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anthony
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In the days that followed Sept. 11, as our nation mourned, there was a sense that anyone and everyone we encountered might have lost someone that day. Our sense of loss was so pervasive, it wasn't difficult to imagine that we lived in the midst of thousands of grief-stricken people whose wives or husbands or children died in that terrible tragedy.
After seeing "Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends" recently, I am once again aware that we're living in the midst of thousands of people who have been deeply and irrevocably changed by a terrible tragedy. A powerful documentary produced and directed by Patricia Foulkrod, "Ground Truth" is about the Iraqi war and how so many of the men and women returning from that war now struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. "If Vietnam was about Agent Orange," someone notes in the film, "this war is about PTSD."
As the film makes graphically clear, the soldiers in Iraq ("Our kids," a Vietnam vet calls them) are not fighting a conventional war. Which, as the film also makes abundantly clear, means a war being fought not on a battlefield, but on the bombed, torn-up streets and alleyways and in the homes of Iraqi citizens. We see the bloodied bodies of women and children. We see shocking footage of highly armed soldiers seemingly clueless as to their mission: "What are we doing here?" We see "our kids" screaming and bullying terrified Iraqi families.
Their tour over, "our kids" come home. You and I know this. Every day on every highway in Massachusetts, we see the "Welcome Home" signs posted on overpasses. But what we may not know is that so many of these returning soldiers bring home some heavy-duty baggage beside their duffels. They can still picture dead and maimed children. Some may remember, again and again, incidents when they, themselves, were responsible for an innocent civilian's death. (In "Ground Truth," several former soldiers tell such stories.) Some may have lost arms or legs or mobility. Some may be deeply depressed. Many are wracked with guilt. "We train our soldiers to kill in our name, and then we forget who they are."
So now, after seeing this amazing film, if an apoplectic driver behinds me insistently honks his horn and shakes his fist because I've somehow irritated him, I no longer dismiss his behavior as "road rage" and mutter, "Get over it!" Now I wonder if this incensed driver might be one of "our kids;" out-of-control angry about what his country just been made him endure, exhausted by horrible nightmares, pretty much permanently stressed and furious. That woman who shoves ahead of me to get a seat on the Ashmont train? Maybe her daughter just got back from Iraq and is now holed up in her room and won't come out except to eat. PTSD is scary, debilitating and, I now realize, all around us, like the widespread mourning after Sept. 11. For those seeking a connection between Sept. 11 and Iraq, here it is.
So many of the stories told by the Iraqi vets in "Ground Truth" are depressingly familiar: the young men and women who join the military because they thought it would be a good way to pay for college, the lies told by recruitment officers, how basic training creates killers, the unmitigated horrors of war, how difficult it is for a returning vet to adjust to civilian life, how the Veterans Administration has let them down. (According to the film, most Iraqi vets are not receiving the sort of counseling and help they so badly need.)
Haven't we been through this before? Haven't we read "The Red Badge of Courage," "All's Quiet on the Western Front," "The Things They Carried?" Haven't we walked through flag-strewn cemeteries and wondered who those dead soldiers were and how the world might have been different had they lived? Haven't we driven past Somerville's memorials and parks dedicated to our city's war dead and prayed for no more dedication ceremonies? What does it take before the majority of Americans finally say, "You know what? War is not the answer."
Source: Town Online
Link Removed
After seeing "Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends" recently, I am once again aware that we're living in the midst of thousands of people who have been deeply and irrevocably changed by a terrible tragedy. A powerful documentary produced and directed by Patricia Foulkrod, "Ground Truth" is about the Iraqi war and how so many of the men and women returning from that war now struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. "If Vietnam was about Agent Orange," someone notes in the film, "this war is about PTSD."
As the film makes graphically clear, the soldiers in Iraq ("Our kids," a Vietnam vet calls them) are not fighting a conventional war. Which, as the film also makes abundantly clear, means a war being fought not on a battlefield, but on the bombed, torn-up streets and alleyways and in the homes of Iraqi citizens. We see the bloodied bodies of women and children. We see shocking footage of highly armed soldiers seemingly clueless as to their mission: "What are we doing here?" We see "our kids" screaming and bullying terrified Iraqi families.
Their tour over, "our kids" come home. You and I know this. Every day on every highway in Massachusetts, we see the "Welcome Home" signs posted on overpasses. But what we may not know is that so many of these returning soldiers bring home some heavy-duty baggage beside their duffels. They can still picture dead and maimed children. Some may remember, again and again, incidents when they, themselves, were responsible for an innocent civilian's death. (In "Ground Truth," several former soldiers tell such stories.) Some may have lost arms or legs or mobility. Some may be deeply depressed. Many are wracked with guilt. "We train our soldiers to kill in our name, and then we forget who they are."
So now, after seeing this amazing film, if an apoplectic driver behinds me insistently honks his horn and shakes his fist because I've somehow irritated him, I no longer dismiss his behavior as "road rage" and mutter, "Get over it!" Now I wonder if this incensed driver might be one of "our kids;" out-of-control angry about what his country just been made him endure, exhausted by horrible nightmares, pretty much permanently stressed and furious. That woman who shoves ahead of me to get a seat on the Ashmont train? Maybe her daughter just got back from Iraq and is now holed up in her room and won't come out except to eat. PTSD is scary, debilitating and, I now realize, all around us, like the widespread mourning after Sept. 11. For those seeking a connection between Sept. 11 and Iraq, here it is.
So many of the stories told by the Iraqi vets in "Ground Truth" are depressingly familiar: the young men and women who join the military because they thought it would be a good way to pay for college, the lies told by recruitment officers, how basic training creates killers, the unmitigated horrors of war, how difficult it is for a returning vet to adjust to civilian life, how the Veterans Administration has let them down. (According to the film, most Iraqi vets are not receiving the sort of counseling and help they so badly need.)
Haven't we been through this before? Haven't we read "The Red Badge of Courage," "All's Quiet on the Western Front," "The Things They Carried?" Haven't we walked through flag-strewn cemeteries and wondered who those dead soldiers were and how the world might have been different had they lived? Haven't we driven past Somerville's memorials and parks dedicated to our city's war dead and prayed for no more dedication ceremonies? What does it take before the majority of Americans finally say, "You know what? War is not the answer."
Source: Town Online
Link Removed
