Produced by the Winterfilm Collective (including future Oscar winner Barbara Kopple), Winter Soldier is an invaluable account of military arrogance and a distressing reminder the lessons of Vietnam were ignored in the lead-up to Iraq II.

Veterans recount how they were weaned on Commie paranoia and TV Westerns, were brutalized into seeing the enemy as sub-human, and received no instruction on the culture or language of Vietnam, nor the rules of the Geneva Convention.

Upsetting accounts of violence, ranging from casual murder of women and children, to rape, dismemberment and torture are made doubly disturbing by repeated statements that upper military echelons were at best indifferent to the behaviour.

Shot on grainy 16mm and without accompanying voiceover, Winter Soldier (the title originates in a Thomas Paine quote about the fair-weather patriotism of summer soldiers) is an unvarnished account of the three day testimony, using simple talking heads, plus photos and film footage.

But, it is a riveting documentary precisely because the soft-spoken veterans (including a briefly glimpsed John Kerry) were privy to the horror a well-financed military is capable of in the hands of a government blind to the winning of hearts and minds.

In another parallel to the Bush Middle Eastern horrorshow, in ’71 a cowed media didn’t cover the Winter Soldier Investigation, no major TV station would air the documentary, and it was virtually lost for decades.

But, it should receive a primetime airing now because it has lost none of its relevancy.

Rejecting newsreel fireworks or ghoulish imagery, Winter Soldiers is captivating proof of how powerful the spoken word can be, and stands as the best Vietnam war movie never seen.

Rob Daniel