And we can follow the examples of the national heroes who are fighting for change and demanding accountability from our elected officials at the highest levels. We can join the people taking action at the local level, like the residents of a town in Oregon who protested unfair bills by paying in pennies, chickens and the shirts off their back. We are on the cusp of a new era of progress, but we can't sit back and hope our elected officials will carry us there. In this stirring call to arms, John Whitehead tells the stories of the local heroes who stood up to a cynical government, and who are creating thriving communities of change. Our nation has the potential to be an example of freedom and justice to the world and each of us has the ability to have tremendous impact.

'The Change Manifesto is a street-by-street, town-by-town guide to making an America that works. military fought to defend the Constitution, the Cold War court-martial punished those who wavered from accepted political convictions, sexual behavior, and social conventions, threatening the very rights of due process and free expression the Constitution promised. Young, poor, low-ranking, and nonwhite servicemen bore a disproportionate burden in the military's enforcement of crime, and gay men and lesbians paid the price for the armed forces' official hostility toward homosexuality. The records also show that only the most inept, unfortunate, and impolitic of misbehaving service members were likely to be prosecuted.

Using military justice records, Elizabeth Lutes Hillman demonstrates the criminal consequences of the military's violent mission, ideological goals, fear of homosexuality, and attitude toward racial, gender, and class difference. By examining the Cold War court-martial, Defending America opens a new window on conflicts that divided America at the time, such as the competing demands of work and family and the tension between individual rights and social conformity. The post-World War II American military, newly permanent, populated by draftees as well as volunteers, and asked to fight communism around the world, was also the subject of a major criminal justice reform. From going AWOL to collaborating with communists, assaulting fellow servicemen to marrying without permission, military crime during the Cold War offers a telling glimpse into a military undergoing a demographic and legal transformation.

Sunshine Patriots by Bill Campbell