Sir No Sir: The Suppressed Story of the GI Movement to End the War In Vietnam

[Heidi]

Run time: 11:41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDk6Qal2DCI   Posted on YouTube: October 03, 2006 By YouTube Member: worldcantwait Views on YouTube: 27009   Posted on DU: November 21, 2006 By DU Member: Heidi Views on DU: 3226

 
Call Me Wesley and I just watched the very powerful documentary, "Sir No Sir: The Suppressed Story of the GI Movement to End the War in Vietnam." This is the extended, 12-minute trailer for the independent film.

In the 1960’s an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn’t take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam.
http://www.sirnosir.com/home_about_film.html

[acmejack]

1. OLeo Strut killeen texas

King of the Anti war GI Coffee Houses

[acmejack]

2. Killeen is still a dingy a town too

ask Lynn the dem

[pnorman]

3. I just checked Amazon.com

It's listed there for pre-order at $25, and will be available late next month.

pnorman

[Heidi]

5. We bought ours directly from the SirNoSir website.

It was only $14.95 (plus international shipping, I guess) and it took about a week to get to Switzerland. http://www.sirnosir.com/home_dvd_storefront.html

[pnorman]

7. Thanks for the heads up!

I chose the DVD w/audio for $20, and just got notice that the PayPal order had gone through. I HATE waiting for such things, and that Amazon choice wait would have driven me around the bend!

pnorman

[Heidi]

8. Right on!

I was looking through the SirNoSir website and now wish I'd also ordered the GI Movement Trilogy. But Christmas and my birthday are coming. (Are you taking notes, Call Me Wesley? :D )

Soldiers in Revolt was the first, and for many years the only, book to tell the story of the GI Movement. Meticulously researched and told through the voices of the movement's participants (including the author himself, David Cortright), this book is essential reading for anyone looking for the truth and lessons of the soldiers' revolt during the Vietnam War. Without it, Sir! No Sir! could never have been made.

The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam: Vietnam veteran, antiwar activist and sociologist Jerry Lembcke began researching the stories of spat-upon veterans when they were spreading like wildfire during the buildup to the first Gulf war. Not only did he find no documented cases of such incidents actually occurring during the Vietnam War, but his research revealed the deep connections between the antiwar movement and thousands of veterans and active-duty soldiers. It is this reality, he contends, that the spitting myth was created to conceal. The Spitting Image is a fascinating exposure of the origins and impact of this myth, including a telling description of how it was used by the emerging Nazi movement in Germany following World War I.
The Spitting Image gets to the root of the real connections between the experience of soldiers 35 years ago in Vietnam and today in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No To Iraq: "Support Our Troops" is the refrain heard endlessly from those demanding unquestioning support of the Iraq War. But increasingly "Our Troops" are not only questioning but openly opposing the war they have been ordered to fight. Facing jail and ostracism, these GI resisters have refused to be bowed. Following his court-martial and imprisonment, Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia wrote, "Behind these bars I sit a free man because I listened to a higher power, the voice of my conscience."

Mission Rejected is the first book to tell their stories. They are painful, poignant, and stirring-and they tell of the beginnings of a new GI Movement.

[OzarkDem]

4. I remember it well

at the time it was characterized by the military and the news media as an uprising fomented by "outside agitators" like the commie dirty hippie crowd like Jane Fonda and the radical Black Panther groups.

[Heidi]

6. Not unlike the way many of us are being characterized today

for our criticism of the war in Iraq, sadly.

[Dhalgren]

9. "We don't want to fight no more, but if we do, it will be to take these

steps!" Wow...

[Tom Joad]

10. They have the courage to resist!

http://www.couragetoresist.org
Check the above to see how you can help resisters to the illegal wars of aggression.


http://tomjoad.org/WarHeroes.htm
Check out the real heroes, those who resist illegal orders.

[Stephanie]

11. this film was a real education for me

I highly recommend it! I knew there was resistance inside the military but I had no idea the extent of it.

[drm604]

13. I was thinking the same thing.

I was not aware of the extent of internal resistance. It makes you wonder about what we're not aware of currently.

[lonestarnot]

12. kick

[psychopomp]

14. That was great

I am looking forward to seeing the film in full!

[Heidi]

15. Kick!

:kick:

[jmondine]

16. This flies in the face

...of the stereotype of Vietnam War Protesters calling vets "baby killers" and spitting on them in parades. It was this stereotype that led to all the " I support our troops" slogans during the first Gulf War.

[dipsydoodle]

17. In the UK we've had it onTV.

This is a frequent comment for me to make regarding films of this type. How come none of your TV channels buy such documentaries ?

[Heidi]

18. I used to think it was due to corporate control of the media,

but I now think it's something deeper in our culture. Why weren't we taught this stuff in school?

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[libnnc]

20. Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick.....

Every DUer needs to see this. IMHO, this is the most important video in this forum. Dispels so many myths about the Anti-War movement.

[FraDon]

21. Sir No Sir: a documentary not to be missed

It is SO poignant and heart wrenching. It reeks of truth, integrity, courage and conscience. The testimony it shares speaks as clearly to the context of today in the Middle East, as 35 years ago in South East Asia.

Those who profit from misery and conquest, whose so-called wealth and power depend on permanent war, will never stop creating and inciting the next enemy. Old white men - sending mostly poor black, brown and white young men and women; to kill any and everyone in their way; to destroy the village to save the village (and get the no-bid contract to rebuild the village); in order continue to consolidate greater so-called wealth and power - all the name of their perverted definition of our 'national interest'.

By 1971 I was a C.O. (Conscientious Objector) opposing the war on the streets of the U.S. The anti-war veterans, as represented by the men and women in this documentary, came to oppose that war from INSIDE the military - and many while on the front lines. This is hard even to imagine.

Please make the time. See this film. Let it teach and inspire you.

Wage peace.

EDIT: copyright.

[otherlander]

22. "We'd better get the Marines!"

"We can't, Richard!"
"Why not?"
"It IS the Marines!"

:rofl: :applause:

"Free speech... must be some kinda Commie plot..."

[agincourt]

23. So much of our real history,

got erased in the '80s, just like it was in the book 1984, change history to help the power-elite's agenda. Keeps the sheeple stupid.

[GliderGuider]

24. A kick for Mr. Cronkite

This video opens with a clip of Mr. Cronkite.
"A new phenomenon has cropped up at several army bases these days; a so-called 'underground G.I. press' which consists largely of anti-war newspapers. Military authorities are clamping down hard on the papers."