An Untold Triumph: America's Filipino Soldiers

Though I've only seen the cut-down 57-minute version aired on PBS, I found this documentary quite moving and surprising — especially when compared to the interesting but far more superficial "American Experience" show on the rescue of the Bata'an survivors which PBS coupled with it as a double bill. The film exposes some more of America's racist heritage — from the 1934 Congressional bill (which FDR is shown signing) which stripped Filipino-Americans of the right to become U.S. citizens as part of offering the islands a sham "independence" to the assumption made in the Filipinos' training that they were too small to fall from the sky properly when parachuting down and therefore had to have weights tied to them — but also shows a profound story of a people willing to ally themselves with the U.S., however shabbily we had treated them, to free themselves from an even worse oppressor. At the same time, in the film's blithe depiction of the double standard endemic to ALL soldiers in wartime — atrocities committed by the enemy show how evil they are while atrocities committed by our side are just retribution — it makes an anti-war statement without necessarily meaning to; whatever justifications may be offered for a particular war or a particular tactic within a war, the fact remains that war brutalizes everyone who fights and should therefore generally be avoided and certainly not glorified.