October 1st
On the surface level The Winter Soldier shows the atrocities committed during the Vietnam war. It gives a chilling account of what was actually happening versus what the public believed was happening. On a deeper level The Winter Soldier shows not only the attitudes of the war itself, but of society and the deeper underlying issues in society. The group gathered for the movie was actually a fairly diverse group of people, something that was not a social norm. One of the most telling things about the movie was when the black man was speaking very animatedly to the soldier outside of the panel about civil rights, going so far as to say that the cause of the war itself was racism. He was saying that the US was waging that war not for peacekeeping or resources or anything akin to that but because the US is inherently racist. He makes a point of saying that black people have no other choice when they get out of school but to join the army, saying that black men had one maybe two outlets to create a life for themselves where as white men had three or four. He also goes on to talk about how different racist thoughts were ingrained from childhood citing the Indians as a prime example. It is also interesting to note the amount of time that was allotted for civil rights movement thoughts. Out of the whole movie only a five minute slot was used for the discussion of civil rights. The rest was just about the atrocities committed during the war. The black man was trying to get at the point of why the atrocities where committed in the first place, again going back to the idea that the US is inherently racist.
Winter Soldier was a very different type of story, something nobody really hears about when the Vietnam War was brought up. Typically we see the Vietnam War through the American POV, a war that was very unpopular being fought for issues not central to the day's main issues(Civil Rights especially). The Winter Soldier shows us the POV of not only the soldiers fighting, but also the Vietnamese perspective as a result. The atrocities committed bt the United States during this time are absolutely inexcusable. The story of the woman's body being mutilated really stood out to me. Basically in short the armed forces in Vietnam were never instructed on Geneva Convention law and as a result violated it like the speed limit. While race is not a central point to this film, the black soldier's view on the choices of young black men at the age of 18 really interested me as well. While I certainly cannot understand this situation, it really makes you wonder if the military at this time was truly a better option than the streets when we hear about these acts committed.
ReplyDelete“America’s right, we’re always right. What we’re doing is in the best interest of the nation.”
ReplyDeleteThis idea that what was going on in Vietnam was morally right and “in the best interest of the nation” was repeated time and time again by the veterans in the 1972 Winter Soldier documentary. This concept is purely American exceptionalism in the sense that the soldiers truly believed that their actions and their country were morally right. Other comments in the video such as “Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed us it was okay to kill civilians” and “It wasn’t like they were humans, this was for the good of the nation” showed just how wholeheartedly these men believed what they were saying and what was told to them about the war and about the Vietnamese. All of these incidences emphasized this idea of the United States and it’s foundational superiority and inherent righteousness in every situation and in every war, from World War II to Vietnam. It is obvious now that the legitimacy of Vietnam was unclear and the nation’s leaders were constantly lying to the American people and troops about who and what they were fighting for. However, it is this evidence of dishonesty and the reality of the acts committed in Vietnam that proved that the United States is just as errant and unexceptional as any other country and clearly raises doubts that the United States was (and is) as fundamentally superior as many believed it was.
The film “Winter Soldier” brings to the light a different view of what happened in the Vietnam War. From all of these people speaking in the film, I get the central idea that “America is never wrong and we are doing this for the best interest for us.” The crimes we committed over there are out right disgusting and ugly. But for most soldiers it was probably easy for them to do that to the Vietnamese people, and there can be many factors that tie into this. One factor being that they were trained to hate the Vietnamese from the start of boot camp. Every day they go out and train to kill these people. Even one of the guys in the film said that once they went over to Vietnam that he was ready to put all of his training to the test. Another factor that can play into this is that they were having fun doing this to people. Another guy from the film was talking about how they would play this game with the mortars just for pleasure and to past time. When he said this, I was astonished in what he was saying because I couldn’t wrap my head around that they were just killing civilians for fun. The last reason why I think that this was easy for some people was because they were racist. I think for some soldiers this was a way to release their hate from back home. This gave them an opportunity to kill someone of color in a “legal” way and a way that they couldn’t get into trouble. In all, this film gave me a whole different perspective of this war and how ugly we can be.
ReplyDelete“The last lesson you’ll learn before being shipped off is called “The Rabbit Lesson.” in the Marine Corps.”
ReplyDeleteAfter viewing this entire documentary, I rethought to myself what stuck out the most about it. In my head I picked at a few stories told, conversations between men, and certain scenes in this documentary. After awhile I realized the entire film is miraculously significant when reviewing it regardless of your purposes to watch it. The first story that I found rather interesting was when of the speaker said about “The Rabbit Lesson.”. While listening, I assumed he was going to say that his Sergeant was going to hand one of the men a rifle and have them kill it after developing some emotions for it. He said this though while talking about being in the jungle and avoiding invasion that is the last thing they learn before being shipped off, how the Sergeant beats the rabbit, skins the creature, and then abstracts the guts from it. The man also talks about how he has seen members of his military cut parts of a woman's body from her lower abdomen to her chest. To me, that seems very unnecessary and said several times in the film “dehumanizing” because it is. I understand partially if necessary to manipulate an enemy to derive significant intel from them but there is a difference between what is necessary, manipulating an enemy, and dehumanizing an individual. Not that I fully agree with torturing someone to the point where they are mentally or physically hurt but some tactics are the only tactics in desperate times to say the least. What else was interesting was the conversation between the african american and the white male near the end. At first, it was seeming to be more of a verbal argument to where the two men couldn’t even listen to each other. Then throughout a few seconds and words exchanged, they begin to have a broad conversation. To say racism is what sparked this war, I couldn't agree. I do believe racism was a very big factor in the country clearly but maybe not so much within the military. This whole film practically talks about how they dehumanized a different culture at war while prior to them doing, they men in training were almost being duhaminized. One man said how if while running and fell, they were taught to run the man over and not step aside for or they were beaten. That came from a white male. So there you see that mistreatment conduct being proposed there. African americans only have 1 option though after high school compared to the while male having up to 3-4? That is mistreatment but outside the military’s grasp. -J
“How do these atrocities get to be committed?”
ReplyDeleteEchoed within the opening minutes of the documentary A Winter Soldier, this question is expressed by one of the many men earnestly sharing testimonies of the war crimes they witnessed during their time stationed in Vietnam. It is resonating in its simplicity; how could ordinary men become so far removed from their morality and humanity that they could justify assaulting, raping, mutilating, and killing innocent Vietnamese civilians? As one veteran articulated, the men committing these crimes were never instructed on how to treat their own prisoners of war; they were only told what to do if the situation were reversed and they found themselves to be taken captive. They were “conditioned into believing they were right” in their mistreatment of the Vietnamese civilians they came across - that it was “for the good of the nation.” It’s hard to wrap one’s head around how tearing open Vietnamese women or using Vietnamese children as target practice could be considered in any way good for the nation, but these soldiers genuinely were encouraged to view any and all of these people as threatening and unworthy of a chance. This militarized, systemic erasure of empathy did not start with Vietnam - the United States has a long history of self-righteous superiority, not only in the world of warfare but on the home front as well, as evidenced by its treatment of marginalized populations. It is easy to build up morale when there is an undisputed enemy to root against, when there is someone to hate and unload a collective aggression on. This dangerous line of thinking roots itself in the very culture of military recruitment; men, both from the documentary and in real life, were continuously pushed to associate warfare with masculinity, with proving oneself, and with protecting the sanctity of the United States and oneself regardless of what the cost of that protection may be.