war & myth

[kelber at mindspring.com]

In addition to debunking the urban myth of the spat-upon vets, Sir! No Sir! does a fantastic job of unearthing some very hidden history.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Oct 13, 2006 12:28 PM
>To: Pynchon-L <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: war & myth
>
>October 13, 2006
>An Interview with Jerry Lembcke
>The Myth of the Spat Upon Vets
>
>By STEPHEN PHILION
>
>[...] Q: What's the significance of the documentary
>"Sir! No Sir" , which tells the story of the GI
>antiwar movement during Vietnam, in terms of what that
>film can tell students trying to organize antiwar
>movements on campuses across America today?
>
>Lembcke: Oh, I think it's terribly powerful. Even
>thought there's no mention of Iraq, Afghanistan, or
>the War on Terror in the film, it seems that everyone
>that sees the film can extrapolate from it to the ways
>it applies to the wars that we're currently involved
>in. Probably the greatest impact it has is on young
>people in the military today. I've done quite a bit of
>public speaking at showings of the film.
>
>First of all, it reminds even those of us involved in
>the antiwar movement as vets of stuff that they had
>forgotten about or informed us about things that were
>going on at that time that we didn't know about.
>They're kind of surprised to find out quite a few
>things about the GI antiwar movement that they didn't
>know.
>
>Q: One of the things I was surprised to learn of was
>the extent of support shown to Jane Fonda by American
>soldiers stationed in Asia during the war at the "Free
>The Army" tour that she, other famous actors such as
>Donald Southerland, and soldiers/vets organized at US
>bases. Considering all the media discourse about vets'
>anger at Fonda , I had no idea that some 60,000
>soldiers had attended and enthusiastically received
>her at those shows, which served as an alternative to
>Bob Hope's pro-war tours at the time. Also the extent
>of African American soldiers in the antiwar movement
>was something I never fully heard about in histories
>of the antiwar movement, which the movie makes clear
>was very deep and militant.
>
>Lembcke: I was in Vietnam in 1969 and got involved in
>Vietnam Veterans Against the War once I returned and
>yet there were things in that film that I had not
>known about at the time. On the one hand there was a
>lot in the news in the papers about the vets antiwar
>movement at the time, which I know now just from
>researching it. I don't think there was a blackout at
>all, often it was front page news and people knew
>about it.
>One of the things I found interesting was looking at
>Stars and Stripes, the civilian published but military
>supported publication that soldiers got in Vietnam and
>it was all antiwar stuff. It reported the story of
>Billy Gene Smith, the GI accused of fragging an
>officer, which is featured in Sir! No Sir!. It had
>stories about soldiers in Vietnam wearing black
>armbands in support of the 1969 anti-war Moratorium
>back home. It turns out Stars and Stripes is a pretty
>good source for information on the vets' and soldiers
>antiwar sentiment and movement back then!
>
>So people knew of these things then. The more
>important story is what's happened to that in people's
>consciousness and memory. It certainly is gone now,
>even from people who were active in the vets antiwar
>movement then. Sir! No Sir! has helped to bring it
>back into the public memory and showing that a vets
>antiwar movement can happen now is very helpful for
>people teaching in college and high school. They can
>take this knowledge into the classroom and that part
>of the history can get back into the curriculum.
>Younger people will now get a different view of what
>happened then.
>
>I've talked to a few soldiers back from Iraq, one a
>Holy Cross University Law School graduate who was an
>ROTC cadet who is back from Iraq and has spoken after
>showings of Sir No Sir! and likewise didn't know about
>the GI antiwar movement during Vietnam. She reports
>that there is a lot of opposition to the US occupation
>of Iraq among US soldiers in Iraq but it doesn't
>express itself because there's no organization, no
>organized communication between people. Maybe the film
>will play a catalyst role, if people see this film
>about organized GI opposition to the Vietnam War, it
>might inspire and even spark their imagination about
>the kinds of thing that can be done to oppose the war
>from within the military. [...] 
>
>Q: One of the things that struck me about the film is
>that you saw that soldiers were not just protesting
>the war because of their equipment issues or technical
>matters about how the war was being conducted, but
>actually because they were against what was happening
>to the people of Vietnam because of the war and they
>were learning, while deployed there, about the actual
>history of the Vietnamese people's struggles against
>foreign occupation as opposed to what they were
>brainwashed to believe in boot camp or high school
>teachers.
>
>Lembcke: Here's a big difference, namely the nature of
>the 'enemy' and how it's perceived. In the later years
>of Vietnam we came back rather sympathetic to the
>cause of the other side. One of the vets interviewed
>in the film, David Klein, talks of how he was shot and
>how he had shot a Viet Cong soldier. He then recalls
>how he looked at the fellow he had shot dead and
>realizes that this man was fighting for his country
>too, for freedom. That was a real consciousness
>raising moment for him and he dedicated moments like
>that to doing something to honor the loss of that
>man's life, namely to end the war and contributing to
>the other side's fight for freedom. I certainly came
>back in February 1970 with such sentiments, though I'm
>not sure exactly how it happened. Surely conversations
>with other GIs and my own reading at the time helped
>with that.
>
>But today it is harder to portray the 'enemy' in Iraq
>or Afghanistan in that kind of sympathetic way,
>there's a political challenge there for the American
>antiwar movement to understand what the other side
>represents.
>
>It needs to get some grasp on what is supportable in
>what the other side is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan,
>like we did in the Vietnam War. Recall in the early
>phases of the Vietnam war, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet
>Cong were called terrorists and there tactics were
>called tactics of terror. Today we talk about the
>roadside bomb in Iraq, but during Vietnam there was
>the satchel charges were one of the main Vietnamese
>War. 
>
>[...] We don't right now have an embraceable 'other'
>as we did in Vietnam and what the complexity of the
>other side means, how it's to be sorted out, what's
>supportablebut we need to find if there is something
>there to be supportable and that can have a big impact
>on the military elements against the war, namely that
>there is an honorableness to the 'enemy' on the other
>side as was the case for GIs against the war in
>Vietnam. [...]
>
>
>
>read it all:
>http://www.counterpunch.org/philion10132006.html
>
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