The Good Soldier (10/09)

 

The earnest new documentary Lexy Lovell and Michael Uys painstakingly tells the personal story of five combat veterans from different American battle fronts and their interpretation of what it means to be a “good soldier.”   

Nevertheless, we sense from the beginning what that meaning will be, and it is nothing positive about soldiering.  The soldiers all come to the conclusion that it is merely “The ability to kill other human beings.”   And so, in the end, it means they are become members of the organization, “Veterans for Peace.”   

There is nothing new being said in the film. The veterans tell of their foreign surroundings, the camaraderie they felt with other men and the nightmarish quality of battle – including their unbridled sense of revenge that at times led to killing civilians

Each man finds some sort of redemption by confronting his past and eventually joining a veterans for peace movement.  This makes “The Good Soldier”  a one-sided movie, a kind of the antithesis of a recruiting film, one that “preaches to the choir.”   

And it’s too bad.  It left out the history of a “good soldier,” beginning with the Medes and the Persians and especially the Greek city state “citizen-soldiers” with their strong collective impulse to protect their shared patch of territory.  At this time, each man, enlisting for military service, even provided his own equipment. There certainly was a nobility in this endeavor, the same kind of motivation closest found today in the Israeli army (or the Vietnamese defending their land from outsiders).   

Thus, the whole reason for not being a good soldier is left out of the film.  This film somehow even manages to leave out what the war was about with the one World War II vet.  There is nothing mentioned about America being attacked (albeit there were other economic reasons for the war).  The most important thing to this vet is that he was shot within a short time of arriving in Europe and was haunted by his return to the states for most of his life because of his father’s sense of disapproval about his circumstance.  An educated man, his story of redemption was most compelling.

However, as someone who has traveled to Italy with World War II veterans of the Tenth Mountain Division, who experienced the battlefield (this division was overseas for the shortest time and lost the most soldiers and had more wounded, including Robert Dole), it is impossible to believe that any of them did not feel they were on a worthwhile mission, nor did they regret being a soldier in the war.  In fact, there was a mutual respect for the German enemy mountain troops because there was a true military code practiced between them.

In the film, the other four enlistees had nowhere else to go but the army.  In the words of one African-American vet, “it’s the lower class minorities who now fight the  wars for American these days.”

And here’s the rub: the word “war.” To this viewer, they were not soldiers fighting wars, but fighting invasions in the name of capitalism. 

Yes, a good soldier is about “following orders” as much as about killing people, but the big question (buried in the middle of the movie) remains, “a good soldier for what?” Thus the most accurate and significant quote was from another soldier:  “we are soldiers.  That means we are trained to live and die for our country, the United States.  We put our lives in the hands of someone else.  And if we’re asked to do that, at least let it not be for greed.”    

Also missing in this film were  the hi-jinks of Michael Moore to keep our attention.  Actually, it would be fascinating to see what he could do with this subject that totally needs to be addressed. 

This is true because the theme of “war”  continues to be timely:  It is grotesque to know that so many Americans now think of war “as a virtual game.”  The news this month is that the “Call to Duty” (video war) game, which earned over $800 million in its first three versions, has been updated to now include terrorist characters, and is expected to earn even more money.   

The following representative quote by one buyer on the internet sums up all the uneducated, unhealthy qualities, unrealistic players now associate with being “a good soldier.” “Me and my wife like to play games together and i was wondering if Call to duty for wii can be played 2 players from the same system?”

"The Good Soldier," Running time is 80 minutes.  Check www.laemmle.com for times and theatres.