The first incident was in November 1965 when Lt. Henry H. Howe, Jr was court martialed for legally participating in an antiwar demonstration, while off-duty and out of uniform, in El Paso.

[8] In 1966, another incident occurred where three soldiers in Fort Hood refused deployment to Vietnam and were reprimanded, gaining the attention of anti-war activists.

[9] At the Presidio of San Francisco a protest was staged by servicemen after another soldier was shot for walking away from a work detail.

More dissident soldiers began to oppose racism felt in the United States, its military, and draft policy.

[9] By June 1971, Colonel Robert Heinl declared that the army in Vietnam was "dispirited where not near mutinous" in an article in Armed Forces Journal.