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181 DOI: 10.7330/9780874219043.c09 9 Oppositional Positioning The Military Identification of Young Antiwar Veterans Lisa Gilman On November 4, 2008, the same day that Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, a group of young American veterans, most of whom had served in the current conflict in Iraq, opened Coffee Strong, an antiwar coffeehouse and nonprofit organization located outside of two military bases in Lakewood, Washington, which have since been joined into Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM). Though the veterans identify themselves in opposition to the US military and its current conflicts, the culture of their activist community is rife with military folklore and folklore that plays ironically with military symbols to create multiple messages. The name Coffee Strong, for example, is a play on the US Army slogan, “Army Strong.” Coffee Strong members wear fragments of their military uniforms, display symbols that reference the military, and tell jokes, legends, and personal -experience narratives about the military, war, and Veterans Affairs. Their stories and conversations are replete with esoteric knowledge, acronyms , and the type of folk speech that Elinor Levy, in chapter 5 of this volume, terms “enlistic.” This essay explores why this antiwar community relies so heavily on American military folklore in its group formation, identification , and activism. In his influential article “Differential Identity and the Social Base of Folklore,” Richard Bauman (2000 [1972]) pointed out that folklore performance is not always an intragroup phenomenon, but may sometimes be based on differences in identity. More recently, Dorothy Noyes (2003) has convincingly demonstrated how folk groups are interactively constituted. 182 Lisa Gilman In this essay, building on these conceptualizations of group and identity, I examine how a folk group’s identity can be complicatedly founded in the simultaneous identification with and rejection of (or differentiation from) a larger cultural community of which they are also members. Through their performances of folklore associated with the military, the activist war veterans of Coffee Strong identify themselves as members of the larger military culture at the same time that they politically reject this association; their performances of military-themed folklore are expressions of both identification and differentiation. These oppositionally positioned and sometimes ambiguous performances also function interactively with people outside the activist group to communicate multivalent messages, advance the group’s objectives, draw people into the movement, and further differentiate the members of Coffee Strong from those critical of them. Coffee Strong, Community, and the Complexity of Identity This research began as a documentary film project, Grounds for Resistance, about activist veterans involved in Coffee Strong. I completed the filming for that project in March 2010, but my fieldwork has continued through the postproduction phase and into the present. In my research for the film, and in compiling the material used for this essay, I took an ethnographic approach, establishing friendships with many of those featured, spending time in the coffee shop participating and observing, and attending as many of its sponsored events as I could. Much of the data presented here comes from my participant observation, which was largely unrecorded and thus is presented as descriptions rather than verbatim transcripts. Those parts that were documented in film are presented verbatim when relevant and possible. Given the personal nature of some of the material in this essay, I refer to veterans using only their first names. For those who indicated that they did not want to be identified, I include only limited information about their ages and the branches in which they served. Coffee Strong is located in Lakewood, Washington, between Olympia andTacoma along the Interstate 5 corridor within sight of the security fences that enclose Fort Lewis Army Base and Lewis-McChord Air Force Base (now JBLM). It shares a wall and parking lot with its neighbor, a Subway sandwich shop, one of many fast-food restaurants on this one-mile strip, which resembles those in many towns that cater to military bases (figure 9.1). Oppositional Positioning 183 The predominant businesses are fast-food chain restaurants, pawnshops , barbershops advertising military-appropriate haircuts, and military surplus stores. Coffee Strong stands out in this military enclave. Locally owned by veterans, it offers the expected menu and atmosphere of contemporary coffee shops. It features high-quality coffee—served straight and in lattes, cappuccinos, and mochas—in addition to other food and beverage offerings. It provides computers, free wireless Internet service, chairs and tables, a nook with a cozy couch and cushioned chairs, and a foosball table. In contrast to other...

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