Steve Rees was born November 26, 1948 in Chicago, Illinois to Barbara Middlemen and Robert Rees. In 1955 his family moved to Woodside, California where he completed high school and became a member of the Student Friends of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1963. He attended the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1966 to 1969, joining Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) during his freshman year.
Rees left college in 1969 to participate more actively in the anti-war movement. Through friends' involvement in the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM) at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, Rees became involved in the GI Movement. In March 1970, Rees and two other civilians, with no direct military experience, began the underground GI newspaper, Up Against the Bulkhead.
The political guidelines for the paper were originally the program of MDM, drafted in San Diego, California in mid-1969. The major points advocated collective bargaining, equal pay to the federal minimum wage, and an end to racism, the draft, military censorship, class structure in the military, and the Vietnam war. The paper was initially directed toward Navy personnel, but with MDM'S collapse in August, 1970, the paper was re-directed toward GIs in all branches of the Armed Forces. Emphasis was placed on reaching the considerable number of GIs passing through the Bay Area on their way to or from the Asian duty stations. Most of the papers were distributed by hand in the San Francisco and Oakland airports. The remainders were mailed to individual subscribers, United States Servicemen's Fund (USSF), Pacific Counseling Service (PCS) projects, and active duty distributors around the world.
Work on Up Against the Bulkhead consisted of putting out the newspaper every six to eight weeks and maintaining the Correspondence Project. The paper consisted of essentially three types of material: letters to the editor, short articles, and a longer feature. The short articles covered stories of general interest to the GI often clipped from civilian newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Washington Post, and the Pacific News Service. Other GI newspapers, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam also provided material for the short articles. Feature articles covered issues relating to the anti-war movement as well as stories on POWs, drugs, political prisoners, and the Stop Our Ship movement.
In addition to producing Up Against the Bulkhead, the newspaper staff maintained a correspondence project, the purpose of which was to break down the GIs' isolation from civilians and the anti-war movement. All correspondents received a response as well as a packet of pamphlets and reprints about the paper and the GI movement. Packets included “Vietnam-A Thousand Years of Struggle”, “Ask a Marine” by David Osborne, pamphlets on the air war, War Bulletins, and articles on heroin, legal rights, and other topics. The staff received many requests for specific literature and served as a distributor for “Ask a Marine” by Osborne and “Turning the Regs Around” by Nancy Harsch.
Up Against the Bulkhead experienced financial problems and staff turnover throughout its existence. Although staff worked entirely on a volunteer basis, expenses often exceeded the limited budget and caused delays in the production schedule. Funding sources included the United States Servicemen's Fund, Health-PAC, Pacific Counseling Service, and the San Francisco Cambium Fund. Limited funds were received from subscribers, primarily to cover shipping costs. Staff members often contributed personal funds as well as services. Rees, who also worked for a typesetting collective, was able to offer this service free-of-charge to the paper.
Several of the newspaper staff, not including Rees, left the paper in the Fall of 1971 to join a civilian support group of the Stop Our Ship movement. Sailors and Marines with anti-war sentiments began the movement by distributing petitions aboard the USS Constellation and the USS Coral Sea in an effort to prevent deployment of the ships to Vietnam. Many of the petitions were confiscated before they could be presented to Congress. The civilian support groups provided stability and continuity to the movement by leaf letting and fund-raising for public support while the ships were out of port. The civilian group in San Francisco published the SOS Newsletter and was primarily involved in the effort to prevent the deployment of the USS Coral Sea to Vietnam.
Following the January 1973 ceasefire, half of the Up Against the Bulkhead staff resigned due to personal differences and a general loss of direction and purpose. The three remaining staff, including Rees, put aside publishing the paper in an attempt to arrive at a clear statement of purpose and a stable source of funding. The paper ceased production following the February 1974 issue although one issue was printed on March 9, 1975.
Through recruitment efforts, the staff grew to eight between February 1974 and February 1975. This group worked on writing and distributing leaflets and investigative reporting. During this period Rees, Linda Alband, Denni Woodmansee, and other staff members contributed freelance articles on a variety of subjects including the USS Coral Sea (Save American Vessels), Variable Re-enlistment Bonus, Volar, Women and the Armed Forces, and Charles Wood.
Many staff meetings during this time were devoted to defining the group's role in the post-war, volunteer army era. Calling themselves the Bay Area Military Study Group (BAMSG), the core group of Rees, Alband, and Woodmansee, wrote a proposal presented in the GIPA News and Discussion Bulletin in 1976. The proposal outlined the group's political beliefs and called for support of a new GI newspaper, a mass-circulation, statewide newsmonthly for enlisted men and women. It was specifically tailored to revitalize, broaden, and strengthen the GI Movement.
Between 1976 and 1977 efforts were made to raise funds, solicit mailing lists from large publishers, and generate interest and support for the new paper. In November 1976 a sample issue of Enlisted Times was published with Rees in the position of managing editor/publisher. Although reaction to the issue was positive, the paper experienced financial difficulties due to lack of subscribers. The final issue was published August/September 1980.
Rees has continued to work as a freelance writer in the San Francisco area and has worked on the staff of Mother Jones and Info World.
