Coffee Strong

Coffee Strong was a GI coffeehouse based on the tradition of resistance coffee houses opened during the Vietnam War by antiwar veterans and active duty soldiers. Based in Lakewood, WA it was founded in 2008 by veterans returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was located within 300 meters of the gates at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. According to Coffee Strong board member Zoltan Grossman[1]

The goal of the G.I. coffeehouse was to provide soldiers, their families and recent vets a place away from the base where they could learn about resources available to them, meet with G.I. rights counselors, and access alternative information. It held weekly movie nights, and hosted speakers, hiphop, punk and folk concerts, and other events. It is now closed.

The Coffee Strong advisory board included linguist and dissident Noam Chomsky, Marjorie Cohn, Mike Ferner, Eva Golinger, Dahr Jamail, Antonia Juhasz, Col. Ann Wright (Ret.), and the late historian and author Howard Zinn.[2] In 2011 filmmaker and professor of Folklore and English at the University of Oregon Lisa Gilman released the film Grounds for Resistance[3][4] about Coffee Strong and featured interviews by some of its founders and reactions to it from Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldiers.