Michael Uhl

Michael Uhl is a Vietnam veteran antiwar activist, critic and independent scholar, born April 14, 1944, who grew up in Babylon, Long Island, New York. He graduated with a BS in Theoretical Linguists from the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Georgetown University. He spent his undergraduate junior year at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in American Studies and Writing (Creative Non-fiction) from the Union Institute and University.

Profile
In the Army, Uhl received training at the Infantry Officers School, Fort Benning, Georgia and the elite Counter Intelligence School, Fort Holabird, Maryland. He served in Vietnam during 1968-69 as a first lieutenant, where he led a combat intelligence team with the 11th Infantry Brigade. After Vietnam, Uhl entered a doctoral program in linguistics at New York University, and became immediately involved in the antiwar movement, joining the New York City based Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. War Crimes in Vietnam (CCI) as a full-time organizer. He helped organize the National Veterans Inquiry and the Winter Soldier Investigation. In 1970, Uhl joined Ed Murphy in exposing the Phoenix Program, testified at the International Enquiry on US War Crimes in Stockholm, Sweden, and in 1971, he was called to testify before a US Congressional subcommittee investigating the CIA’s Phoenix assassination program in Vietnam. Also in 1971 he toured Australia and New Zealand as a representative of the US anti-Vietnam War movement. That same year he co-founded The Safe Return Amnesty Committee advocating for a universal amnesty on behalf of Vietnam era military deserters. Safe Return was a predecessor of Citizen Soldier, which he also co-founded, and, until 1981, served as co-director, working on a wide range of campaigns advocating for GI and veteran rights. He co-authored the first book length treatment on the health effects of chemical herbicides (Agent Orange) on U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War.

He is a Charter Member of Veterans for Peace founded in Maine (1985), where he moved with his family in the mid-1980s. He is currently serving on the Board of Directors of Veterans For Peace, and is editor of the organization’s national newsletter. Uhl has worked primarily as a writer, and has taught often in universities and colleges in New York City and throughout Maine as Adjunct Professor of Writing.

Publications
Michael Uhl’s essay, “The Chosen: Some Notes on Being a Veteran in American,” appears in Peace Not Terror. He is the author of Vietnam Awakening: My Journey from Combat to the Citizens Commission of Inquiry on US War Crimes, and co-author of G.I. Guinea Pigs: How the Pentagon Exposed Our Troops to Dangers Greater Than War. He is co-editor of The Dellums Committee Hearings on War Crimes in Vietnam. Uhl’s poetry appears in the volumes Winning Hearts and Minds and Demilitarized Zones.

As a travel writer he authored Exploring Maine on Country Roads and Byways and four Frommer’s Guides, including Frommer’s Brazil and Frommer’s Chicago.

He has written scores of articles and book reviews for Geo Magazine, Forbes, House Beautiful, Travel & Leisure, The Progressive, The Nation, The Sunday Boston Globe, Radical America, The Old Westbury Review, In These Times, Peacework, Bangor Daily News, Portland Press Herald, Antiwar.com, among others.

In 2016, McFarland & Company published a collection of Uhl's writings titled The War I Survived Was Vietnam. The collection includes essays, interviews, magazine articles, a lengthy section of reviews and criticism, and an excerpt from G.I. Guinea Pigs.

Film
With Richard Schmiechen, Uhl wrote and co-produced the short documentary film, Nick Mazucco: Biography of an Atomic Vet, on a grant from the Public Broadcasting Corporation.