Movie Review: Sir! No Sir!

I couldn't wait until tonight to watch it - I finally got a chance to see all of Sir! No Sir! over the weekend.

This film is a powerful, in-your-face statement about the anti-war movement in the 1960s. As someone who did not live through those times, I was very surprised to learn that there was such a large movement within the U.S. Military to refuse service in Vietnam.

Having grown up in a family with people who served in the military, including my father (a Vietnam-era veteran who was not deployed to Southeast Asia) and an uncle who was in Da Nang during the Tet Offensive, I was always of the belief that draft dodgers were the scum of the Earth. "If you're called, you go," was (and still is, for the most part) the mantra of my family.

And I shared that view, until I became educated and formed opinions of my own. The more I read about Vietnam, along with many important wars and political events since that war, I'm convinced that if I were drafted in the 1960s I would not have served. And that's not out of a lack of patriotism or love for my country. I feel that way because the war was unjust, brutal, and it needlessly and tragically ended or altered hundreds of thousands of American lives, including over 58,000 dead. Only sheep do what they're told without thinking about the wisdom of that action, at least to themselves.

Sir! No Sir! tracks a similar point of view. What's most powerful about this film is not so much the theme (which is indeed quite powerful), but the source - soldiers. This film is not about a bunch of peace protesters who chanted, stomped and shouted to end the war (although soldiers and veterans of the war joined the peace movement, beginning as soon as the first wave of soldiers began coming home).

The cast of this film is powerful, credible and moving.

Donald Duncan, a former green beret, talks about atrocities in South Vietnam that should revolt all Americans, no matter their political persuasion. One of this potent quotes from the movie is from Duncan -- "I was really proud of what I thought I was doing. The problem I had was realizing that what I was doing was not good. I was doing it right, but I wasn't doing right."

These are the words of a green beret - the best of the best of our military.

Equally as startling is the story of Howard Levy, a dermatologist who was training members of the U.S. Army to cure very basic skin ailments of Vietnamese children. While that seems noble enough at first blush, the motive behind it was not. The reason for doing this was so the Army would leave a good impression on the Vietnamese people. As Levy states in the film, Winning of Hearts and Minds, the old slogan that every G.I. was trained to abide by while serving in Southeast Asia.

It's almost comical - the military was curing Vietnamese of simple dermatological conditions to win the support of the South Vietnamese, yet proceeded to bomb and defoliate the country, killing hundreds of thousands.

Levy soon became disenchanted with the military and what it was doing, and before long he refused to train military personnel, leading to his court martial. It was during his trail that he realized the wisdom of his ways:

"I think the most startling thing to me occurred as the court martial began," said Levy. "It was the most remarkable thing when hundreds, hundreds of GIs would hang out of windows, out of the barracks and give me the V-sign or give me the clenched fist. This was mind boggling to me. This was a revelation, and at that point it really became crystal clear to me that something had changed here and that something very, very important was happening."

Another powerful soldier in the film is Susan Schnall, a lieutenant in the Navy who was arrested for wearing her uniform to a protest rally. Her reason for wearing it was simple - If General [William] Westmoreland can go on TV every day and say how great the war is going, I should be able to wear my uniform to tell how poorly its going, she said.

The military didn't see it that way - Schnall was court martialled and dishonorably discharged from the Navy.

Sir! No Sir! lays out in stunning detail the lengths our government went to put down dissent and protests, both in and out of the military, from the government considering use of the National Guard during the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968, to the military's arrest of black soldiers for doing a special handshake that was popular among African-American soldiers.

I'd by lying if I didn't write that this film makes me fear and distrust my government now, especially since we are at war. Things have not changed all that much since the early 1970s, especially with President Bush in office, whose administration mirrors President Nixon's in a number of disturbing ways, including some of the former players.

Just how extensive the soldier protests were during the Vietnam War is mind-boggling- By the Pentagon’s own figures, 503,926 "incidents of desertion" took place between 1966 and 1971; officers were being "fragged" (killed with fragmentation grenades by their own troops) at an unprecedented rate; and by 1971 entire units were refusing to go into battle in truly astonishing numbers.

Another fascinating thing during the protest movement was the underground press; papers delivered to GIs. Any soldier found in possession of an underground paper suffered severe punishment, so merely reading one was a risk, and delivering an underground paper was a count martial offense. In the course of a few short years, over 100 underground papers were published by soldiers around the world, including The Last Harass and Fatigue Press. (Read more about those Here and Here.)

Perhaps most powerful of all is the story of an American G.I. who took the life of a North Vietnamese soldier in a firefight. After the battle was over, the G.I.'s Sargent took him over to the dead enemy, and said to him, "Good job - here is this gook you killed."

While telling the story, the G.I. looked into the camera and said, "I began to think, what was his mom thinking? How would she find out? I wonder if he had a girlfriend?"

That emotional segment in the movie really puts the human face on war, and breaks down killing into its very basic form - it's one human taking the life of another human.

The film is by David Ziegler, who has a background stepped in the anti-war movement of the 1960s. From the film's Website:

The film does four things: 1) Brings to life the history of the GI movement through the stories of those who were part of it; 2) Reveals the explosion of defiance that the movement gave birth to with never-before-seen archival material; 3) Explores the profound impact that movement had on the military and the war itself; and 4) The feature, 90 minute version, also tells the story of how and why the GI Movement has been erased from the public memory.

I was part of that movement during the 60’s, and have an intimate connection with it. For two years I worked as a civilian at the Oleo Strut in Killeen, Texas–one of dozens of coffeehouses that were opened near military bases to support the efforts of antiwar soldiers. I helped organize demonstrations of over 1,000 soldiers against the war and the military; I worked with guys from small towns and urban ghettos who had joined the military and gone to Vietnam out of a deep sense of duty and now risked their lives and futures to end the war; and I helped defend them when they were jailed for their antiwar activities. My deep connection with the GI movement has given me unprecedented access to those involved, along with a tremendous amount of archival material including photographs, underground papers, local news coverage and personal 8mm footage.

Sir! No Sir! is an incredibly educational and informative movie, and it's a must-see for anyone who wants to learn what our government is capable of in a time of war. If you haven't seen this movie, I highly recommend you check it out. For more information, go to the film's Website Here.

It airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET on the Sundance Channel.

After all these years, the following poem by Bertolt Brecht, which became an anthem of the G.I. Movement, still resonates, and in a small way, makes me think of our brave soldiers serving in the Middle East:

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect: He can think.



Even who the film is dedicated to is moving. Zeigler has dedicated the film to these two men: Jeff Sharlet (1942-1969), founder of Vietnam GI, one of the first GI underground papers; and John Kniffin (1940-2002), leader of Texas Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Both died of cancers caused by Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by the U.S. military in Vietnam.