SOUL PATROL Documentary

Screening to be followed by a conversation with director, screenwriter and producer J.M. Harper and subject, executive producer and author Ed Emanuel.

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army deployed its first all-Black special operations team: Team 2/6 of Company F, 51st Infantry, an elite Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol that would conduct dangerous missions deep inside enemy territory. The travails of this “Soul Patrol” were recounted in Vietnam veteran Ed Emanuel’s titular 2003 memoir, now adapted by filmmaker J.M. Harper (winner of Sundance’s U.S. Documentary Competition) into this haunting examination of American imperialism, Black brotherhood and the loss of innocence. Centered around a reunion of the surviving members of the team, and utilizing a mixture of archival footage, contemporary interviews and reenactments, SOUL PATROL recounts the harrowing war stories — a soldier nearly executed but spared by a Viet Cong commander, for one — experienced by a platoon comprised of Black teens and young adults sent to fight an “enemy” a world away on behalf of a country seemingly incapable of giving these very soldiers their own civil rights. Their shared trauma continues to haunt the men, and their infrequent reunions — this one being their last, with some members already having passed away — gives them an avenue to express challenging emotions. “War is hell,” indeed, and more so for this embattled group who dutifully carried out their mission and were rewarded with continued inequality at home. –Javier Chavez