In 1971, Jane Fonda and fellow anti-Vietnam war activists Donald Sutherland, Holly Near, and Paul Mooney began performing a satirical revue in coffeehouses and parks near army bases to entertain soldiers who opposed the war. The show featured political sketches, protest songs, humor, and appearances

In Dec 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War, actors Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda, along with seven other performers, toured the United States military bases around the Pacific Rim in response to the growing movement among American G.I.s to end the war. Their FTA show, an acronym for "Free the Army," is a type of political vaudeville in which skits, songs and interviews with G.I.s voice disillusionment with the war. The troupe first travels to Hawaii, one of the primary staging grounds for the war, where 1,300 crew members from the attack aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Coral Sea have signed a petition to prevent the ship from going to Vietnam. After Fonda interviews some of the dissenting crew members, Sutherland and comic Paul Mooney present a skit in which two sportscasters give a play-by-play commentary of an American aerial attack on the Viet Cong. Traveling to a U.S. base at Okinawa, the troupe interviews the Okinawans picketing the base in protest of the military presence on the island. Black singer Rita Martinson then performs "Soldier, We Love You," about a black soldier who refused orders to kill in Vietnam. She ends by charging that the war is racist and genocidal. After several enlisted men discuss how the army allows for no sense of individuality its quest to turn its recruits into obedient robots, the troupe sings "Genocide." In the Philippines, Fonda explains that much of the material for the show was culled from military newspapers. G.I.s then speak about oppression and racism in the military. After Fonda and Holly Near sing "Nothin' Could Be Finer Than to Be in Indochina!" newsreel footage is shown of Filipinos protesting U.S. bases in their country. When the troupe lands in mainland Japan, the Japanese government, fearful that their presence may be fueling the Japanese peace movement, denies them entrance on the grounds that they are holding tourist, not cultural, visas. After applying for cultural visas they are allowed into the country, and at a show, present a rousing rendition of "The Movement Is Moving On" to the tune of "Glory, Glory Hallelujah." Women soldiers are then shown discussing the rampant sexism in the military, after which Sutherland eloquently reads a passage from Dalton Trumbo's anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun . In Hiroshima, the troupe visits the war museum that houses photos of those hideously disfigured by the atomic bombing of the city. At a show that night, the troupe is heckled by a group of G.I.s who call them "Commies" and warn "fight them here, or else fight them in your own backyard." Once the audience ousts the hecklers, black poet Pamela Donegan recites a poem about a ghetto boy called to war. The evening ends with a call to set a date to end the war. In a speech to foreign correspondents in Tokyo, Fonda speaks out against the U.S. genocide in Vietnam. At the Iwakuni Base, G.I.s discuss the nuclear arms they have seen at the base, a charge the US government denies. Soldiers then line up to sign a petition advocating the withdrawal of U.S. troupes from all foreign countries. The film ends as Sutherland recites the shattering conclusion of Johnny Got His Gun .