• Home
  • News
  • Top Picks
    • Movies & Films: Top 25
    • Documentaries: Top 25
    • Films For Students: Top 10
    • Music Videos: Top 10
  • Categories
    • Film
    • Documentary
    • Shorts
    • Blog
    • Calendar
    • Links
    • About

Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World

Libertarian Movies, Films & Documentaries

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam (1987)

Tagged: Anti-war

The story of the Vietnam War as told through actual letters written home by those who served. [ Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam credits: Dir: Bill Couturie/ 84 min/ Documentary-Educational/ Anti-War]

“The genius of this documentary is that it uses the words of the soldiers themselves to tell the story of the war. There are many touching letters read here, some authored by soldiers who subsequently lost their lives in the conflict.”

Although this film doesn’t directly address libertarian objections to the Vietnam War—the draft, the lack of a declaration of war, the irrelevance of the war to national security, etc.—it’s still a moving portrait of the men and women who were sent there, and serves as a useful reminder of the cavalier way in which government sacrifices innocent lives.

From beginning to end, the whole documentary is composed of a fabric of on-location film footage from the period (including the soldiers’ own home movies), popular music of the time (particularly songs with an antiwar flavor), and narration from well-chosen letters read by a large cast of popular stars.

It opens with amateur film of young American soldiers playing on a beach in Vietnam. It’s an innocent start that parallels the innocence of the soldiers themselves. At this point, in the letters they write home, the soldiers express confident patriotism and a sense that they will prevail. But after years of bloody, stalemated combat, the attitude of the soldiers begins to change. In filmed interviews, and in their letters, they communicate increasing confusion about the reasons for U.S. involvement. They sense that the American public itself is divided over the war, and believe that the campaign is being mismanaged. They are bitter about the ambivalent attitude of the South Vietnamese whom they’re supposed to be defending. They are despondent and want to come home.

Their lack of moral clarity and self-confidence makes the usual torments of war—constant danger, the death of fellow soldiers, and miserable physical conditions—just that much worse. Looking at the accompanying pictures of these ravaged soldiers, it’s hard to believe that their average age was just nineteen.

Interwoven with this focus on the thoughts of the soldiers themselves is a backdrop of notable events of the war: news reports of its beginning, pro-war speeches by President Johnson, the capture of American soldiers, saturation bombing, peace protests, the My Lai Massacre, the Tet Offensive, Kent State, and the creation of the Vietnam War Memorial.

The genius of this documentary is that it uses the words of the soldiers themselves to tell the story of the war. There are many touching letters read here, some authored by soldiers who subsequently lost their lives in the conflict. The list of actors reading these letters is practically a Who’s Who of Hollywood, including: William Dafoe, Robert DeNiro, Matt Dillon, Michael J. Fox, Mark Harmon, Sean Penn, Randy Quaid, Martin Sheen, Robin Williams, and more.

It would be hard to imagine a more powerful documentary on the Vietnam War than Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. It weaves the words of the soldiers who served into a poignant verbal history. Lest we forget.

How to See It

Amazon (DVD)
YouTube Video Search
Online Video Search

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Book: iDear America: Letters Home from Vietnam
CIA Used PsyOps on Americans to Generate Support for the War

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Featured Post

fbi lovebirds

FBI Lovebirds: Undercovers | Film Review

Two romantically-involved FBI agents assigned to “objectively and dispassionately” investigate possible crimes by the Trump presidency privately discuss their loathing of the president and his supporters. [ FBI Lovebirds: Undercovers credits: Dir: Richard Kuhlman/ 82 min/ Written by: Phelim McAleer/ Dean … Continue Reading

miss virginia

Miss Virginia | Film

A young mother (Virginia Walden Ford) fights a pitched, ultimately victorious, battle with educational authorities to create the District of Columbia voucher program. Based on a true story. [ Miss Virginia credits: Dir: R.J. Daniel Hanna/ Nadji Jeter, Matthew Modine, Aunjanue Ellis/ 102 min/ Biography, Drama/ … Continue Reading

snowden

Snowden (2016)

When a National Security Agency (NSA) employee discovers the agency is routinely spying on American citizens, in violation of the US Constitution, he risks all to tell the American public. Based on a true story. [ Snowden credits: Dir: Oliver Stone/ Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo/ 134 … Continue Reading

Themes

Abuse of power American revolution Anti-draft Anti-regulation Anti-slavery Anti-socialism Anti-taxation Anti-war Ayn Rand Corrupt government Creator as hero Democide Econ 101 Eminent domain Equality & law Escape from socialism Freedom of speech Free press as hero Government as bigot Government as torturer Government enforced morality Government healthcare Government schools Incompetent government Individualism John Stossel Law & liberty Legalize Drugs Libertarian heroes Libertarianism 101 Power corrupts Power worship Pro-capitalism Pro-immigration Propaganda Psychiatric coercion Resistance to tyranny Right to secede Search & seizure Second amendment Sexual liberty Social tolerance Unions & monopolies Voluntarism Working for government

Genres/Categories

Action-Adventure Animated Biography Blog Comedy Documentary Drama Family Featured Film Foreign History Horror Music-Dance Netflix News Romance SciFi-Fantasy Shorts Thriller Upcoming Western

About Miss Liberty

This site is a collection of films and documentaries of particular interest to libertarians (and those interested in libertarianism). It began as a book, Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film: Movies for the Libertarian Millennium, where many of the recommended films were first reviewed. The current collection has grown to now more than double the number in that original list, and it’s growing still.

  • RSS

© 2023 Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World. All Rights Reserved