Sir! No Sir!

Last night I saw "Sir! No Sir!",  a new documentary about the resistance to the Vietnam War from within military ranks.  Even discounting somewhat for its activist zeal, the film makes a strong case for the potency of US soldier's resistance to the atrocities they were asked to commit.   Movie director David Zeiger was on hand to answer questions, and the War Resisters League had a table in the theater lobby.  Several questioners wanted to know how to get the movie in the hands of soldiers in Iraq.

One of the saddest stories was about Billy Dean Smith, a soldier falsely accused of "fragging," or lobbing a hand grenade at his commanding officer.  Although Smith was eventually cleared of all charges, his 22-month military detention left him a broken man.

The strongest part of the movie was a refutation of the myth that rude hippies spit on returning soldiers all across America.  Perhaps it happened on occasion, but never on a large scale.  Even so this "fact" is seared into our national consciousness, in a deft bit of Orwellian spin doctoring.  The subtext of the myth is that protest is wrong, and America is right.  If this is the type  of democracy we're loading onto Iraq, the war is even more tragic than I realized.