Debbie Nathan

Need it be said? A nationally important event starts in hours, and you have not learned of it from the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times or big TV. To get notice, you’d have to have seen Slate, Salon, The Nation – or the cover story of last week’s London Times Sunday Magazine. Yes, cover story. On this side of the pond, nary a line in our lox-and-bagel newspaper mags.

Still, you should know. In the Washington DC area from today through the weekend, a second round of “Winter Soldier” hearings will take place.

Thirty-seven years ago, dozens of US military veterans gathered in a hotel in Detroit for the first such hearings. They testified about atrocities they’d seen and committed while on duty in Vietnam. Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized the 1971 event, and called it “Winter Soldier.” John Kerry was actively involved. A collective of young filmmakers, including Barbara Kopple, memorialized the hearings with a documentary that came out the next year. The hearings and film were virtually ignored by the American media. I finally saw the documentary last month, when excerpts were played in Brooklyn, at a fund raiser for Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). They’re a new generation of anti-war soldier activists — short-haired compared with their elders, and equally brave.

At the fundraiser, some IVAW members previewed the outrages that witnesses will describe this weekend at Winter Soldier 2: immoral and illegal acts committed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few years. Then the vets showed the old film. It is stunning, devastating. The men testifying in 1971 are what Tony Kushner would call angels in America. They are young, mostly still in their 20s. They are smooth-faced, sexy, innocent. They are shocked and grief-stricken, with strange affect: sometimes tearful, sometimes with inappropriate smiles. They are guilty, purified, evil — and know it. They have committed rapes, mutilations, and the murder of civilians. They say they are testifying so no American soldiers after them will have to act like animals. In their confessions and anger they are heroes.

If you can’t go to Round 2 of Winter Soldier, or follow it online, at least try to see the old film (link here). But if you can make time for the current event, here’s contact information:

Iraq Vets Against the War has a website with details about the upcoming hearings and instructions on how configure your computer so you can follow the testimony, live, via streaming video and other technology.

Alternet is covering the events and providing online access (see here)

Reporters or others who want to attend in person: Call (202) 253-7298 or go to the hearing site, at the National Labor College, 10000 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring, MD

To obtain the 1972 documentary Winter Soldier, check this site. You can also find clips by entering”Winter Soldier” on Youtube. And you can rent the film from Netflix.com.