Oleo Strut (coffeehouse)

The Oleo Strut was a GI Coffeehouse located in Killeen, Texas, from 1968 to 1972.[1] Like its namesake, a shock absorber in the landing gear of most large aircraft and many smaller ones, the Oleo Strut’s purpose was to help GIs land softly.[2] Upon returning from Vietnam to Fort Hood, shell-shocked soldiers found solace amongst the Strut’s regulars, mostly fellow soldiers and a few civilian sympathizers. The GIs turned the Oleo Strut into one of Texas’s anti-war headquarters, publishing an underground anti-war newspaper, organizing boycotts, setting up a legal office, and leading peace marches.[3]

The Oleo Strut antiwar GI coffeehouse in 1971. Photo by Alan Pogue

The coffeehouse was an organizing center for the support of the Fort Hood 43, a group of Black soldiers who had been disciplined for refusing to perform riot control duty at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.[4][5][6]

See also

References
  1. Estados Unidos. Congress. House. Committee on Internal Security (1972). Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security, Ninety-second Congress, Second Session. 1972. U.S. Government Printing Office.
  2. "If War is Hell, then Coffee Has Offered U.S. Soldiers Some Salvation". NPR.
  3. H. Bruce Franklin (September 2001). Vietnam and Other American Fantasies. Univ of Massachusetts Press. pp. 107–. ISBN 1-55849-332-8.
  4. David L. Parsons (13 March 2017). Dangerous Grounds: Antiwar Coffeehouses and Military Dissent in the Vietnam Era. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 45–. ISBN 978-1-4696-3202-5.
  5. Parsons, David L. (9 January 2018). "Opinion | How Coffeehouses Fueled the Vietnam Peace Movement". The New York Times.
  6. Jonathan Neale (2001). The American War: Vietnam 1960-1975. Bookmarks. ISBN 978-1-898876-67-0.
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