Analysis Of The Film Sir ! No Sir By David Zeiger

The documentary, “Sir! No Sir”!, directed by David Zeiger, is about an anti-war movement of G.I.’s or American soldiers who were against the Vietnam War. It was a movement no one saw coming. In the early 1960’s, the United States had sent combat troops to South Vietnam for the purpose of defending South Vietnam against the communist North Vietnam and to spread Democracy. While in combat many soldiers realized that what they were doing was wrong. All the killing and torturing of prisoners, the massacre of My Lai and etc. was not right. This is not how people should treat other human beings. One soldier in the documentary said he wonders about the families of the Vietnamese he just killed. He felt that the Vietnamese was fighting to reunify

One person said that they should be exempted from military duties. An interesting quote from the documentary was “the only place the black man should fight is where he is oppressed; I am not oppressed in Japan, in Vietnam, in Pakistan”. In other words, what did the Vietnamese did to me that I go over there and fight? Also, in the Long Binh Jail in Vietnam, they mentioned that like 90% were African Americans in there, just like the prisons here in the United States. They were frustrated in the jail, so group of African American inmates rioted trying to escape, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The worst case in the documentary was the My Lai Massacre, where U.S. troops went in and destroyed the village, killing many women and children. “Americans didn’t want to be believe that these things occurred in the name of the American people and for the sake of freedom”, so it was something that was swept under the rug until journalist got a hold of it. I understand now why the Vietnam War caused many to be diagnosed with PTSD and why it was very unpopular war. I am still interested in knowing the South Vietnamese side of the story, as well as the North