Q2 Why not simply say, "Bring the Troops Home _Now_," rather than "Support the Troops -- Bring Them Home"? That's shorter, clearer, and more pointed, no?
Q3 Is the slogan "Support the Troops -- Bring Them Home" a US slogan? Or is the slogan now being used in Australia, the UK, Israel, etc., too? Has it been used in other nations before, e.g. by anti-war protesters in the UK during the The Falklands War/La Guerra de Las Malvinas (1982)?
Q4 I've received a variety of answers (see the notes below) to my first question: "When and where did the slogan 'Support the Troops -- Bring Them Home' originate? In the anti-Gulf War movement?" The earliest date of use of the theme of bringing the troops home points to a "Bring the Troops Home Now" protest movement at the end of World War 2, in opposition to the use of US troops to crush anti-colonial uprisings in the Asia-Pacific region (Cf. Alan Wald) and also to the stationing of US troops in Europe (Cf. Jose G. Perez), though the slogan in that movement appears to have been used without the addition of "Support the Troops." There had been anti-war and/or anti-imperialist protests and movements before 1945 (e.g., oppositions to the Mexican War, the Anti-Imperialist League, protests against WW1, etc.). What were their slogans, with regard to US troops sent by the US government to foreign territories?
Notes:
Replies to my first question -- "When and where did the slogan 'Support the Troops -- Bring Them Home' originate? In the anti-Gulf War movement?" -- include the following:
A1 Originally, the slogan was "Bring the Troops Home Now," used by a movement to oppose the use of US troops to crush anti-colonial uprisings in the Asia-Pacific region at the end of WW2. Alan Wald gave me the following reference: Harvey Swados, _Standing Fast_, <http://www.bolerium.com/cgi-bin/bol48/233.html>; pamphlets from the movement should exist in some historical archives -- where? Shannon Sheppard (Director, Holt Labor Library) points to Mary-Alice Waters, "A Hidden Chapter in the Fight against War: the Going Home Movement" in a 1975 SWP Education for Socialists bulletin, "Revolutionary Strategy in the Fight Against the Vietnam War" (the article originally appeared in the November-December 1965 issue of the Young Socialist -- it chronicles the movement begun by US troops stationed in Europe and quickly supported by their friends and family in the states, protesting the US troops' transfer from Europe to the Pacific "to protect Western interests from the growing colonial revolution"); anyone who wants a copy of the article or the entire bulletin should contact Shannon Sheppard at the Holt Labor Library, (415) 241-1370, <holtlabor at holtlaborlibrary.org>. Juan Fajardo says that the article was also reprinted in _New International_ No. 7 (ISBN: 0-87348-642-0), under the title "1945: When U.S. Troops said 'No!'" Alan Wald remembers that he bought a copy of Mary-Alice Waters, _G.I.'s and the Fight against War: the "Going Home" Movement_ in 1965 (a 1967 copy is in Ken Lopez's catalog at <http://www.lopezbooks.com/vn1/vn1-06.html>). Rodney W. of Boston says that the great military resistance slogan from the end of WW2 was "Send Our Ships!" chanted by GI's in the Philippines who started the S.O.S. (Send Our Ships) movement, rallying to be sent home instead of getting used for anticommunist campaigns; in the course of the movement, riots broke out, and officers' clubs and barracks were ransacked and torched -- then, GIs got their ships and got to go home!
A2 The slogan ("Bring the Troops Home Now"? "Support the Troops -- Bring Them Home Now"? Both?) was used, according to Alan Wald, by the "Out Now" and "Immediate Withdrawal" section of the anti-Vietnam War movement in the sixties (in contrast to the liberal "Negotiate Now" section (promoted by SANE, etc., according to Carrol Cox) and the explicitly anti-imperialist "Victory to the NLF" section of the movement); the slogan was coined by the SWP according to Louis Proyect. Jose G. Perez says that discussion of the SWP deployment of the slogan may be found in Fred Halstead, _Out Now_, <http://www.pathfinderpress.com/d800/819.shtml>. Reed Tryte writes that there is a picture of a New York anti-war march down Fifth Avenue, with a man in the march carrying a sign that reads "Support Our Boys -- Bring Them Home Now" (right next to him is a man with a sign declaring "The USA National Liberation Movement Supports the NLF of Vietnam," next to whom stands a woman with a sign "Committee to Aid the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam") on the cover of _West Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir_ by William Blum -- see the picture at <http://www.softskull.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart.100.exe/store/blum/west_bloc.html?E+scstore>. Charles Post also remembers the slogan "Support the Troops-- Bring Them Home Now" from the anti-Vietnam War movement. Patrick Quinn qualifies it: "Liberals tended to use the 'Support Our Boys: Bring Them Home Now' variant while radicals used the 'Bring the Troops Home Now' slogan." Rodney recommends David Cortwright, _Soldiers in Revolt: The American Military Today_ (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975)_.
A3 The slogan became prominent during the anti-Gulf War movement, perhaps in part in response to the myth that Vietnam Veterans were spit upon or otherwise ill treated by an anti-war movement, hence more verbal emphasis on the theme of supporting the troops than before (WW2, Vietnam War). See Melani McAlister (Cf. <http://www.gwu.edu/~amst/community/faculty/core/mcalister.htm>), _Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945-2000_ (2001), <http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9257.html>, for an analysis of how anti-Gulf War protesters often self-consciously staged protests to distinguish them from those during the anti-Vietnam War movement. Chai R. Montgomery recalls that the slogan during the Vietnam days was "Stop the War -- Bring the Troops Home Now," but anti-Gulf War protesters changed it to "Support the Troops -- Bring Them Home." Some in the anti-Gulf War movement criticized the change: Cf. Stop the U.S. War Machine Action Network, "Some Lessons of the Struggle against the Gulf War," January 1992 <http://www.oz.net/~vvawai/pdf/Lessons-gulf-war.pdf>, recommended by Michael Hoover.
Postscript: Visit <http://www.holtlaborlibrary.org/anti-war.html> for valuable anti-war resources. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>