GI's Against Fascism

The group developed in mid-1969 out of a number of sailors requesting adequate quarters, but coalesced into a formal organization with a wider agenda: a more generalized opposition to the war and to perceived institutional racism within the U.S. Navy.

By late 1969 they merged with a group of marines at Camp Pendleton to form the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM) and continued publishing their newspaper until the middle of 1970.

[1][2] Although short-lived, because they were pioneers within the U.S. Navy and helped found the influential MDM, they had an important impact on later expressions of dissent within the U.S. military and the overall anti-Vietnam War movement.

This led to rapid improvements of the quarters: the building was cleaned up and painted, the bathrooms and showers were repaired, and a cubicle was converted to a reading or study room.

[9] The local police were also accused by a group of faculty members from San Diego colleges of harassing sailors for distributing copies of Duck Power.

In the end Csekey was convicted, demoted in rank and sentenced to twenty days at hard labor in the Navy brig, but received an honorable discharge.

For example, many people paid attention and learned from Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan when he returned from Vietnam in 1966 saying publicly that "The Whole Thing was a Lie!"

[4][3] In addition to being the first in the Navy, as founding members of MDM, the Ducks helped initiate one of the most well known and influential antiwar and GI resistance organizations in the Vietnam era.