ANSWER is saying "Bring the Troops Home Now" and I think it's a better, clearer slogan in many ways, expressing concern for the safety of these people without in any way "supporting" militarism.
Liza
> From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 11:43:42 -0500
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Query Re: "Support the Troops -- Bring Them Home"
>
> I asked: "When and where did the slogan 'Support the Troops -- Bring
> Them Home' originate? In the anti-Gulf War movement?" I've received
> many fascinating replies. Thanks to you all for replies on and off
> the listservs (L-I, LBO-talk, Marxmail, M-Fem, MLG, PEN-l, Portside
> [sent to its moderators], Rad-Green, Socialist Register, Solidarity).
> I have a few more questions:
>
> 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/>