[Peace-discuss] "Sir! No Sir!" and "The Ground Truth" -- films on Sundance Channel on Monday evening 5/7

[Stuart Levy]

I don't know whether the Sundance Channel is actually available
in this area, but if some of you have it, you might be interested in these
anti-war films to be shown next Monday, May 7th.

I don't have cable, and can't "check listings", so am not sure
what time they'll be shown in this area.   The e-mailed announcement is below --
probably I'd received this since I'd bought a copy of one of the films.

===========================================================================
Don't miss this opportunity to see the film and show it to others.
Make a night of resistance out of it!
***************************************************************************
Sir! No Sir!
Monday May 7
Sundance Channel
9 pm Eastern and Pacific

Check Listings for Central and Mountain

The Ground Truth
Monday, May 7
The Sundance Channel
10:30 pm Eastern and Pacific

Check Listings for Central and Mountain
***********************************************

A Letter From David Zeiger


It's a unique experience to feel that you are part of making history.

So says Dr. Howard Levy who, as an army doctor in 1966, spent 3 years in
federal prison for refusing to train Green Beret troops heading to Vietnam. His
comments come at the end of my film about the GI Movement against the Vietnam
War, Sir! No Sir!

In a sadly ironic twist, 40 years later Dr. Levy and the thousands of active
duty soldiers who openly organized against the Vietnam War while in the
military are once again part of making history-because their story is sparking
a new and significant movement in the military today.

Sir! No Sir! tells a story that has literally been erased from history.
Hundreds of films, both fiction and non-fiction, have been made about Vietnam.
But this story-the rebellion of thousands of American soldiers-has never been
told in film. This is certainly not for lack of evidence. By the Pentagon's own
figures, 503,926 "incidents of desertion" occurred between 1966 and 1971;
officers were being "fragged"(killed with fragmentation grenades by their own
troops) at an alarming rate; and by 1971 entire units were refusing to go into
battle in unprecedented numbers. In the course of a few short years, over 200
antiwar underground newspapers were published by soldiers around the world;
local and national antiwar GI organizations were joined by thousands; thousands
more demonstrated against the war at every major base in the world in 1970 and
1971, including in Vietnam itself; and stockades and federal prisons were
filling up with soldiers jailed for their opposition to the war and the
military. Colonel Robert Heinl, the Marine Corp's official historian, wrote
strikingly in 1971 that rebellion in the ranks had "permeated every branch of
the service." His article in the Armed Forces Journal was titled "The Collapse
of the Armed Forces."

Sir! No Sir! opened in theaters last Spring and got a good deal of attention.
L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan called it "A powerful documentary that uncovers
half-forgotten history, history that is still relevant but not in ways you
might be expecting," and another critic only half-jokingly called it "A film
that threatens the war movement with every showing, the Bush administration
should outlaw it from all theatres within fifty miles of an armed forces
recruiting station."

It turns out he had a point. Since its release last spring, my little film
about events that happened 40 years ago has had quite an impact inside the
military. Kind of like giving a motorboat to prisoners abandoned on a remote
Island. The organization Iraq Veterans Against the War has distributed hundreds
of DVDs soldiers for free, and the film has been cited by several who have
publicly refused deployment to Iraq on the grounds that the war is immoral and
a clear violation of international law.

Navy Seaman Jonathon Hutto and Marine Sergeant Liam Madden met at a screening
in Norfolk last fall and, inspired by the film and David Cortright's seminal
book on the GI Movement, Soldiers in Revolt, decided to start the Appeal for
Redress. Cleverly using the military's own whistleblower protection policy, the
Appeal is a petition to congress calling for an immediate end to the war.
Almost instantly they had 1,600 signatures (it has since risen to over 2,000).
If the number seems small, consider this: There are currently about 140,00
troops in Iraq. In November 1969, with over 3.5 million GIs in Vietnam, 1,366
signed a New York Times ad calling for an end to the war-and the effect was
electrifying. Numbers only take on their true meaning when understood in
context.

True, Iraq is not Vietnam, and 2007 is not 1969. But something very profound is
happening here. The world is full of moments when history intertwines with the
present in dynamic and unexpected ways. The civil rights movement of the 1960s
was fueled by the hundred-year-old stories of Harriet Tubman, John Brown, and
the slave rebellions we never learned about in school. This is another one of
those moments.

My film doesn't tell anyone what to do. But it does tell an incendiary story of
thousands of soldiers who helped end a war 40 years ago. As the Bush
administration plans only escalation of this horrendous war, the 200-pound
gorilla blocking his way may well be the troops themselves.

David Zeiger