Hit & Stay is a documentary film which premiered at the Chicago Underground Film festival in 2013.
The topic is the anti-war movement and civil disobedience in the US during the Vietnam War.
Here is some basic information about it:
** Writers and directors: Joe Tropea and Skizz Cyzyk
** Run time: 97 minutes
When the war began, the US army did not have many soldiers in Vietnam. But when the US government wanted to send more troops to Vietnam, the army faced a problem. They did not have enough soldiers. To solve this problem, the US government increased the draft.
All young men were involved in a national lottery where you could win or lose. If you lost, you did not have to serve. If you won, you had to be a soldier and serve, probably in Vietnam.
Members of the anti-war movement had two reasons to oppose the war in Vietnam:
# 1. A General reason
The war is immoral and illegal. The US has no moral or legal justification to send American soldiers across the world and fight a war in Vietnam.
# 2. A specific reason
Many young men are forced to become soldiers and fight in a war which they did not start. Many young men do not support this war, but they are forced to join up and fight anyway.
Members of the anti-war movement also noticed that the rules of the draft did not work in the same way for all young men. If you were a student at college or university, you could get a deferment and avoid the military service.
Students at universities were often white men whose families were rich or from the middle class: they could afford to send their sons to university.
People of colour were often poor. These families could not afford to send their sons to college or university. Many Latinos and African-Americans could not get a deferment, so they had to serve.
People of colour were overwhelmingly chosen to serve in the army, because they had no way to avoid it. The rules regarding the draft helped some groups more than others. According to the anti-war movement, the rules of the draft were unfair.
In the beginning of the war, the peace movement was still small and powerless. The members could hold meetings and arrange demonstrations, but they did not have much impact on American society or American policy. They did not have a strong voice. It was difficult for them to be heard.
Many members of the peace movement were students. But not all of them. Some members had a special background. They were Catholic priests or nuns or members of a Catholic congregation.
Their interpretation of the Christian religion told them that making war was wrong. Sending soldiers to Vietnam to kill other people was wrong. These members wanted to do something to stop this. For them, it was not enough to hold meetings and arrange demonstrations.
These people have been described as “the Catholic Left.”
They were Americans, but they could not support the American policy in Vietnam. They could not understand why the leaders of the Catholic Church did not oppose the war in Vietnam.
When the draft was increased, the Catholic Left saw a new opportunity for action. All over the US, there were draft boards, offices full of cabinets with draft cards, where young men were registered. Some of them would be classified as A-1, meaning they were qualified to serve in the army. They had to serve in the army. Maybe they would be sent to fight in Vietnam.
Some members of the Catholic Left had an idea: what if we enter a draft board, steal the draft cards and burn them in a public place outside the office?
If we do this, the draft board cannot select young men in this area to be soldiers! We can disrupt the draft! And maybe we can even disrupt the American war in Vietnam!
The plan included one more detail which was highly significant. They said:
“We will enter a draft board and destroy draft cards, but when this is done, we will not run away. We will wait outside the office. We will wait for the police to show up and arrest us.
“We will be charged and have our day in court. When they ask us: did you do it? We will say: yes! When they ask us why we did it, we will explain our reasons. We will use the courtroom as a platform to get our message out to the American people. The trial will be a political theatre.
“We do not want to hit and run. What we want to do is to hit and stay.”
Hence the title Hit & Stay.
In this film, several acts of civil disobedience are explored. The first one happened in 1967. The last one in 1971. Here are the cases (listed in chronological order):
The Baltimore 4 (1967)
The Catonsville 9 (1968)
The Boston 2
The Milwaukee 14
The DC 9 (1969)
The Chicago 15
Women Against Daddy Warbucks
The New York 8
The Beaver 55
The Boston 8
The East Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives in Philadelphia (1970)
Rhode Island Political Offensive for Freedom
The Delaware Actions
Brothers and Sisters AKA The New Haven Action
Flower City Conspiracy
The Hoover Vacuum Conspiracy
The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI (1971)
The Four of Us
The Buffalo
The Camden 28
In this film, the focus is on the first two cases on the list, but the other cases are also mentioned and discussed.
Several persons who were involved in these cases are interviewed in the film. Not only activists who protested, but also FBI agents who monitored the activists. I will not list all the names here, because the complete list is too long.
The following persons offer comments about the significance of the protest actions against the draft boards and against the Vietnam war:
** Bill Ayers
** Noam Chomsky
** Ramsey Clark (1927-2021)
** Amy Goodman
** Laura Whitehorn
** Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
What do reviewers say about this film? On IMDb it has a rating of 70 percent, which corresponds to 3.5 stars on Amazon.
This rating is quite good. But if you ask me, it is not good enough. Why not? This film covers an important topic and the topic is covered very well.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
PS. The following articles are available online:
** Frida Berrigan, "50 years later, the spirit of the Catonsville Nine lives on," Waging Non-Violence, 16 May 2018
** Maggie Astor, “Their Protest Helped End the Draft. 50 Years Later, It’s Still Controversial,” New York Times, 19 May 2018
** Emily L. Quint Freeman, “How to stop a war: Why I risked prison by burning thousands of Vietnam draft cards,” Salon, 23 February 2020
REFERENCES
Documentary films
** The War at Home (1979)
** The Camden 28 (2007)
** 1971 (2014)
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