john pilger recently died. he was an accomplished journalist known for being honest and more. in this post his first film is featured. about twenty six minutes of vietnam and the quiet mutiny that was building in the american army there. its well worth revisiting for those who know and even more so for those who don't;

John Pilger's first film, The Quiet Mutiny, made in 1970 for the British current affairs series World in Action, broke the sensational story of insurrection by American drafted troops in Vietnam. In his classic history of war and journalism, The First Casualty, Phillip Knightley describes Pilger's revelations as among the most important reporting from Vietnam. The soldiers' revolt – including the killing of unpopular officers – marked the beginning of the end for the United States in Indo-China.

Known as ‘grunts’, conscripted men complain bitterly to the camera about their given role as ‘frontline fodder’. One soldier describes how an officer who sent his men into danger ‘kind of got shot’. Even one of the ‘Donut Dollies’ - a female singing group sent to entertain the grunts – ‘kind of got shot’.

Pilger and his director, Charles Denton, camera operator George Jesse Turner and sound recordist Alan Bale base themselves on a remote American firebase codenamed ‘Snuffy’. Surrounded by jungle and an enemy they cannot see, the men of ‘Snuffy’ are determined to survive. They notch the days on their rifle butts, fire artillery into the darkness and call it ‘mad minutes’.

Pilger goes on patrol with a platoon of grunts who are ordered to ‘shoot everything that moves... including a chicken, because it might be a Vietcong chicken’. When they return to base, they report their ‘body count’ – including the chicken. More than half of all US Army deaths in Vietnam, says Pilger, are caused by ‘friendly fire’ – soldiers killing each other: mistakenly, accidentally or intentionally. .........more............