Review: Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry

Let me get this disclaimer out of the way. I am a Democrat. I am (very) left of center. John Kerry is my choice to be the next president of the United States (but was not my first choice). On occasion, I can be accused of showing bias. I have done my best to avoid that pitfall in the following review.
-MR

In Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry, director George Butler, whose previous films include Pumping Iron, and the astonishing Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition, has given us what months of interviews, photo ops, newspaper articles and spin doctors could not: a personal look at John Kerry the man. The debate of September 30th gave us a glimpse, but this film by longtime Kerry friend Butler, is a personal portrait that gives a glimpse into how important he was in the anti-Vietnam War movement and into the true measure of the man.

Loosely based on the best-selling book Tour of Duty by Douglas Brinkley, Going Upriver documents John Kerry's early life from his exceptionally smart, athletic and committed beginnings to his emergence as a truly heroic, principled and above all, patriotic young man who enlisted in the Navy following his graduation from Yale in 1966. Eventually being deployed in Vietnam, Kerry volunteered to command a swift boat, one of the most dangerous positions in the war. During his service, as I am sure you are all aware, Kerry was awarded a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and 3 Purple Hearts.

Former senator Max Cleland (D, GA) refers to the war as "beauty and terror," an apt phrase for the war described by John Kerry and others upon their return from Vietnam. Shortly after returning to the US, Kerry attended the Winter Soldier conference on wartime atrocities and was subsequently involved in the formation of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), an organization whose overall importance in the stateside peace movement is often underreported. Having such a large group of men who were willing to stand up be counted for peace was a public rebuke to the establishment that tried to paint the anti-war movement as simply a bunch of draft-dodging, peacenik commies.

But I digress. In April of 1971, more than a thousand members of VVAW held what amounted to a mass “sit-in” on the Mall in Washington D.C., risking arrest by the park police who, when ordered by the Supreme Court to arrest any veteran who slept in the park, refused to do so. During this protest, John Kerry was invited to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Butler’s film contains sections of that testimony in significantly larger portions than we have seen during the current presidential campaign. It is some of the most eloquent (and apparently off-the-cuff) speaking you will ever hear, including the lines “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?…How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” If hearing those lines and seeing the reactions of those present doesn’t bring a tear to your eye and a shiver to your spine, you are not human.

Butler’s access to Kerry allowed him to take some astonishing footage and still photographs and he uses there here to great effect. On the last day of the April protest, a line of between one and three thousand veterans slowly walked past the steps of the US Capitol building where a fence had been erected to keep the protestors from occupying the steps. One by one they stopped in front of a microphone, said a few words and then hurled their medals and decorations over the fence in protest of the war. Some even three the boxes the medals came in as well as their false limbs and canes. The sight of thousands of brave young men throwing these Silver Stars, clusters, Purple Hearts and Medals of Valor, among others, in solemn protest is gripping and heart-rending. In modern interviews with some of those that took part, it is clear to them that while those decorations meant more to these men than almost anything in the world, representing the sacrifice they had made for their country, it was more important to them that they make their point that the war was wrong and that their brothers were dying for no reason. Perfectly capturing the grief of the moment, Butler ends this episode with a picture of Kerry and his then wife Julia. Kerry is sitting on the ground, his head bowed between his knees, shoulders slumping while Julia sits next to him, her arms around him, comforting him. It is a profoundly touching moment.

Does this film speak to John Kerry’s qualifications to balance a budget, manage a growing national health care crisis or avoid depleting our strategic petroleum reserves? No, of course not. His 20 years in the Senate do that. But anyone who is unsure of Senator John Kerry’s character, patriotism, ethics and courage absolutely needs to see this film. It will change their minds.

This is the first in a series of articles spotlighting the large number of political docs being released this fall, leading up to November 2nd.

Photo: John Kerry leans to listen to his friend, David Thorne, during the Vietnam Veterans Against the War protests on the Mall. April, 1971. Credit: George Butler