Going Upriver - A must-see movie!

We just watched "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry". Anyone who at all doubts the veracity of John Kerry's service to his country, or the sincerity of his activism on his return from Vietnam, needs to see this film. The showings are at scattered theaters around the country, but you can download the full movie, and it is also available on DVD starting tomorrow (Tuesday, October 19). The download is about 650MB, so it will take a while, even with a high-speed connection...and it's worth the wait. I don't know if the download version is offered with the permission of the filmmakers, so we have ordered the DVD. Please do the honorable thing and support the filmmakers.

I've read John F. Kerry - The Complete Biography (along with other books and articles by folks pro- and anti-Kerry), so much of the material was not new to me. But seeing and hearing interviews with so many who were there with Kerry and seeing the news footage from Vietnam and from the activities after Kerry's return, made this much more powerful than just reading a book. Here is an excerpt of the movie synopsis from the official Going Upriver site:

The film traces Kerry’s early life as a young man who chooses to enlist in the Navy and to go to Vietnam. The film reveals intimate, first person accounts of Kerry’s war service through his own private letters, his eloquent journal, and the vivid memories of the men who served at his side. When Kerry came home disillusioned by the war, he and his fellow Vietnam Veterans challenged Congress and the Nixon administration. As Kerry became a nationally known anti-war activist, the Nixon White House plotted to discredit his leadership, but significantly could find “nothing on him,” as Colson reveals via Watergate tapes. Despite Nixon’s attempt to undermine John Kerry’s political career during his 1972 unsuccessful run for US Congress, Kerry persevered, eventually winning election to the Senate in 1984 and receiving the Democratic nomination for president in 2004.

The music was also quite stirring - at least to any of us who are old enough to remember Vietnam. I was among the lucky ones - I had a very low lottery number (I believe it was 19 - the draft was done by "lottery" based on birthday, and the lower your number, the sooner you would be drafted), but that was the first year that no one was drafted. My wife's brother was a few years older, however, and did serve in Vietnam. His experience there scarred him deeply and he took his life after returning from the war. 58,169 US military personnel died in Vietnam. My wife's brother was one of the uncounted casualties. And this is not counting the approximately 3 MILLION Vietnamese who died in the war, at least half of whom were civilians. Now that we've watched this film, my wife is planning to email her sisters and suggest that they also view the film, to better understand what their brother went through.

War is serious. War is tragic. War is a horrible affront to any respect for life. We need a president who understands this at the core of his being. We need John Kerry.