In the war for peace

the long version

In the War for Peace captures the energy and fervency of the anti-Vietnam War movement of the sixties with vivid depictions and an uncanny ear for dialogue. Students Dewitt, Gordon, Lam, Effie, Edie, and Gigi live on and around a campus in the midwest. With the backdrop of the Vietnam War shadowing their lives, the students' peaceful and violent protests - both personal and political - taken on an authentic and surreal aspect. The girls are in a band, the boys do dope, and one of their friends goes underground after breaking into a gun store. A series of protests that begin peacefully ends in violence and death, when workers are killed at a napalm factory. A disillusioned Dewitt, the main character, takes off on a cross country adventure, banging on doors in New Hampshire for the presidential candidate, Eugene McCarthy, working construction in Connecticut, living with a refrigerator artist in New York City, and laboring with a half-breed Indian plumber in upstate New York. His travels, both physical and emotional, ultimately give him at least a partial answer to his question: whether war - between countries, friends, or family members - is inevitable.