This week’s announcement of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan makes Shawn Kelley’s documentary “My Father’s Brothers” even more relevant and touching than it already is.
In this short, multiple award-winning documentary, Kelley shows the brotherhood that developed among U.S. troops fighting the ground war in Vietnam, recording in particular what happened when his father, Shawn Kelley, Sr., led his men on one “ordinary Wednesday” in June, 1966.
By the end of that year, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had begun doubting the possibility of winning the war, and by 1973 the U.S would pull all forces out.
But here, Kelley shows you what it was like for 140 American troops on a search-and-destroy mission to be outnumbered 10 to 1 and be savagely attacked while awaiting reinforcements.
The men suffered loss, misery, the horror of losing friends and the wondering whether they’d get home alive.
At one point, Kelley was informed that two men had been wounded and left behind. Kelley sent a crew out to search for them; they were located and the whole company was proud to say “We left no one behind.”
Fifty years later, Kelley got his dad and seven other survivors together to tell viewers what it was like and what problems they still have coping with the past. Some of them returned to Vietnam in search of closure and peace. They are a remarkable group.
“My Father’s Brothers” should be seen by all Americans and anyone else contemplating war. This film should dissuade them.
“My Father’s Brothers” opens Aug. 24, 2021 on demand and DVD
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