winter soldier

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
-Thomas Paine, December, 1776, from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

Yesterday afternoon, during my day off from work and yet another winter storm that wasn't, I took in a matinee at the E Street Cinema (I love that this indie theatre is so close, within walking distance!); I chose Winter Soldier. Milliarium Zero is releasing the 1972 documentary--examining official sanction of atrocities in the Vietnam War--to theatres for the first time, and it seems that the timing could not be more apropos. The footage was filmed on January 31 and February 1 and 2, 1971, shortly after the revelations of the My Lai Massacre. Organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War and dubbed "The Winter Soldier Investigations," the public inquiry took place in Detroit and included more than 125 veterans.

The accounts of horrors perpetrated or witnessed by the soldiers were barely speakable, let alone repeatable, so I won't try to detail them here. The young men--bearded, mustachioed, and long-haired all--were plain spoken but amazingly eloquent in their denunciation of themselves and their units. It is important to note that every one of the acts described had, in some way or another, official sanction, and this is what disturbed these soldiers the most about their experience. "I didn't like being an animal," says one. The film has no voice-over commentary or other narrative glue holding the different testimonies together, a lack which lies at the heart of the film's power. The soldiers were simply impanelled in front of an audience of members of the media and other civilians and spoke about their experiences; all were still contending with their own humanity after ill-treating so many Vietnamese at the behest of their superiors.

Pre-deployment training at boot camp was in most cases not enough to prepare these young men for the challenges they faced upon arrival in Vietnam. One experience came the closest: called "the rabbit lesson," it was the last bit of information that soldiers ingested before being sent to Southest Asia. The unit leader would bring out a fluffy white rabbit and give his men just enough time to develop some affection for the animal before gutting and skinning it in front of them. The next morning, they would fly to Saigon.

The Washington Post's review

the film's official website