Coffeehouse.

This is coolbert:

Thanks to the LA Times through the Chicago Tribune for this item:

"G.I. joe: Veterans-turned-baristas serve a strong brew"

"Just outside the largest Army base on the West Coast, a coffeehouse aims to provide active-duty soldiers and fellow veterans with help surviving the effects of war -- and maybe ending it."



"men and women in fatigues, sipping drinks, scanning computers free of charge and reading newspapers."

"the shop steer patrons toward psychological and job counseling and connect them with groups that will help them get better medical treatment"

A legacy of the Vietnam War has returned - - the coffeehouse movement?

A legacy from FORTY YEARS AGO NOW!! Renewed with vigor?

Coffeehouses, located just outside military bases, offering a combination of anti-war spiel and "advice", "counseling", etc.

Providing:

* Free computer use.
* Free newspapers.
* Counseling.

And a cuppa "Joe". STRONG Joe!

A legacy of the anti-war coffeehouse movement of the late 1960's very similar in nature?

It would seem not exactly so. Those anti-war coffeehouses of the late 1960's were much more strident in their approach to the war. Encouraged GI's [draftees of the period mostly!] to:

* Desert.
* Seek discharge.
* Be reassigned as a conscientious objector.
* Shirk duties.
* Be disobedient and act surly toward command authority.

AND, one important trademark of the late 1960's coffeehouse movement seems to be missing in the latest incarnation?

There is not the coterie of attractive, college-age young women active in the current "movement"? Attractive, college-age young women quite willing and able to approach you, the young GI far from home, sit down at your table, drink coffee with you and engage in polite discussion. Conversations that often lead to further assignations and liaisons! To that young GI, a draftee "far from home", such assignations and liaisons were irresistible and highly desirable?

Your current soldier in the U.S. Army, being a volunteer, quite often married with children, is not so susceptible to being "vamped", the femme fatale' approach not working as it did during the Vietnam War?

coolbert.