thedrifter
09-15-06, 06:26 AM
`Ground Truth' digs in on anti-war lines
By Jessica Reaves
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 15, 2006
What if they gave a war and nobody came? Given the U.S. military's relentless recruitment techniques and the lack of viable alternatives for the country's most disadvantaged kids, that scenario doesn't seem particularly likely. So let's try this: What if they gave a war, and people went, but later came home and dedicated their lives to ending the same war they just fought in?
This is the premise behind "The Ground Truth," a com-pelling and intensely provocative new documentary that profiles veterans of the current Iraq war, all of whom are suffering its aftereffects.
Patricia Foulkrod, a longtime documentary filmmaker, has created a movie with an unmistakable anti-war agenda; no opposing views are given screen time, and each soldier she profiles has, at the very least, serious doubts about the current war. But what saves "The Ground Truth" from the trap of offensive simplicity are the subjects themselves: soldiers, some of whom are barely 21, who have left everything they knew to serve their country in a mission that becomes to them more and more nebulous as time goes on.
"Truth" leads us through the life cycle of the recruitment process: the hard-sell, where kids are promised everything from education benefits to cushy stateside posts, followed by the induction ceremony, which provides a flash of pomp and circumstance for proud families. Finally, basic training, where verbal abuse and physical strain are carefully designed, military psychologists tell us, to break the spirit and cast the battlefield as a moral black hole.
Then it's off to war, where the "mission" becomes quite simple: kill or be killed. A grisly year (or more) later, the soldiers return home, transformed but expected to reintegrate themselves into the families and society they left behind. Those lucky enough to make it home physically "whole" are suffering from a range of psychological injuries. The nightmares, the violent urges, the crises of conscience: Whether by luck or sheer perseverance, the filmmakers are on hand to capture the veterans' struggles to reintegrate into their "old" worlds.
Foulkrod began her investigation into what she calls "our invisible injured soldiers" after reading a report on the lack of body armor and general protection being provided to U.S. troops in Iraq. Indignant, Foulkrod embarked on a fundraising spree, and a few months later, she started talking to recently returned soldiers recovering from war injuries at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Some have lost limbs, others are suffering from something less obvious, but with equally devastating consequences. "The Ground Truth" feels particularly sharp, and particularly timely, when it deals with the solitary torture of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), a post-Vietnam diagnosis that's either too controversial or too potentially expensive to be recognized by the powers that be. Returned soldiers find the military that promised them the moon before they signed their lives away gives their returned "heroes" very little or no support. One Veterans Affairs psychologist delivers this rebuff to a Marine who asks for help dealing with the lingering horrors of war: "I can't help you. We don't treat conscientious objectors here."
If Foulkrod and her team planned only to tell a story that gives credence to anti-war sentiment, they undersold themselves. Thanks largely to the brutal honesty of its subjects, "The Ground Truth" transcends the protest genre and delivers a much broader cautionary tale: Any country that turns people into killing machines, hands them weapons and sends them off to war owes them more than a pat on the shoulder and a bus ticket home.
The Ground Truth
(star)(star)(star)
Directed and written by Patricia Foulkrod; photographed by Reuben Aaronson; edited by Rob Hall; music by David Hodge; produced by Foulkrod. A Focus Features release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:12. Featuring Robert Acosta, Kelly Dougherty, Demond Mullins, Paul Rieckhoff, Melissa Stockwell, Rob Sarra, Aidan Delgado, Jimmy J. Massey and Sean Huze.
MPAA rating: R (for disturbing violent content, and language).
jreaves@tribune.com
Ellie
By Jessica Reaves
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 15, 2006
What if they gave a war and nobody came? Given the U.S. military's relentless recruitment techniques and the lack of viable alternatives for the country's most disadvantaged kids, that scenario doesn't seem particularly likely. So let's try this: What if they gave a war, and people went, but later came home and dedicated their lives to ending the same war they just fought in?
This is the premise behind "The Ground Truth," a com-pelling and intensely provocative new documentary that profiles veterans of the current Iraq war, all of whom are suffering its aftereffects.
Patricia Foulkrod, a longtime documentary filmmaker, has created a movie with an unmistakable anti-war agenda; no opposing views are given screen time, and each soldier she profiles has, at the very least, serious doubts about the current war. But what saves "The Ground Truth" from the trap of offensive simplicity are the subjects themselves: soldiers, some of whom are barely 21, who have left everything they knew to serve their country in a mission that becomes to them more and more nebulous as time goes on.
"Truth" leads us through the life cycle of the recruitment process: the hard-sell, where kids are promised everything from education benefits to cushy stateside posts, followed by the induction ceremony, which provides a flash of pomp and circumstance for proud families. Finally, basic training, where verbal abuse and physical strain are carefully designed, military psychologists tell us, to break the spirit and cast the battlefield as a moral black hole.
Then it's off to war, where the "mission" becomes quite simple: kill or be killed. A grisly year (or more) later, the soldiers return home, transformed but expected to reintegrate themselves into the families and society they left behind. Those lucky enough to make it home physically "whole" are suffering from a range of psychological injuries. The nightmares, the violent urges, the crises of conscience: Whether by luck or sheer perseverance, the filmmakers are on hand to capture the veterans' struggles to reintegrate into their "old" worlds.
Foulkrod began her investigation into what she calls "our invisible injured soldiers" after reading a report on the lack of body armor and general protection being provided to U.S. troops in Iraq. Indignant, Foulkrod embarked on a fundraising spree, and a few months later, she started talking to recently returned soldiers recovering from war injuries at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Some have lost limbs, others are suffering from something less obvious, but with equally devastating consequences. "The Ground Truth" feels particularly sharp, and particularly timely, when it deals with the solitary torture of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), a post-Vietnam diagnosis that's either too controversial or too potentially expensive to be recognized by the powers that be. Returned soldiers find the military that promised them the moon before they signed their lives away gives their returned "heroes" very little or no support. One Veterans Affairs psychologist delivers this rebuff to a Marine who asks for help dealing with the lingering horrors of war: "I can't help you. We don't treat conscientious objectors here."
If Foulkrod and her team planned only to tell a story that gives credence to anti-war sentiment, they undersold themselves. Thanks largely to the brutal honesty of its subjects, "The Ground Truth" transcends the protest genre and delivers a much broader cautionary tale: Any country that turns people into killing machines, hands them weapons and sends them off to war owes them more than a pat on the shoulder and a bus ticket home.
The Ground Truth
(star)(star)(star)
Directed and written by Patricia Foulkrod; photographed by Reuben Aaronson; edited by Rob Hall; music by David Hodge; produced by Foulkrod. A Focus Features release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:12. Featuring Robert Acosta, Kelly Dougherty, Demond Mullins, Paul Rieckhoff, Melissa Stockwell, Rob Sarra, Aidan Delgado, Jimmy J. Massey and Sean Huze.
MPAA rating: R (for disturbing violent content, and language).
jreaves@tribune.com
Ellie