Host Marvin Simmons speaks with Lisa Gilman, Folklore Program Director and Associate Professor
Folklore and English at the University of Oregon, about her documentarty "Grounds for Resistance," about the veterans who run Coffee Strong, a G.I. coffeehouse just outside Joint Lewis-McChord Base in Washington State. The film is showing at the Clinton Street Theater on Thursday (July 21st) night.
Description: Inspired by the Vietnam-era G.I. coffeehouse movement, young American veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars opened Coffee Strong 300 meters from Joint Lewis-McChord Base in November 2008. This non-profit café is a space where soldiers, veterans, and military families discuss politics and the impact of war. It also provides G.I. counseling, as well as resources for those struggling with combat stress, military sexual trauma, difficulties with veteran benefts, or legal mazes. At the center of this documentary are the veterans who run Coffee Strong. The film explores their decisions to join the military, memories of deployment, relationships with one another, and how their efforts to make a more peaceful and just world help them cope with their own experiences of war. For more info see groundsforresistance.com/
Screening details:
July 21 6-8 pm
Clinton Street Theater
$6.00 (adults), $5.00 (students), (sliding scale available--no one will be turned away)