If you live in Springfield you've probably heard that our town is proudly hosting the national convention of the Vietnam Veterans of America this week. Coincidentally, I recently watched a new documentary called Sir! No Sir!, "The suppressed story of the GI movement to end the War in Vietnam."
I was reluctant to rent it because I get burned out on all the movies rehashing the baby-boomer experience with Vietnam. We have new struggles to face today instead of eulogizing the struggles of yesterday. All the movies seem to tell the same story over and over again.
But this movie was different. It told a story that I've never heard before and it told why war hawks have done their best to make sure people forget that it was veterans and active duty troops in Vietnam who helped lead the movement against the war. I never knew how much Nixon was hampered by soldiers in the field who refused to participate.
Conservatives like to push the image of war protesters spitting on Vietnam vets when they came home and the movie takes that story on. It fits the war monger's agenda to advance the idea that being anti-war means being anti-troop. But its hard to keep believing that when the troops themselves are the ones leading the protests.
I love the fact that Arlo Guthrie made an impromptu visit to the Vets meeting in Springfield and sang a song about how he got out of serving in Vietnam. I don't know how the vets reacted but I love the idea that, instead of shouting at eachother, a guy who opposed the war was singing together with guys who served in it.
The movie reminded me of the time during the 2004 campaign when I met a few of the vets who served on the swift-boat with John Kerry. They weren't part of the swift-boat liars group that you saw in the news all the time. Everyone who served on a boat with Kerry stuck by him. That day several soldiers who served in action with Kerry were directly confronting the head of the swift-boat liars group to challenge his calculated deceptions.
That was the day when I finally figured out what was going on. All of the attacks against Kerry by the swift-boat liars group had nothing to do with his service in Vietnam and everything to do with the fact that he spoke out against the war when he got home. As a 20-something that didn't live through their time, it had never occurred to me that they were replaying an argument that had been going on for decades.
I can understand why the swift-boat liars weren't being honest about their intentions. Most of the public believes Vietnam was a mistaken policy and its hard to fault someone who stands up for their convictions.
I think they also wanted to avoid saying anything at all about the fact that Vietnam vets like Kerry opposed the war. It leads to a lot of questions like "Were there many veterans against the war?" "Why did they oppose it?" "What did they have to say?" "How did they work with non-vet protesters who opposed the war?" "How did active duty troops still in Vietnam help oppose the war?" Those are the kind of questions war hawks don't want people asking or answering and that's exactly what "Sir! No Sir!" does.
The most tragic part of that day with Kerry's fellow shipmates wasn't that they were ignored by the media. For me, the saddest part was that the media also ignored the recently returned Iraq War veteran who was there to talk about what he saw and why he now opposes the war.
I imagine he must have known that he could be shunned and harassed for years by some of his fellow veterans like John Kerry was. He had seen the Republican National Convention symbolically spit in the face of every Vietnam veteran when they wore purple heart band-aids and trashed the record of a real hero while they campaigned for someone who used his rich daddy's connections to avoid combat service. He knew he was taking a great personal risk by exposing the"bad news" in Iraq that most of us still know nothing about. And in the end his act of amazing courage was for nothing because the media wasn't ready to tell us the truth of what's happening in Iraq.
Sir! No Sir! is one of the most hard-hitting, emotional movies I've seen in a long time and I learned a lot. Its good for those of us too young to remember what really happened that they don't put in the text books and just as good for those old enough to have forgotten. Its probably best most of all for those who need to know that if they want to oppose a war they served in that there are others doing the same, it has been done by brave men and women before, they will have support, and they can do it in a way that matters.