Dear America - Lettere dal Vietnam

For close to a decade we simply pretended that it never happened. We lost. It was a mistake. But by the Eighties, the United States, strengthened by distance from the event, spent a lot of cultural capital expatiating the Vietnam War: tell-all books; magisterial policy summaries; sordid and violent fiction; meticulous PBS documentaries; TV dramas (remember *China Beach*?); the magnificent work of art that is the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial; and, of course, movies. Aside from that great and powerful Wall, I believe that this humble HBO documentary, *Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam* is perhaps the most artful and cogent assessment of the War. 86 minutes in length, it boasts entirely historical footage from both NBC News archives and soldiers' own video, the urgent and timeless rock music of the period, and, of course, the soldiers' letters to their loved ones back in The World.

The letters, ironically, reveal the only blemish to this wonderful film: the somewhat misguided decision to allow celebrity actors to read them. Funnily, most of these actors were "veterans" of Vietnam War movies: Tom Berenger (*Platoon*); Robert De Niro (*The Deer Hunter*); Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn (*Casualties of War*), Robin Williams (*Good Morning, Vietnam*), Martin Sheen (*Apocaylpse Now*), and so on. One can't shake the feeling that the stars must have felt a kinship -- unearned, obviously -- with the average joes who wrote the letters. When you suddenly hear the instantly recognizable voice of, say, Robert De Niro, you are necessarily taken out of the visceral experience that the movie creates. Although I honor the big shots' intentions (they took no pay for this), their services weren't really required, here.

Thankfully, the selections are brief enough so as to minimize any thespian showboating. And this brevity highlights, rather than diminishes, the eloquence, humor, desperation, and meaning of the soldiers' words. They write about the day-to-day routines of camp, the abject terror of hacking their way through elephant grass wherein the unseen enemy lurks, the beauty of an improvised fireworks show (miraculously caught on film, providing a visual accompaniment to the letter), the seedy delights that await the next R&R excursion in Saigon, the despair of losing your best friends in battle, and so much more. Visually, the film may be even more impressive: there's some amazing footage of bombardments, mortar attacks, firefights right in the midst of the action, and the day-to-day horseplay in camp. Perhaps the most stunning footage was shot in Khe Sanh: a group of besieged Marines, anxious to fight, depressed at being shut in, hair slowly growing to mop-top proportions, wax philosophically about their situation even as that situation grows worse day by day. (Ultimately, there were 77 of those days.) Occasionally, their forced calm gets rattled by a devastating mortar attack on their ramparts from the Viet Cong. Just amazing footage. Of real historical value, too. Speaking of amazing and historical, the North Vietnamese footage of American POWs gingerly celebrating Christmas while in custody will haunt you.

On the periphery of all this found footage, director Bill Couturie keeps a chronological record of the Big Picture, with the assistance of the archives of NBC News. (He somehow located the video of the first 3,500 troops who landed in country in 1964!) On each December 31, title cards inform us of the growing death and casualty tolls suffered by American troops -- by the end of 1968, these numbers have grown to horrifying proportions. Couturie doesn't delve into the background of the conflict, and rightly so: this is the soldiers' story, not a thesis paper by a policy wonk. What does emerge, however, is the utter helplessness of those in command, from LBJ to General Westmoreland to Richard Nixon. One gets the sense that our leaders were trapped in a policy of their own devising. No way out. No victory forthcoming, no matter how many bombs we dropped. A war feeding itself; a self-perpetuating machine. These small-minded men clearly had no solutions -- none, at least, that would salvage enough of the nation's honor to mitigate the whole misbegotten enterprise.

Boy, this all sounds familiar, doesn't it? -- read the news lately? Oh well. Santayana's advice about history is always cited and never followed. In any event, this Veteran's Day (three days from now as of this writing), I'll watch *Dear America* -- now on DVD -- with my father, a Vietnam veteran awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and even a yellowing certificate of Merit from the long-gone South Vietnamese government. For many years, he, like the rest of country, couldn't talk about the war. Now, he looks back on it with wonder, sadness, and pride. For those GenX children of surviving Vietnam Veterans, consider how lucky you are if your Dad was one of the lucky ones to get back to The World alive, and listen, listen, listen. These men and women have much to teach us, now more than ever. *Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam* can help get that conversation started. Thank you, Mr. Couturie, for this important film.

9 stars out of 10.

I grew up with the Vietnam war being a major part of my life from the age of 9 to the age of 19. I have tried to get my daughter to understand what it was like having lost my father at 9, then having my oldest brother enlist six months later and when he returned, my second brother was drafted near the end of the war. It still affects us to this day in our jobs, our feelings, our survival skills, and how it molded all of us. It wasn't until she saw this film that the entire war sunk in and she could relate to it. Bless her high school English teacher for making them watch this and read books on the Vietnam War. She came home and said "Mom, I couldn't believe those kids were just like us! They were just 18, 19 yr. old and had to go through that! Some of the boys look just like boys in my class! Now I know why it so affected you. You and your brothers were all kids." More high schools should use this film to teach kids about Vietnam. She borrowed it from her teacher and I watched it with her again. I narrated what was going on at our home during the various time lines so she could understand that from 9 to 19 I lived with this everyday, effecting my entire life and I never left the USA!

Nothing can capture the hopes and fears of the brave soldiers who fought and died for freedom like their own words. Take that and add the documentary films and photos taken in Vietnam and you have a reality that no fictional movie can capture but that hundreds of thousands went through every day, doing what they do best in a place they'd rather not be. The actors reading the letters manages to capture the sincerity and the emotions of the people writing them.

Highly recommended.

Dear America, is most certainly one of the really great war films, and this is because nearly everything is real, all footage and the letters read are real, the only things that aren't authentic are the actors voices, however these are some of Hollywoods finest so believing them to be the actual soldiers, mothers, nurses is easy.

It is more a documentary then a film, but the presence of the actors gives it a cinemeatic feel.

Accompanied by a great soundtrack (has there ever been a Vietnam movie with a bad one) this is one of the most moving and poignent movies you will see, it is through its realness that ones gets a feel of how bad war really is, it is probably one of very few war movies that really makes you fear war, because there is no adventurous sub plot, just some letters from young guys, most of whom just want out.

The final letter really sums up the entire movie, and I would have to say this is one of the most moving pieces of film ? I have seen, this is then followed by Springsteens Born in the USA, which brings a fitting conclusion to the film

This film presents the Vietnam War from the American perspective and primarily from the perspective of ordinary American soldiers. It is chronological and describes essential events to put the soldiers' stories into context. While it might help viewers to know basic facts about the war beforehand, the film stands alone. I think this would be an excellent film to show students when discussing, for example, the Cold War.

This film is a remarkable documentary because it presents various sides to a complex story in such a short running time. I think the film succeeds because it simply reports the truth. I am not American and appeals to American patriotism or God's blessing of America tend to roll my eyes, not make them tearful. But this film makes the lives of these guys plain to a universal audience.

Once the film started, I was so captivated that I ignored the narration and never even thought about who was speaking. I was only grateful the filmmakers chose people practiced in reading text clearly. Ignore the famous names connected to this film. That's not the story at all. The images and music, however, are part of the story. But not front and centre. That place is reserved for the ordinary words of ordinary Americans.