[2] Ensign co-founded Citizen Soldier in 1969 to advocate on behalf of GIs and veterans who work to oppose command-tolerated racism, sexism, homophobia and militarism.
Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Citizen Soldier attorneys, including Ensign, counseled hundreds of GIs and reservists seeking alternatives to serving in what many regard as an illegal war.
He was coauthor (with Michael Uhl) of GI Guinea Pigs (Playboy, 1980) the first exposé of how US soldiers were harmed by nuclear fallout during A-bomb tests and the herbicide Agent Orange that was used during the Vietnam War.
He also contributed chapters to four other books — Ten Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military (New Press, 2006) Against the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists (Syracuse U.
Furthermore, he wrote dozens of articles for The Progressive, In These Times, Radical America, The American Pathologist, the New York Daily News, Toward Freedom, Against the Current, the Weekly Guardian, the Non Violent Resister, The Indypendent, and several others.