America: Love It or Leave It
Film tells the story of some of those Americans who sought refuge in Canada from the Vietnamese War, a war they could not support.
00:09-01:40 – Color and B/W, 1960s and 1980s
- EXT MS pan of American flags.
- MFS of a diverse high school class reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
- Various shots from a Memorial Day parade with children waving flags and a Marine color guard.
- Various shots of Dan Quayle at the 1988 R.N.C.
- MCU interview with deserter Jack Colhoun saying he didn’t think he’d survive Vietnam intercut with various shots of antiwar protestors violent encounters with police and fighting in Vietnam.
- MCU interview of deserter Rob Winslow saying he wasn’t going to be sacrificed for a cause that hadn’t been articulated intercut with President Lyndon B. Johnson greeting soldiers in Vietnam.
- MCU interview with deserter Joe Hangsen saying fighting in Vietnam would’ve corrupted his values.
01:40-03:42
- Various b-roll shots of President Lyndon B. Johnson shaking hands with soldiers as they board an aircraft, aerial bombing runs, fighting in Vietnam, anti-war and pro-war protestors with great signs, President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
- MCU interview w/former Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb saying it’s as much a moral decision to go to war as it not to.
- MCU interview with former Vietnam Veterans of America President Bobby Muller saying the war was a moral issue and you had to made a decision either way.
03:42-06:01
- B/W b-roll shots of a person burning a draft card, armed forces recruiting center signs, white males at the draft board and draftees getting their heads shaved and shots.
- MS interview with former Presidential Clemency Board Executive Director Lawrence Baskir talking about draft boards and who they choose.
- CS interview with deserter Rob Winslow talking about his experience at the draft board.
- MCU deserter Jack Colhoun saying white middle-class men were more able to avoid getting drafted than poor black men.
06:01-08:31
- Various B/W shots from the 1960s of Lutheran minister Sherman with a draft-age man he’s escorting into Canada.
- B-roll of male students on campus carrying anti-war signs and at teach-ins.
- MCU interview with U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy saying the draft system was unfair.
- MCU interview with Ken Sherman talking about the options for draft-age men.
- MCU shot of Sherman is his car saying he dressed draft-age men in his clerical clothing and drove them to Ontario.
08:31-11:53
- B/W b-roll of a border crossing into Canada and the Toronto skyline, draft dodgers being helped by Canadians, and out at night.
- MCU interview with Jack Colhoun talking about arriving in Canada.
- MS interview with Naomi Wall, co-coordinator of the Toronto Anti-Draft Program from 1967-1972, talking about housing and feeding draft-age men.
- MS interview with Robert Fulford describing the draft-dodgers district in Toronto.
11:53-13:54
- MS interview with draft dodger Father Stan Pietlock talking about editing “Amex: the American expatriate in Canada†newsletter and not wanting to return to the U.S.
- B-roll WS of pickup trucks driving in Alberta.
- B/W photographs of Pietlock teaching.
- Various shots of Pietlock celebrating Mass.
- Various B/W shots of expatriate newsletters.
13:54 -15:26
- MCU interview with Jack Calhoun, who became an editor of “Amex,†saying he felt a responsibility to write about the Vietnamese.
- B/W archival photo of Calhoun in R.O.T.C.
- Various B/W shots Calhoun in Canada in 1970 and typing with CU of the Amex newsletter.
15:26-18:05
- B/W footage of a Volkswagen Beetle at a border crossing then driving into Canada.
- Various B/W shots of people hitch hiking and in a park.
- Various B/W shots of Pierre Trudeau, exteriors of buildings, crowds and former Canadian Minister of Immigration Allan MacEachen being asked about policy towards draft dodgers.
- MS interview with Canadian Senator Allan MacEachen saying Canadian’s wanted the borders open to draft dodgers.
- MS interview with Naomi Wall saying draft dodgers were better educated and had more money than deserters.
- MFS B/W interview with and unidentified deserter saying he was scared in Vietnam and came to Canada to start a new life.
18:05-21:34
- Various B/W shots of black soldiers in Vietnam, a person sitting in a room and on a train, and photographs of Rob Winslow.
- MCU interview with Jack Calhoun talking about the difficulties the deserters/draft dodgers faced in Canada.
- MCU interview with Rob Winslow saying Vietnam was a racist war.
21:34-25:40
- Various B/W shots of crowds walking on a city street, a customs officer looking in a trunk, a U.S. border crossing station, close-up of a sign that reads, “Canada Immigration Customs Stop,†aerial footage of the Pentagon, and historic paintings.
- MS interview M.I.T professor Noam Chomsky saying the largest exodus to Canada took place after the Revolutionary War and it’s not discussed because it shows Americans in an unfavorable way.
- MS interview with U.S. Army Col. Victor Di Fiori saying there were 35,000 deserters and that 2,200 went to foreign countries.
- MS interview with U.S. Ambassador to Canada A.W. Schmidt (1969 to 1974) saying there were an estimated 50,000 deserters in Canada.
- MS interview with Lawrence Baskir saying the U.S. minimized the numbers of deserters.
25:40-29:44
- Various B/W shots of President John F. Kennedy announcing the appointment of Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, Udall with President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Chicago police beating protestors during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
- Various B/W and Color b-roll of families in Canada, M.P. Svend Robinson at the Canadian House of Commons and a campaign event.
- Various interview shots with Stewart Udall talking about visiting his deserter son in Canada and how young men leaving the U.S. because of Vietnam shattered the Democratic party.
- MCU interview Svend Robinson saying his American relatives think socialism is communism.
29:44-33:42
- Various B/W shots of people in a commune in the late 1960s.
- B/W b-roll of Dr. Michael Klein seeing a patient.
- Color b-roll of Dr. Klein treating a baby held by its mother.
- MCU interview with Naomi Wall saying American women who came to Canada on their own.
- B/W MCU interview from the late 1960s with science fiction author Judith Merril saying she decided to go to Canada in August of 1968.
- MCU Color interview of Merril saying women who went to Canada were motivated by a desire for social change.
- MS interview of Dr. Klein talking his decision to go to Canada, Army doctors are responsiblity for killing, and the Canadian medical system.
33:42-37:13 –
- Various B/W footage of soldiers marching.
- MS interview with Lawrence Baskir saying a small percentage of military-age men felt strongly about the Vietnam war.
- MS interview with James Webb talking about how advantaged people used education to avoid Vietnam and that a much smaller percentage of Harvard and MIT graduates died in Vietnam.
- Various shots of Dan Quayle at the 1998 R.N.C.
- MCU interview with Jack Calhoun saying 25 million men used connections to avoid serving including Quayle.
37:13-40:20
- Various B/W b-roll shots soldiers helping the wounded and carrying body bags to helicopters.
- B/W b-roll of Sen. Kennedy at a draft dodger amnesty hearing.
- Various b-roll shots of people at Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
- B-roll shot Bobby Muller in his wheel chair in a park.
- MCU interview with Jack Calhoun talking about guilt.
- MCU interview with Bobby Muller talking about fighting for a lie and becoming an anti-war activist.
- MCU interview with Sen. Kennedy talking about the U.S. has a tradition of providing asylum for people of conscience and was reversed during the war.
40:20-43:35
- Various B/W footage of troops in a line, Henry Kissinger at the Paris Peace Accords, President Richard Nixon waving from a helicopter after resigning, President Gerald Ford signing a bill, Marines evacuating the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, people running into a U.S. Marine HMM-361 helicopter, a Marine helicopter flying over the ocean, and President Jimmy Carter’s inaugural parade.
- MCU interview shot of James Webb saying that some veterans were angry about President Carter’s blanket amnesty for draft dodgers.
- MS interview with Joe Hansgen saying he couldn’t go back to the U.S. because he deserted.
- Various B-roll of a little league game with Hansgen in the dugout and cars driving in a small Canadian town.
43:35-48:42
- M/S ZO of an American flag revealing a national cemetery.
- CU b-roll of raised hands during a Canadian citizenship ceremony
- MS b-roll of a Canadian Mounted Police Officer saluting.
- Various B-roll shots of Joe Hangsen with his little league team, Rob Winslow sitting with his students, Father Stan Pietlock delivering mass and Dr. Michael Klein with his toddler patient and mother.
- MCU interview with Lawrence Baskir saying the country forgot about the people who left.
- Various b-roll shots of Jack Calhoun walking in Washington, D.C. and looking at Emancipation Memorial.
- MCU interview shot with Jack Calhoun saying Vietnam-generation men either followed the laws of the United States or law enunciated by the Nuremberg tribunal.
- MCU interview with Rob Winslow saying he was rescued by Canada.
- MS interview with Dr. Michael Klein saying Canada gained more than the U.S. lost.
48:42-51:56 –
- WS b-roll of an exterior of a school in Baltimore, Maryland.
- MFS of a class reciting the Pledge of Allegiance
- Various INT shots of a high-school students responding to a teacher’s question about being drafted.