What it’s about
David Zeiger's fascinating documentary tells the little-known, previously untold story of the GIs who protested the Vietnam War. Some fought in Southeast Asia and went AWOL, or returned disillusioned. Others refused to serve and were court-martialed for their anti-war beliefs. Many became activists, joining protest movements like Vietnam Veterans Against the War or participating in acts of civil disobedience alongside their civilian counterparts. Shuttling us from San Francisco to Washington D.C., Zeiger revisits the forgotten courage and conviction of men in uniform who said “sir, no sir!”
Why we love it
Too often equated with long-hair counterculture types (and celebrity activist Jane Fonda), the U.S. antiwar movement that bloomed between the Tet Offensive in 1968 and the end of the war in the early 70s included impressive numbers of decorated veterans and enlisted men. Drawing on the memories and first-person testimony of people like Louis Font (a West Point grad who refused to serve) and Terry Whitmore (famously exiled to Sweden), as well as Fonda herself, Zeiger's sweeping doc gives one a vibrant sense of just how contentious the times were, and how closely they echo our own.