Search - Winter Soldier on DVD

Necessary

David J. Tetzlaff | Niantic, CT USA | 06/08/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Everybody over the age of 12 and under the age of 30 needs to see this film. (Wouldn't hurt older people either: pull your kid's ipod away and make them watch this...)

Someone said: those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Well, this is the history we forgot, and are now repeating. What is worse, having our young people offered up as cannon-fodder for hailburton, or turning them into murderers and torturers at Haditha, Abu Grahib and how many other places? This film illustrates how it all happened before just as it's happening now.

I disagree with the Amazon reviewer who finds the film artless and boring after an hour. It's a differenet aesthetic, not trying to zap you or entertain, but build a slow cumulation of facts. It does get more and more depressing but that's the point. And the best part of the film is the last section, which focuses on Scott Camil, and delivers a small message of hope: this man has re-evaluated his humanity, and has changed for the better. (BTW, Camil is the infamous VVAW 'terrorist' John Kerry failed to turn in for supposedly proposing to bomb something or other in some meeting -- interesting to look at the real person here...) The point is that as individuals and perhaps as a nation, even though we may have done horrible things, we can find a redemption by coming clean, coming correct, and witnessing for peace and justice."

WOW

R. Rouke | Santa fe, nm | 02/01/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first watched this film only one week ago. It is the most informative documentary I have ever seen about the war in vietnam. I am much to young to have experienced the sixties however this film brings me ever closer the finding out what went on in america during that crucial period in history."

The Cost of War

J. Todd | oregon | 06/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"War is always ugly. It seems to me that ever since Vietnam, we have been searching for some way to redeem ourselves from the stench of My Lai and free fire zones; searching for another WWII, another "good war" . But war is never good and what is required of troops in war must be looked at in terms of more than winning and losing, but with a keen sense of cost. At what cost do we send men, and now women, into battle. Winter Soldiers requires us to scrutinize that cost and not turn away from the agony our troops endure.

125 soldiers testified at the Winter Soldier hearings. Their stories of rape and torture and random killing so terrified the Nixon Whitehouse that a "plumbers" type group was set up to discredit them. The only piece of information to come from that thorough investigation was the fact that Al Hubbard was an enlisted man and not an officer. No, he didn't say he had served in Vietnam, in fact he didn't testify at the Winter Soldier hearing at all. A 30+ year orchestrated disinformation campaign has managed to turn one miniscule fib into a complete slander of 125 honorable veterans.

Winter Soldier isn't about valor or lack of valor. It is about war and what happens in war. It should be required viewing for each and every Congress Member, each and every time they vote from the comfort of their chambers to send young people into the depths of hell. It should be required viewing by every American before we spend one more penny on Iraq or even consider another mission unaccomplished in Iran. War is a failure of civilization, not the means by which we expand it.
"

Overwhelming

tor | fl, usa | 12/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I saw this movie on TV the day before Thanksgiving and just couldn't beleive it, it may be the most important documentary ever made. The very first veteran interviewed talks about how it was fairly common practice for vietnamese POWs to be thrown from airborne aircraft and everything just spirals downward from there. The movie shows normal everyday americans talking about some of the most horrible things imaginable. Veterans often laugh and chuckle while recounting these things and then you see their faces going from amusement to guilt and shame in the blink of an eye. This literally shows how war is hell and I think should be required viewing in all high schools."