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Soldiers Speak out from Vietnam to Iraq

GUESTS: David Zeiger, Director, Writer and Producer of Sir! No Sir!, Patricia Foulkrod, Director and Producer of The Ground Truth

In a recent column in the New York Times, conservative editorialist Thomas Friedman said that the situation in Iraq may be equivalent to the Tet offensive in Vietnam almost 40 years ago. In an interview with ABC yesterday, President George W. Bush agreed that the comparison may be accurate. The long drawn out US war in Vietnam killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of US troops, and resulted in an eventual withdrawal and humiliation for the US. Despite the facts about the Vietnam war, President Bush did not extend the analogy much further than the Tet Offensive. Instead he vowed that US troops would remain in Iraq, at least until the end of his presidency. Today we spend the hour with two local independent film makers who have focused on the stories of soldiers – their experiences in the wars in Vietnam and Iraq and, most importantly, their resistance.

Sir! No Sir! is a film we have featured on Uprising during the last fund drive, when organized a benefit screening for KPFK. The film is now out on DVD. Sir! No Sir! is directed, written, and produced by David Zeiger. It is about the little known GI anti-war movement during the US war with Vietnam. By the Pentagon’s own estimates, there were more than half a million “incidents of desertion” between 1966 and 1971; officers were being “fragged,” that is, killed with fragmentation grenades by their own troops at an alarming rate; and by 1971 entire units were refusing to go into battle in unprecedented numbers. In the course of a few short years, over 100 underground newspapers were published by soldiers around the world; local and national antiwar GI organizations were joined by thousands; thousands more demonstrated against the war at every major base in the world in 1970 and 1971, including in Vietnam itself; stockades and federal prisons were filling up with soldiers jailed for their opposition to the war and the military. Sir! No Sir! is the first documentary to cover the GI resistance against the Vietnam war.

For more information, visit www.sirnosir.com.

The Ground Truth is a new film produced and directed by Patricia Foulkrod. It takes an unflinching look at the training and dehumanization of US soldiers, and how they struggle to come to terms with it when they come back home. The film overrides the familiar images of heroic soldiers in battle, reunited with their families in one effortless stroke. Instead, we see a scenario that can include illness, amputation and injury, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), of which Iraq has become a fertile breeding ground. The film features veterans like Aidan Delgado, Camilo Mejia, and Stan Goff, who are now active in the movement to end the Iraq war.

For more information, visit www.thegroundtruth.net

Thank you gifts:

$80 – Sir! No Sir! DVD

$80 – The Ground Truth DVD

$150 – Veterans Against the War Pack includes 2 DVDS and a CD – Sir! No Sir! (DVD), Sir! No Sir! (CD Soundtrack) and The Ground Truth (DVD).