As the GI movement grew, USSF was able to use its connections among GIs and with mainstream reporters to help spread stories the U.S. military was attempting to keep hidden. Paul Lauter, who led USSF from mid-1971 to mid-1972, described this in his memoir observing that among GIs, "nothing the military started up remained secret for very long." He recalled passing GI stories on to the news media about secret B-52 bombing runs from Guam which, once revealed, generated increased antiwar sentiment. The Nixon administration, Lauter said, viewed this "process as a form of espionage", but "it was simply GI democracy at work."
