I saw a fascinating and disturbing documentary, called
Winter Soldier (Winterfilm Collective including Barbara Koppel, Robert Fiore, Rhetta Barron, Michael Lesser, USA, 1971, 16mm to BetaSP, 95 min.) .
Chronicling the extraordinary Winter Soldier Investigation conducted by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in Detroit during the winter of 1971, Winterfilm Collective (18 filmmakers) shot footage of more than 125 Vietnam veterans (including a very young John Kerry) that gave eyewitness testimony to war crimes and atrocities they either participated in or witnessed.
The testimony given was occuring about one month after the US Media started covering the charges against Lt. Calley and others for the My Lai massacre, and a critical question was "Is this a rare exception, or more widespread throughout our troops?".
Virtually unreported by the media, WINTER SOLDIER is the only record of this historic gathering, a turning point in American history. Shown at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals and lauded throughout Europe, it only opened briefly in Manhattan, and was broadcast for a single showing on New York's WNET Television.
Then it was not seen anywhere else in North America after 1972. It was too painful for the American public to see how a combination of bad army policy (centered on body counts) and fear were causing some of our field troops in Vietnam to become callous to the point of criminality. At the same time, since 85% of American troops were not out in the field, but doing support work at supply depots, communication hubs, helicopter repair sites, many of the troops did not know or experience what was going on.
Thirty-five years later, the veterans' courage in testifying and their desire to prevent further atrocities and regain their own humanity makes WINTER SOLDIER an unforgettable experience.
The recent abuses of prisoners of Abu Ghraib, and in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo have sometimes been reported as unprecedented. The voices of the veterans in Winter Soldier attest that they were not. The difficulties of Americans in distinguishing between Viet Cong undercover militants and simply distrustful Vietnamese villagers, and the disasterous consequences, is beginning to repeat in Iraq, where Improvised Explosive Devices have scarred enough of our troops that they also struggle to distinguish, in a second or two, undercover insurgents from simply distrustful Iraqi civilians, and sometimes make the wrong choice.
If you can see this film, which is playing sporadically around the US, please do. Otherwise, I believe a DVD version will become available in January.
National Public Radio did a story about the plans to re-release the film which includes some audio excerpts - View/Listen (reported by John Kalish, 7 min).
