Posted on 06/10/2006 11:26:50 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Sir! No Sir! Just saying no
Release Date: 2006
Ebert Rating: ***
BY ROGER EBERT / Jun 9, 2006
Quick question: When Jane Fonda was on her "FTA" concert tour during the Vietnam era, who was in her audience? The quick answer from most people would probably be, "anti-war hippies, left-wingers and draft-dodgers." The correct answer would be: American troops on active duty, many of them in uniform.
"Sir! No Sir!" is a documentary that about an almost-forgotten fact of the Vietnam era: Anti-war sentiment among U.S. troops grew into a problem for the Pentagon. The film claims bombing was used toward the end of the war because the military leadership wondered, frankly, if some of their ground troops would obey orders to attack. It's also said there were a few Air Force B-52 crews that refused to bomb North Vietnam. And in San Diego, sailors on an aircraft carrier tried to promote a local vote on whether their ship should be allowed to sail for Vietnam. One of the disenchanted veterans, although he is never mentioned in the film, was John Kerry, who was first decorated for valor, and later became a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and testified before Congress.
After the turning point of the Tet offensive in 1968, troop morale ebbed lower, the war seemed lost, and a protest movement encompassed active duty troops, coffeehouses near bases in America, underground GI newspapers, and a modern "underground railway" that helped soldiers desert and move to Canada. According to Pentagon figures, there were some 500,000 desertions during the Vietnam years.
The film has been written and directed by David Zeiger, who worked in an anti-war coffee- house near Fort Hood, Texas. In a narration spoken by Troy Garity, the son of Fonda and Tom Hayden, his film says, "The memory has been changed." The GI anti-war movement has disappeared from common knowledge, and a famous factoid from the period claims returning wounded veterans were spit on by "hippies" as they landed at American airports. According to the film, that is an urban legend, publicized in the film "Rambo II: First Blood."
When we reviewed "Sir! No Sir!" on "Ebert & Roeper," we cited the film's questions about the spitting story. There is a book on the subject, The Spitting Image, by Jerry Lembcke, whose research failed to find a single documented instance of such an event occurring in real life. I received many e-mails, however, from those who claimed knowledge of such incidents. The story persists, and true or false is part of a general eagerness to blame our loss in Vietnam to domestic protesters, while ignoring the substantial anti-war sentiment among troops in the field.
Parallels with the war in Iraq are obvious. One big difference is that the Vietnam-era forces were largely supplied by the draft, while our Iraq troops are either career soldiers or National Guard troops, some of them on their second or third tours of duty. The Vietnam-era draft not only generated anti-war sentiment among those of draft age, but supplied the army with soldiers who did not go very cheerfully into uniform. The willingness of today's National Guardsmen to continue in combat is courageous and admirable, but cannot be expected to last indefinitely, and the political cost of returning to the draft system would be incalculable.
A group of recent documentaries has highlighted a conflict between information and "disinformation," that Orwellian term for attempts to rewrite history. The archetype of "Hanoi Jane" has been used to obscure the fact that Fonda appeared before about 60,000 GIs who apparently agreed with her. The Swift Boat Veterans incredibly tried to deny John Kerry's patriotism. The global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" is being attacked by a TV ad campaign, underwritten by energy companies, which extols the benefits of CO2.
No doubt "Sir! No Sir!" will inspire impassioned rebuttals. No doubt it is not an impartial film, not with Fonda's son as its narrator. What cannot be denied is the newsreel footage of uniformed troops in anti-war protests, of Fonda's uniformed audiences at "FTA" concerts, of headlines citing Pentagon concern about troop morale, the "fragging" of officers, the breakdown of discipline, and the unwillingness of increasing numbers of soldiers to fight a war they had started to believe was wrong.
Cast & Credits
A documentary narrated by Troy Garity and featuring Edward Asner, Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Terry Whitmore, Donald Duncan, Howard Levy, Oliver Hirsch, Susan Schnall, Randy Rowland, Louis Font, Dave Cline, Bill Short, Dave Blalock, Greg Payton, Darnell Summers, Michael Wong, Terry Whitmore, Joe Bangert, Richard Boyle, Jerry Lembcke, Terry Iverson, Tom Bernard and Keith Mather.
Balcony Releasing presents a documentary written and directed by David Zeiger. Running time: 85 minutes. No MPAA rating.
What BS. How do I know? Ebert wrote it..
Boy, there's three winners. I can't wait to see that film.
The liberals are being led around like cows to the slaughter house, and they are happy to oblige.
See my about page
All three of which bombed at the box office. But hey, its all about the critical acclaim, not the money..
Haveing worked with a number in country VN Vets from all walks of life. I never found one for jane fonda. So I would say NO!
It's just how Libs justify themselves. Twist reality to fit.
1 I’m never wrong
2 If I’m wrong see #1
Or
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Analyzed by Marshall Michel in his book The Eleven Days of Christmas, and proven not true. There were a few guys who went DNIF for questionable reasons, but they were fewer in number or percentage of aircrew that did so during the great bomber slaughter over Germany in 1943.
And in San Diego, sailors on an aircraft carrier tried to promote a local vote on whether their ship should be allowed to sail for Vietnam.
I was in San Diego for that: they were confused young men with some disciplinary action pending against them who got played for idiots by the local antiwar activists.
I heard a joke to the effect that Hollyweird, in its effort to completely alienate itself from Middle America, is making the movie "Brokeback Jarhead."
I've heard this kind of statement from some people on both the left and right. But it's not a widely held view -- thank goodness.
There are plenty of good reasons -- both political and military -- why the Army National Guard and other reserve forces will continue their current role.
That carried over through the 70's.
I think the situation was that they flew the same flight plan at the same time every night and the North Vietnamese were shooting down more and more planes. They objected to not having any flexibility. The pilots won and no missions were canceled... from what I have read.
Welcome Home!!
"I'd have to ask some of our folks that were there for clarification, but could it be that was because:
1) Drafted soldiers didn't want to be there?
2) The media was in their heyday in that they were able to provide losing scenarios continuously, with no counter?
3) The druggies prevalent in our society were drafted, thus carried their own problems with them as they deployed?
4) (Sorry) Jane Fonda was then considered hot?"
You are right on, throw in the military race riots and there is no denying the military was in much turmoil.
Having recently seen her in an early movie, Barefoot in the Park, I am forced to agree.
My wife is conservative, yet is more moderate than I.
She rented a musical some days ago called "Rent".
Disgusted she turned it off. In summary - AIDS, drugs, inter racial relationships, homosexual relationships, casual sex innuendoes and and and. She could not take it and just turned it off 2/3 of the way through. It was one giant liberal orgy of a musical. That’s the way the critic should have described it – “For the consummate liberal, this orgy of decadence is a true delight to watch.”
Add “Rent” to the list with “BrokeBack”, “Fahrenheit 911”, “TransAmerica” and other great Hollywood productions.
I would rather play a computer game than subject myself to this "trash" they pump out. The only movies I watch anymore tend to be with my daughter. Ice Age II was very good BTW. It's not even a deliberate boycott, but I don't waste my time or money on nonsense like Fahrenheit 911.
My older brother was in Vietnam at the time with the 101st Airborne. He told me that shortly after the enemy was crushed after Tet, he and thousands of other troops were stationed near the dmz waiting for the orders to invade the north that never came.
I quit taking Ebert seriously as a movie reviewer long before his leftist inclinations were revealed. He's given great reviews to so many god awful movies (that I unfortunately paid good money to see), I gave him the deep six many years ago.
Roger Ebert eats ----.
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