to a rally at Tacoma's Eagles Auditorium where they listened to speeches against the war and racism, and for GI rights.

[11] In response a group of students at the University of Washington in Seattle organized what they called "the Trial of the Army", which on January 21 convened a panel of thirteen active-duty servicemen to listen to testimony about the Vietnam War and daily life in the military.

The "Trial" generated significant local and national publicity and probably contributed to the military's decision to abandon their efforts to declare the Shelter Half off limits.

"[16] PCS, stated in a press release that the six men had met with "a number of Tacoma citizens, many of them clergymen" who "have no doubts about their sincerity", a key element of CO status.

[4] The Army threw four of the six into the stockade for pre-trial confinement, an unusual move which GI advocates argued was contrary to military regulations.

The Lewis-McChord Free Press reported that Base "regulation 27-2 explicitly states that pre-trial confinement is to be used only when there is danger" of self-harm or flight, neither of which applied to any of the four.

[19] Apparently the four were singled out for harsher treatment because on June 14, while they were awaiting the Pentagon's decision on their CO status, they had participated in an action at the Main Chapel on Fort Lewis.

The four GIs, along with four civilians rededicated the chapel to Saint Maximilian, a Christian who was executed for refusing induction into the Roman Army in 295 A.D and is considered to be the earliest recorded conscientious objector.

'"[21] They were initially all sent to the military stockade at Fort Lewis, but within a short period of time three of them, Dix, Allen and Forest, created what they called the Fort Lewis Stockade Liberation Front which organized a fast in the prison to demand freedom of speech and assembly, a free press, an expansion of the stockade library, the release of all political prisoners from maximum security cells, the right to form a committee of prisoners to negotiate with the administration, and the right to hold weekly press conferences.