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The most famous draft resister was
Muhammad Ali.
[Muhammad Ali says:] I won't serve in a white man's war!
People blocked the path of trains hauling troops and munitions bound for
the war.
STOP THE WAR! STOP THE TRAIN.
14,000 people were arrested when they moved to shut down Washington,
D.C. for three days in 1971.
It was the largest mass arrest in U.S. history! [134]
Even more serious for the Pentagon, discipline was breaking down among
the troops in Vietnam. The soldiers saw no reason to fight, and they
wouldn't. By the end of the '60s, a virtual civil war simmered between
soldiers and officers. A U.S. military expert warned the Pentagon about
the state of its army:
"[By] every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam
is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or
having refused combat, murdering their officers and non-commissioned
officers, drug-ridden and dispirited where not near mutinous." (Col.
Robert Heinl, U.S.M.C. retired, 1971) [135] [136]
Record numbers of soldiers and sailors deserted or went AWOL. Organized
resistance was developing among the troops. Hundreds of underground G.I.
newspapers were springing up at bases around the U.S. and around the
world. Contingents of soldiers and sailors were marching at the head of
anti-war demonstrations.
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