TUBE ALERT:The chilling reality of war

[thedrifter]

The chilling reality of war
Bangkok Post

Bryan Anderson, a 25-year-old army sergeant who was wounded in Iraq, was explaining, on camera _ to James Gandolfini, of all people _ what happened immediately after a roadside bomb blew up the Humvee that he was driving. ''I was like, 'Oh, we got hit. We got hit.' And then I had blood on my face and the flies were landing all over my face. So I wiped my face to get rid of the flies. And that is when I noticed that my fingertip was gone. So I was like, 'Oh. OK.' So that is when I started really assessing myself. I was like, 'That's not bad.' And then I turned my hand over, and I noticed that this chunk of my hand was gone. So I was like, 'OK, still not bad. I can live with that.' And then when I went to wipe the flies on my face with my left hand, there was nothing there. So I was like, 'Uh, that's gone.' And then I looked down and I saw that my legs were gone. And then they had kind of forced my head back down to the ground, hoping that I wouldn't see.'' HBO's contribution to an expanded awareness of the awful realities of war continues with a new documentary, Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq.

Gandolfini, one of the executive producers of the film, steps out of his Tony Soprano persona to quietly, even gently, interview 10 soldiers and Marines who barely escaped death in combat.

The interviews are powerful, and often chilling. They offer a portrait of combat and its aftermath that bears no relation to the sanitised, often upbeat version of war _ not just in Iraq, but in general _ that so often comes from politicians and the news media.

Dawn Halfaker, a 28-year-old former army captain, is among those featured in the documentary. She lost her right arm and shoulder in Iraq, along with any illusions she might have had about the glory of war. ''I think I was a little bit naive to what combat was really like,'' she told me in an interview on Sunday. ''When you're training, you don't really imagine that you could be holding a dying boy in your arms. You don't think about what death is like close up. There's nothing heroic about war. It's very tragic. It's very sad. It takes a huge emotional toll.'' Still, she said, there was much about her experience in Iraq that she was grateful for. ''Nobody in the film is asking for pity or sympathy,'' she said. ''We're just saying we had this experience and it changed our lives, and we're coping with it.''

The term ''alive day'' is being used by GIs to refer to the day that they came frighteningly close to dying from war wounds, but somehow managed to survive. There are legions of them.

Miraculous advances in emergency medicine, communication and transportation are enabling 90% of the GIs wounded in Iraq to survive their wounds, although many are facing a lifetime of suffering. It's become a cliche to talk about the courage of the soldiers and Marines struggling to overcome their horrendous injuries, but it's a cliche embedded in the truth. Anderson, a chatty one-time athlete, is doing his best to put together a reasonably satisfactory life without his legs or his left hand, and with a damaged right hand.

He told Gandolfini, ''If I didn't have my hand, if I lost both my hands, I'd really think, you know, it wouldn't be worth it to be around.''

He has a wry take on the term ''alive day''.
''Everybody makes a big deal about your alive day, especially at Walter Reed,'' he said. ''And I can see their point, that you'd want to celebrate something like that. But from my point of view, it's like, 'OK, we're sitting here celebrating the worst day of my life. Great, let's just remind me of that every year'.''

Last year HBO produced a harrowing documentary called Baghdad E.R. that showed the relentless effort of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to save as many lives as possible from what amounted to a non-stop conveyor belt of GIs wounded in combat. At the time, Shelia Nevins, the head of documentary programming at the network, said, ''We tried to put a human face on the war.''

They've done it again with Alive Day Memories, which is scheduled to premiere Sept 9. There are no politics in either production. They are neither pro- nor anti-war. But the intense focus on the humanity of the men and women caught up in the chaos of Iraq, and the incredible sacrifices some of them have had to make, is an implicit argument in favour of a more thoughtful, cautious, less hubristic approach to matters of war and peace.

Bob Herbert is a New York Times columnist.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

HBO and Bright House Networks to Host Tampa Bay Premiere of HBO Documentary Film 'ALIVE DAY MEMORIES: HOME FROM IRAQ' on Friday, September 7 at Mahaffey Theater


Documentary Film Features St. Pete Native, Marine Corporal Michael
Jernigan, Who Will Attend With His Family

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Aug. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- HBO and Bright
House Networks will co-host the Tampa Bay premiere of ALIVE DAY MEMORIES:
HOME FROM IRAQ on Friday, September 7, at an invitation-only screening
event at St. Petersburg's Mahaffey Theater at The Progress Energy Center.
Marine Corporal Michael Jernigan, a native of St. Petersburg, is featured
in the documentary film and is confirmed to attend along with his family.
Three-time Emmy(R) winner James Gandolfini returns to HBO with the
documentary special ALIVE DAY MEMORIES: HOME FROM IRAQ, his first project
after "The Sopranos" -- and the first production for his Attaboy Films.
Debuting SUNDAY, SEPT. 9 (10:30-11:30 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO, the documentary
about wounded Marines and soldiers surveys the physical and emotional cost
of war through memories of their "alive day," the day they narrowly escaped
death in Iraq.
In a war that has left more than 27,000 wounded, ALIVE DAY MEMORIES
looks at a new generation of veterans. For the first time in American
history, 90% of the wounded survive their injuries, but a greater
percentage of these men and women are returning with amputations, traumatic
brain injuries and severe post-traumatic stress. More than half these
injuries are too severe to permit a return to active military service.
Gandolfini, who has visited the troops in Iraq on behalf of the USO,
serves as executive producer. In ALIVE DAY MEMORIES he interviews 10
soldiers who reveal their feelings on their future, their severe
disabilities and their devotion to America. Their first-person stories are
augmented by harrowing footage from the war-torn streets of Iraq, and from
embedded cameras in the vehicles of the soldiers, which was shot when they
were injured, as well as disturbing video of IED (Improvised Explosive
Device) bombings released by insurgents, and soldiers' personal home videos
and photographs.
The soldiers who speak with Gandolfini on a sparse New York soundstage
range in age from 21 to 41; six are from the Army and four are Marines.
Their injuries range from triple amputees to severe traumatic brain injury
to blindness.
"Everybody makes a big deal about your 'alive day,' especially at
Walter Reed," comments Sgt. Bryan Anderson. "And I can see their point that
you'd want to celebrate something like that. But from my point of view,
it's like, 'OK, we're sitting here celebrating the worst day of my life.
Great, let's just remind me of that every year'."
First Lt. Dawn Halfaker says, "I think people come away from the war
wanting to feel that they made a difference, wanting to feel like their
sacrifice, or their time, or their energy was worth it. War is horrible. I
don't like the sounds associated with it, the smells I associate with it.
But I'm glad I did it."
"The fight doesn't stop when you get home. In our cases, it's just
begun," says Corporal Jake Schick.
Interviewees include:
* Cpl. Michael Jernigan, 28, U.S. Marine Corps, Weapons Platoon, Easy Co.
Alive Day: Aug. 22, 2004.
* Sgt. Bryan Anderson, 25, U.S. Army, 411th Military Police Co. Alive
Day: Oct. 23, 2005.
* Sgt. Eddie Ryan, 22, Marine Sniper Team-Reaper 6. Alive Day: April 13,
2005.
* Spc. Crystal Davis, 23, U.S. Army, 54th Engineers, Bravo Co. Alive Day:
Jan. 21, 2006.
* First Lt. Dawn Halfaker, 27, U.S. Army, 293rd Military Police. Alive
Day: June 19, 2004.
* Pvt. Dexter Pitts, 22, U.S. Army, 10th Mountain, Alpha Co. Alive Day:
Jan. 2, 2005.
* Cpl. Jonathan Bartlett, 21, U.S. Army, Infantry Regiment Air Assault,
Delta Company. Alive Day: Sept. 25, 2004.
* Staff Sgt. Jay Wilkerson, 41, U.S. Army, Multinational Security Command.
Alive Day: March 28, 2006.
* Cpl. Jacob Schick, 24, U.S. Marine Corps, 1/23rd Marines, Bravo Co.
Alive Day: Sept. 20, 2004.
* Staff Sgt. John Jones, 29, U.S. Marine Corps, 1/7th Marines, Charlie
Company. Alive Day: Jan. 3, 2005.
Michael Jernigan is a retired U.S. Marine who was wounded in a road
side bombing in Iraq in August 2004. He is a St. Petersburg native and a
1997 graduate of St. Pete High School. Michael's recovery process was long
and full of many challenges; taking 16 months for him to finally leave the
Marine Corps and move back home. He is currently attending college in
northern Virginia and hopes to graduate in a few years.
ALIVE DAY MEMORIES: HOME FROM IRAQ is a multi-platform event. The
documentary will be available on HBO On Demand from Sept. 10 through Oct.
8, and will be streamed on hbo.com beginning Sept. 10. In addition to
streaming the entire film, hbo.com will feature extensive soldier profiles,
including personal videos and blogs, as well as exclusive portraits by
acclaimed photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. HBO Video releases the
film on DVD Oct. 23.
ALIVE DAY MEMORIES: HOME FROM IRAQ marks HBO Documentary Films' third
production focusing on the war in Iraq, following the Emmy(R) and Peabody
winner "Baghdad ER" and "Last Letters Home: Voices of American Troops from
the Battlefields of Iraq."
For Attaboy Films: executive producer, James Gandolfini; co-executive
producer, Alexandra Ryan; associate producer, Trixie Flynn. For HBO
Documentary Films: executive producer, Sheila Nevins; supervising producer,
Sara Bernstein; directed by Jon Alpert and Ellen Goosenberg; produced by
Ellen Goosenberg; produced and photographed by Jon Alpert and Matthew
O'Neill (whose previous credits include "Baghdad ER"); edited by Paula
Heredia.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

HBO documentary features wounded Marines
Staff report
Posted : Friday Aug 31, 2007 16:38:47 EDT

Four Marines are featured in HBO’s newest Iraq war documentary, which features interviews with veterans about their “alive day,” the day they escaped death on the battlefield.

“The Sopranos” star James Gandolfini headlines the hour-long documentary, “Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq,” exploring what life is like for veterans who returned from Iraq with amputations, traumatic brain injuries and severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

“The fight doesn’t stop when you get home,” said Cpl. Jacob Schick, with 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines, one of four Marines featured. “In our cases, it’s just begun.”

The documentary debuts at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time Sept. 9. HBO will re-air it several times throughout September; check local listings.

The documentary will also be streamed on hbo.com starting Sept. 10.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

'Alive Day' memories never die
Wounded troops share meaning of new life with Gandolfini
By JOANNE WEINTRAUB
Journal Sentinel TV critic
Posted: Sept. 3, 2007

Barely three months after Tony Soprano either was or was not gunned down in that New Jersey restaurant, any show prominently featuring James Gandolfini will draw a crowd - even an hour of frank interviews with American soldiers and Marines wounded in Iraq, something that might otherwise be easy to ignore on a summery Sunday night.

That was HBO executive Sheila Nevins' eminently practical thought about a project she feared might be a tough sell.

Following on the success of "Baghdad ER," the premium cable channel's Emmy-winning documentary about a U.S. field hospital, "we thought it was time to talk about what happens when (wounded troops) come back, but in our hearts we knew this was not an easy thing to watch," Nevins said this summer at a TV critics' gathering in Los Angeles.

Thanks to medical advances, 90% of Americans wounded in Iraq survive their injuries, Nevins said.

At the same time, this means an unprecedented number of men and women coming home with amputations, brain injuries and serious stress disorders.

Nevins, whose HBO and Cinemax documentary units have earned a long shelf full of awards, happened on a solution to her problem when she learned that Gandolfini had been to Iraq a couple of years ago to talk with the troops.

Nevins invited him to watch "Baghdad ER" and to spend the day, in the company of an HBO crew, talking to wounded soldiers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Not so much star-struck as struck by the power of stardom, Nevins said, "I knew that I had a way, possibly, to make people watch these young men and women who were coming home."

The result is "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq," produced by and starring a man better known for dodging fake bullets than probing the results of real ones.

What made the actor decide to take on the unusual role?

Two years ago, Gandolfini explained at the L.A. session, "I went to Iraq because I was playing this tough guy on TV, and I guess I wanted to go meet a few real ones. I was angry about the lack of attention being paid (to the troops), and I wanted to do something."

More recently, at Nevins' urging, he agreed to immerse himself in the world of badly injured soldiers, "to try to find out what was going on and get it out there a little bit, because I don't think you see this a lot, and that infuriates me."

"I read their stories, and I sat down and asked them questions. (Director) Jon (Alpert) and (producer) Matt (O'Neill) helped me, guided me sometimes, (because) this isn't something I do for a living."
Permission withdrawn

The original plan was to film at Walter Reed, with Gandolfini talking to patients, families and doctors from the morning roll call to the last surgery of the day and beyond.

But less than three weeks before shooting was to start, military officials abruptly withdrew permission.

Just one week later, in February, the first of several Washington Post articles about serious problems and alleged neglect at Walter Reed broke.

Quickly, Nevins and directors Alpert and Ellen Goosenberg had to come up with a Plan B.

"We had Jim," she recalled. "We had his heart involved in this project. We had several soldiers and Marines that we had gotten involved with, and we wanted to continue to do this show.

"So we invited them to an off-Broadway theater in New York, where we did the interviews you will see in 'Alive Day.' "
Willing to listen

The program takes its title from the term used by those who survive roadside bombs and other potentially deadly hazards in Iraq.

The day they were hurt is also the day they narrowly escaped death - remembered yearly as a kind of second birthday, or "alive day."

Unlike his "Sopranos" character, Gandolfini is no killer.

But physically bear-like and famously not given to chitchat, he can seem nearly as formidable as Tony.

U.S. Army Cpl. Jonathan Barlett, who lost both legs when his truck hit a roadside bomb, remembered his first meeting with the actor.

"When I wear my legs, I'm about 6 feet tall," said Bartlett, 21, one of five Army troops who attended the L.A. session and who appear in the film. "(But) he's a big man, and that's kind of intimidating.

"So I walk in there, and I've got my cane and everything, and I walk up, shake hands, sit down. I think he and I verbally dueled for about an hour. We didn't really talk about anything. We were just, like, fencing, which was a lot of fun.

"And then we got into all the things you get into. And I've discovered, since I got injured, it's much, much easier to articulate to someone who is willing to listen and hear you and understand.

"There's a lot of people, when you try to talk about this stuff - it's not something they want to hear about. We're talking about the way I (almost) died, talking about the way my legs were torn off, talking about the way I almost lost my eye, talking about the way my dreams were shattered. That's hard to articulate.

"(But) we sat, we got comfortable, and we just let it all out. And that's very, very nice."

Sgt. Bryan Anderson, 25, whose Army service also cost him both legs, said that, for all the cameras and microphones, his interview with Gandolfini was "really a conversation, you know, like a (bull) session. I mean, it was fun."

Gandolfini "made me feel like I (could) say anything and everything I wanted to say, and I had no boundaries," said Staff Sgt. Jay Wilkerson, 41, who suffered a brain injury. "So I opened my mouth and spoke, and it was exactly what happened, word for word.

"And that's what I was never able to do in Iraq. I was always told not to do that."

All the soldiers, and the five others who appear in the film, say they've struggled with expressing their feelings about their ordeal, which include varying degrees of sorrow, anger, frustration and gratitude for being alive.

Some people, they've found, aren't especially willing to listen.

Combat left Pvt. Dexter Pitts with physical injuries, but none was as grievous as the post-traumatic stress disorder that haunts him, he said.

"The big thing with this war now is the PTSD that soldiers are coming back with," said Pitts, 22. "It's been kind of hidden, (but) it's out there. And I'm proud to be a voice for a lot of people who are afraid to stand up and say what happened. Because some injuries go away, but memories are forever."
'Tough guy' remembers

Like several of the soldiers, Pitts grew up in a military family.

He has memories of watching "Black Hawk Down" and thinking the troops on the screen "were like superheroes, almost."

He recalled: "I was going through training, knocking down targets left and right. And my sergeant told me, 'You're a tough guy now, but do you know what? How would you act with somebody shooting back at you?' "

In Iraq, Pitts would think back on that sergeant.

"War is 90 percent sitting around, and not much happens. It's that 10 percent of the time that something does happen that you will never forget. It makes you curl up like a ball sometimes."

What helps them to uncurl and face life?

For Capt. Dawn Halfaker, 27, who survived 12 days in a coma and lost an arm to a rocket-propelled grenade, it's the members of the platoon she led in combat.

"My 'alive day' (anniversary) just passed, and the most e-mails and text messages were from people that I served with, mainly my platoon.

"They're people that don't forget. They don't forget what you all went through together. They don't forget that day. They don't forget seeing you lifeless on the ground and doing everything they can to stop the bleeding.

"I think that's what's going to carry me through for a long time, is them."

E-mail Joanne Weintraub at jweintraub@journalsentinel.com.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Gandolfini's 'Alive' honors war wounded

By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY
Just days before HBO film crews were to descend on Walter Reed Army Medical Center to record the plight of the Iraq war's wounded soldiers, the Pentagon nixed the plan — fearful of publicity about to surface over lax outpatient care.

HBO's longtime documentary chief, Sheila Nevins, had lined up Sopranos star James Gandolfini and 24-7 access on the heels of 2005's Emmy-winning Baghdad ER. A dozen filmmakers were stationed throughout the hospital.

Nevins and Gandolfini were forced to Plan B. The result: Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq (Sunday, 10:30 ET/PT), a stark, intimate look at the physical and emotional toll for many of the military's more than 25,000 war wounded.

Alive Day— the phrase is an homage to the date the wounded survive death — was set on an off-Broadway theater stage, where Gandolfini interviewed 10 Army soldiers and Marines with injuries ranging from brain damage to triple amputations. Filmed by Baghdad ER co-directors Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill, Alive Day is interspersed with home videos, pre-injury tapes in Iraq and harrowing insurgent tapes of roadside bombings.

Army Sgt. Bryan Anderson, who lost most of two legs and his left hand to an explosion in October 2005, is seen earlier as a spunky high school gymnast. Now, Anderson tells Gandolfini, he's grateful he can still use a fork.

Gandolfini, whose Tony Soprano was TV's quintessential tough guy, says he was more disturbed by the emotional toll on the wounded than by their catastrophic injuries. At times, he was moved to tears.

"All of them in their own way get to you," says Gandolfini, who conducted the interviews while wrapping the Sopranos finale. "But I was proud at how dignified, strong and smart they came across."

The press-shy actor has repeatedly deflected the media spotlight from himself to war veterans, such as Marine Cpl. Jacob Schick, who has had 46 operations. "I'm trying very hard not to make this political or about me. It's about what they need and what they're going through," Gandolfini says.

Gandolfini hoped his fame would attract viewers as well as help Alive Day's wounded open up. "These guys watch The Sopranos. They feel that they know you. That helped talking to them," he says.

Retired Capt. Dawn Halfaker, a former high school and West Point basketball star whose right arm and shoulder were amputated after a rocket-propelled-grenade attack in June 2004, momentarily breaks down in the documentary as she tells Gandolfini her fears over potential motherhood and whether she'll be able to pick up her child — which she hadn't expressed in previous media interviews.

"I was able to reflect and open up about realities I don't want to face," says Halfaker, now head of a defense consultancy and a Georgetown University graduate student.

Gandolfini visited troops in Iraq on a USO tour in 2004. He brought unexpected sensitivity to the documentary, Nevins says. "When we first met him at Walter Reed and saw him going from room to room, he insisted on no cameras and anonymity," she says. "I knew there was a connection with the warriors. Celebrities tend to ruin documentaries. (For Alive Day), he was a good interviewer. He made them comfortable and at ease."

Alive Day is HBO's third Iraq war documentary, after Baghdad ER and Last Letters Home: Voices of American Troops From the Battlefields of Iraq. It won't be its last.

"More of these severely wounded are coming home," Nevins says. "It's sort of a sad sweetness. They survive. But what kind of future do you have at 21 when your legs have been blown off and your dreams are deflated?"

Ellie

[thedrifter]

The Price of War, Front and Center
By BILL CARTER
The New York Times
Sept. 5, 2007

In the HBO documentary "Alive Day Memories" Dawn Halfaker, 27, a former Army first lieutenant, is sitting in a chair on a stark stage, talking, somewhat incongruously, to James Gandolfini, the star of "The Sopranos."

Mr. Gandolfini serves as the interviewer in the film, set to have its premiere Sunday night at 10:30. It deals with the recovery of American veterans from devastating injuries inflicted during the war in Iraq.

Ms. Halfaker, whose right arm and shoulder are gone, blasted away by a rocket-propelled grenade, says she has wondered whether her child, if she ever has one, will be able truly to love her. And then a look of intense emotion clouds her face. Ms. Halfaker's eyes flutter, seemingly looking at some image far, far away. Finally, after a long pause, Mr. Gandolfini asks quietly, "What were you just thinking about?"

And Ms. Halfaker tells him: "The reality of, will I be able to raise a kid? I won't be able to pick up my son or daughter with two arms."

Mr. Gandolfini manages to maintain his composure through that and nine other interviews with disabled veterans. As he put it in a telephone interview: "What the heck do I know? I never had the experiences these kids had. How much do they even want to remember?"

For the most part the ex-soldiers in the film - the title refers to the day they sustained, and survived, their injuries - are willing to share memories of what happened to them and to talk about their lives. Three of them - Ms. Halfaker; Jacob Schick, 24, an ex-corporal in the Marines; and John Jones, 29, a former Marine staff sergeant - said in telephone interviews that they had concluded the documentary would provide a valuable service. "I just thought it was important to get my story out," said Mr. Schick, whose leg was amputated above the knee. "I want the American people to see this is what it's like."

Ms. Halfaker said: "When I first got injured, I wouldn't talk as much. I didn't want to acknowledge the reality of it. But then I saw the value of bringing some awareness of the things that are going on in Iraq. I think it was a little bit therapeutic."

On the face of it Mr. Gandolfini makes for an unlikely questioner, as he acknowledged. But his fame, and the familiarity of his character, Tony Soprano, put the soldiers at ease. Mr. Gandolfini was "really respectful with us," Mr. Schick said. "He didn't want the cameras on him."

Mr. Gandolfini is barely seen in the film and only occasionally heard. He insisted on that, Sheila Nevins, the president of HBO's documentary division, said. "He played a tough guy on TV, but Jim knows these are the real tough guys," she said.

The film sprang from a visit Ms. Nevins and Mr. Gandolfini made to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. "He wandered the halls," Ms. Nevins said. "Everyone knew him. They'd show him their Purple Hearts. I could see him internalizing the whole experience."

At the time HBO was coming up to the premiere of the documentary "Baghdad E.R.," which chronicled the extraordinary efforts of military medical personnel and the lives they were saving. The film was at first widely praised in the military. But just before a screening in Washington the Pentagon refused to allow military personnel to appear at the HBO event. Ms. Nevins said she concluded that the Pentagon had decided it was an antiwar film.

She has no hesitation in declaring herself personally opposed to the war, but she argued that "Baghdad E.R." presented military doctors heroically. And in the visit to Walter Reed, Ms. Nevins saw a follow-up: a look at some of the lives those doctors saved.

She said all was set for production until military officials stepped in, two weeks before shooting was to start, and made Walter Reed off limits to the filmmakers. "There was no explanation why," Ms. Nevins said.

Of course she suspected similar fears of an antiwar message. And they were not entirely unwarranted. But Ms. Nevins said she was personally overwhelmed by what she saw and heard from the veterans. "I didn't really understand patriotism until we made this film," she said.

After losing access to Walter Reed, Ms. Nevins said, "I got to thinking about how we had the operating theater in the first film. And here we heard all about the theater of operations. And Jim was kind of an Off Broadway guy."

Ms. Nevins put all the theater references together and wound up renting a small downtown performance space in Manhattan, creating an understated theatrical look for the interviews: a stage, a minimal set of just a couple of chairs, a few lights.

Mr. Gandolfini "didn't pretend to be a journalist," Ms. Nevins said. "But in that moment where Dawn talks about not being able to hold a child, he just waited, like a good actor in a great scene."

The soldiers quickly found a comfort level with Mr. Gandolfini. Mr. Jones, who has two prosthetic legs and feet, had reason to be home with Mr. Gandolfini, for his lieutenant would project DVDs of "The Sopranos" on a bathroom wall when stationed in Iraq.

"We began to base ourselves off Tony Soprano and all his gang," he said. "We'd talk about the godfather" - his commanding officer - "and the lieutenant would tell us to go out and put a hit on a guy."

Mr. Gandolfini said he wanted to do something for the injured vets: "I think these guys are so ignored." Not that the experience has made him feel especially good about his contribution. "If somebody gets hurt, and you take them to the hospital, should you feel good about it?"

The film includes video shot by insurgents, of whom Mr. Gandolfini said: "You hear them saying prayers after they blow up a jeep. It makes you want to pick up a gun and kill somebody."

The soldiers themselves express a range of feelings, from anger to emotional distress. They all acknowledge living with constant pain, physical as well as psychological. One subject, Dexter Pitts, 22, a former Army private, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"It's day to day," Mr. Jones said. "You're emotional. You have mood swings. I'll get up in the morning, and it's O.K., and come home really ticked off. You fight depression." But he manages to get on ice skates with two prosthetic legs and skate around Bryant Park in Manhattan with his two young children.

Mr. Schick said: "I'm a Christian guy. I try to deal with it as best as I know how. Some days you think: Man, what could I have done differently? At the same time I believe there's a reason for this. God's not done with me yet."

One reason, he said, was to win this battle. "I've got the rest of my life to beat my enemy," Mr. Schick said. "Every day I just have to get out of my bed, and I beat him."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Searing Film on Soldiers Wounded in Iraq

By FRAZIER MOORE, AP Television Writer
Thursday, September 6, 2007
(09-06) 11:41 PDT New York (AP) --


Dawn Halfaker remembers the clear desert sky that day in June 2004. She remembers it was quiet. An Army first lieutenant, she'd been serving in Iraq four months.


What she also remembers is, a rocket-propelled grenade tore through her shoulder and exploded just behind her head. For more than a week she hovered near death. To help save her life, her right arm and shoulder were amputated.


In October 2005, Sgt. Bryan Anderson was at the wheel of his Humvee patrolling Baghdad when the bomb went off. As he tried to wipe blood and flies from his face, his injuries revealed themselves in awful succession: a lost fingertip on his right hand; then, his left hand not there; then, both legs gone.


Halfaker and Anderson are two of 10 soldiers and Marines showcased in an HBO documentary, "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq," premiering Sunday at 10:30 p.m. EDT. (It will also be available on HBO on Demand, and streamed on HBO.com).


In soldier-slang, the term "alive day" refers to a special kind of rebirth, a day experienced by cheating death. A few such survivors tell their stories in the film. They tell about what went before, as well as the personal battles they've been waging since.


At the heart of the film are one-on-one conversations with James Gandolfini, who, as an executive producer of "Alive Day Memories," sees his documentary as a way to put a human face on the cost of this war.


"I've been surprised, because I'm a cynical person, by the honor and loyalty and discipline that these kids have," said Gandolfini, who visited troops in Iraq in late 2004 on behalf of the USO. "The positives of these kids aren't put out there enough.


"I say `kids.' I'm an old man," chuckled the "Sopranos" star, who turns 46 later this month. "I mean: `young adults.'"


He was joining Halfaker age 28 and Anderson (26) to talk with a reporter a few days ago. But mostly Gandolfini listened. With this-isn't-about-me reticence, he deflected most questions to the people beside him.


"To be completely honest with you, I just thought it would be cool," Anderson replied when asked why he took part in the film (and it has been cool, he grinned). "But now, I want people to be educated about what the film is saying."


He recalled filming his interview with Gandolfini last December on a sound stage in Manhattan.


"I was still in the hospital when I did that," said Anderson, who spent 13 months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and had 40 operations. "Now, I don't go to hospitals and do therapy. I'm just living life now."


He walks on two prosthetic legs and has a lifelike, mechanical prosthetic hand that was cast from his brother's left hand, he explained — down to his brother's fingerprints molded into the synthetic skin.


"You could get him on a few things," Gandolfini joked.


Originally, "Alive Day Memories" was going to be filmed inside the walls of Walter Reed, with Gandolfini talking to soldiers being treated there. Then, shortly before filming was scheduled to begin, military brass yanked their permission. Months later, a likely reason came to light with shocking reports of substandard care at the Washington, D.C., facility.


But the film, even in its rejiggered format, does what it first aimed to do, said Halfaker: "It gives a snapshot of a number of people at different points in our recovery."


Those people — six from the Army and four Marines — range in age from 21 to 41 years, each with plenty to recover from.


Staff Sgt. Jay Wilkerson suffered severe traumatic brain injury, and memory loss. (He can never remember his own kids' names: "I feel stupid.")


Besides his serious physical injuries, Pvt. Dexter Pitts was struck with post-traumatic stress syndrome. (He means to overcome it: "I don't want to be Crazy Uncle Dex that fought in the war, ain't got his mind right.")


Marine Lance Cpl. Michael Jernigan lost both his eyes. (He also subsequently lost his marriage, then had the diamonds removed from his wedding band and set in one of his prosthetic eyes' pupil.)


Produced and photographed by Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill (who made the Peabody Award-winning "Baghdad ER"), "Alive Day Memories" strips away the purpose, or folly, of war for an hour of unobscured attention to something else: the personal repercussions.


Like Anderson, Halfaker insisted she has no regrets about her service in Iraq. Instead, her regret settles on the public's seeming disregard for what's at stake in war, and what the soldiers who fight it really face.


"People aren't paying attention, and that is frustrating," she said. "Do you want to think, `Oh, yeah, the glory of war will eventually come around, and we'll be heroes in the American people's eyes because we'll have saved a country'? For me, it's a moot issue. No matter what, I'm not getting my arm back. And I'm not getting my friends back who I saw die over there, and are still dying.


"I think we all look at it like, this is our job and we went over and did it."


And now? "I think all we can do is look forward and be optimistic, and try to bring awareness to what's going on."


The "alive day" memories of Halfaker and her fellow vets deserve everyone's attention.

On the Net:

EDITOR'S NOTE — Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org

www.hbo.com

Ellie

[thedrifter]

A Made Man, Making a Difference

By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Friday, September 7, 2007; C03


Who knew TV's toughest guy was such a teddy bear? James Gandolfini, forever the embodiment of Tony Soprano, spent Wednesday night happily mobbed by soldiers and Marines at the Ronald Reagan building. The reason? His new documentary about Iraq war veterans, his first project of the post-"Sopranos" epoch.

Gandolfini is executive producer of "Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq," debuting Sunday on HBO. The actor visited Iraq in 2004 and wanted to highlight the real costs of the conflict: "I realized most people didn't have to give up anything for the war." In the hour-long show, he interviews 10 severely injured soldiers about their service, their wounds and their futures. "It was a very minimalist approach," said Dawn Halfaker, who lost an arm and shoulder in 2004. "It was just like sitting down and having a chat."

Before Wednesday's premiere, Gandolfini was in an expansive mood, posing for photos with soldiers, their friends and family, chatting with reporters and tossing a few $20 bills at the bartender who poured him a glass of wine. He got a standing ovation from the crowd, which included Gen. George Casey, top U.S. commander in Iraq from 2004 until this year; VA Secretary Jim Nicholson; and Paul Wolfowitz, one of the administration's leading proponents of the invasion.

The mood was much more sober after the screening. "Fantastic," said Wolfowitz. "Very realistic, unfortunately."

Most of the official types left, but Gandolfini hung out and posed for more snapshots. So yes, we had to ask: Is Tony dead or alive? "Oh, who cares?" Gandolfini said with a dismissive grin.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq

Posted September 7, 2007 | 07:54 PM (EST)

[img noborder]http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2007-09-08-JohnJones1.jpg[/img]

Portrait of Marine Staff Stg. John Jones by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Last fall, HBO's Sheila Nevins invited me to photograph injured soldiers and marines for a documentary based on "24 hours in the life of Walter Reed hospital". A few weeks before our scheduled shoot day, the folks at Walter Reed changed their minds and cancelled the project.

To salvage the film, HBO decided to bring injured soldiers to New York, where James Gandolfini, executive producer of the project, would interview them.

"HBO's Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq" is the result. It premieres this Sunday, September 9th on HBO. It's a remarkable film. I would urge you to make time for it.

Timothy's website link

www.greenfield-sanders.com/news/

Another link to my portraits for Alive Day Memories

homepage.mac.com/timothygs/PhotoAlbum119.html

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Former local Marine in HBO special
Jacob Schick was wounded in late 2004 in Iraq combat

The Times
September 9, 2007

By John Andrew Prime
jprime@gannett.com



Cpl. Jacob Schick (center) a member of the 1/23rd Marines salutes after being presented a medal. Schick will be featured today in an HBO special. (Jim Hudelson/File/The Times)

A former Shreveporter wounded in Iraq will be featured today in an HBO special hosted and produced by actor James Gandolfini.

Jacob "Jake" Schick, 24, was the most seriously wounded member of Bossier City-based Bravo Co, 1/23rd Marines, a Reserve unit that deployed in 2004 and returned to the area at the end of March 2005.


Schick, then a lance corporal, had his right leg blown off below the knee when he was wounded in an attack Sept. 20, 2004. The bones in his left leg and foot were broken, and a large chuck of his left hand and arm were blown away.

"Although this is the hard, day-to-day reality of my personal situation, I would not hesitate to go back and fight for our great nation tomorrow," Schick says in his page on the HBO Web site. "I say this because every Marine and soldier I know would do the same for me, my family and you and yours. I look at myself as one of the 'Blessed ones' because although coming home almost completely broken, I came home. I am alive. I won."

Though the Web site gives Schick's home town as Gretna, that's just where he lives now. He grew up in both Shreveport and the Dallas area.

Soon he will move back to Dallas so his wife, Laura, a surgeon, can be a resident at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, says Schick's mom, former Shreveport theater figure Debby Schick.

Debby Schick, who traveled to New York to be videotaped for the special along with her son, said Gandolfini, best known perhaps for his work as Tony Soprano on "The Sopranos," has done a great job with the special, even though her part in it was edited out. The special looks at the effects the war on terror has had on the lives of 10 wounded military personnel.

"Jimmy has really taken the politics out of it," she said in call to The Times on Friday. "He was tremendous. He was wonderful."

Jacob Schick has become more active in veterans rights matters, serving on the board of the nonprofit American War Heroes Foundation. His mom, who lives in Flower Mound, Texas, says she plans to become more active with him in these matters, particularly in efforts to address issues with the level of medical care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"We're starting a political action committee to reform the VA system," she said.

If you watch
WHAT: "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq."
WHERE: HBO.
WHEN: today, 9:30 p.m. CDT.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

TELEVISION
An excellent look at the lives of injured Iraq war veterans

Hal Boedeker

Sentinel Television Critic

September 9, 2007


Personal rather than political, a remarkable new HBO documentary reminds you of war's shattering costs. Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq derives its power from the frankness of injured veterans.

The hour documentary, premiering at 10:30 tonight, is simply made and frills-free. Sopranos star James Gandolfini serves as executive producer and conducts the interviews. He takes an admirably low-key role, keeping the focus on the 10 veterans.

"The fight doesn't stop when you get home," says Cpl. Jacob Schick of the Marines. "In our cases, it's just begun."

He has been through 46 surgeries and 16 months in the hospital. But he also has a devoted wife.

Alive Day Memories provides home movies and photos of the men and women as they were. Insurgent videos display the devastation wrought by improvised explosive devices. Then the veterans discuss their alive days (when they escaped death in Iraq), display their wounds or talk about their futures.

First Lt. Dawn Halfaker of the Army lost her right arm and shoulder, but refuses to wear prosthetics. She wonders what kind of parent she will be.

Staff Sgt. John Jones of the Marines lost both legs, but treasures life with his family. "God has given me a second chance," he says.

Sgt. Bryan Anderson of the Army lost both legs and an arm, but is grateful to have one hand that gives him independence. Still, he questions the emphasis on an "alive day," which he describes as "the worst day of my life."

The mother of Sgt. Eddie Ryan of the Marines speaks lovingly for him. Two head wounds affect two-thirds of his brain, but he is proud of his scars.

Alive Day Memories treats them all with empathy, not pity. Gandolfini realizes it is a privilege to be in their company. You will, too. This is television at its best.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Posted on Sat, Sep. 15, 2007
Troops must be admired for bravery
The Myrtle Beach Sun News

I've never been a big supporter of the Iraq war, but the hour I spent watching HBO's "Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq" was nothing short of inspiring.

The documentary, co-produced by James Gandolfini of "The Sopranos," featured heart-wrenching interviews with 10 young Marines and soldiers - 10 among the more than 30,000 Americans dead or wounded during five years of warfare.

When you talk about the heroes of this war, you won't find many sitting in Washington.

The heroes are the young men and women who are sacrificing their lives and limbs to make Iraq safe while the rest of us go about our business.

For many Americans - more than 60 percent according to polls - that effort seems hopelessly lost in a bloody civil war that few of us understand.

But these young men and women have no choice. As one active soldier said the other day when asked about the dangers she faces in Iraq: "It's our job. We follow orders."

The special noted Iraq has produced more amputees than any war since the Civil War. Because of medical advances, some 90 percent of those wounded in Iraq survive to celebrate their "Alive Day," the day they narrowly escaped death.

What struck me as I watched dismembered Marines and soldiers was their apparent lack of bitterness over the heavy price they have paid.

Who could not be moved by the simple words of Staff Sgt. John Jones, a 28-year-old Marine who lost both legs: "God has given me a second chance."

Jones feels lucky. He has two steel legs, a loving wife and a pair of kids who adore him.

Bryan Anderson, a 25-year-old Army sergeant, lost his left arm and both legs when an IED blew up the Humvee he was driving.

Today, the onetime gymnast wears a T-shirt with the words "Stumpy" and absolutely refuses to feel sorry for himself. After all, he's still got his right arm.

"I can still pick up a fork and feed myself and clean myself, take a shower," he said.

And then there's Crystal Davis, a 23-year-old Army specialist from Camden. She lost one leg; the other is horribly deformed.

Despite her injuries, Davis says she "can't wait to go back ... I want to finish what I started."

Whatever your feelings about the war, you have to admire the unabashed optimism and resilience of these young men and women. They make our troubles seem picayune by comparison.

God bless them all.

At a glance
View the movie at www.hbo.com

/aliveday

Contact BOB BESTLER at 222-78590 or bestler6@tds.net.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

September 27, 2007
Soldiers’ Portraits Make the Costs of War More Visible
By PETER APPLEBOME

PUTNAM VALLEY, N.Y.

On a windless fall day that feels like summer, the boats still as statues outside Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s window on Lake Oscawana, Iraq seems a million miles away. But then, unless it’s your kid or your spouse, unless you’re directly involved with training soldiers to go to war or patching up the ones who come home with broken pieces, where isn’t that true?

And that seems precisely the point of the black portfolio case with its 13 16-by-20-inch photos sitting on Mr. Greenfield-Sanders’s living-room table in this Putnam County town just over the line from Westchester.

There’s Dawn Halfaker, a West Point graduate, holding the prosthesis for her missing right arm like a part of herself that’s become temporarily disconnected.

There’s Mike Jernigan, one eye socket empty, the other with a plastic eye studded with diamonds from the wedding ring his wife returned to him when they divorced after his return from Iraq. There’s John Jones, all business in his Marine uniform above the waist, two robotic legs naked below.

The subjects in the photos were featured in the HBO film “Alive Day Memories,” the widely praised documentary that tells the stories of 10 grievously wounded Iraq veterans.

Mr. Greenfield-Sanders, a well-known portrait photographer, was brought in to do portraits of the soldiers in the film, six from the Army, four from the Marines, who range in age from 21 to 41 and whose injuries include devastating brain damage, triple amputation and blindness. (Three others who were photographed did not end up in the hourlong documentary.)

And it would appear that after 30 years of capturing people’s personalities in his antique eight-by-ten camera, he’s still trying to come to grips with the process of producing images that have helped give a visual identity to a war that, it seems, is everywhere, but somehow invisible.

For Mr. Greenfield-Sanders, best known for portraits of artists and other celebrities, the task was in some ways an alien one. “In most portraits you take, you’re trying to highlight someone’s best qualities, the best angle of their face, their beautiful hair,” he said. “Here you’re trying to, in a sense, highlight their frailty, their injury. It’s an awkward thing to do, to show the world someone missing their arm or three limbs.”

Still, that said, he chose black backgrounds over white ones, to focus on the person, not the injury. He found his subjects every bit as forthcoming — every bit as comfortable with their moment in the sun — as rock stars or movie actors. And if portrait photography is something of a mutual seduction, he found the process intimate in a familiar way.

It took a second session for him to feel comfortable enough to get Ms. Halfaker to pose holding her fake arm in what turned out to be his favorite photo in the group. He was amazed by the resilience of his subjects — the way Bryan Anderson, a triple amputee and former gymnast, still used his gymnast’s skills to hop from his wheelchair to the stool where he was photographed; the breezy, cocky, almost beat-poet way that Jon Bartlett spoke.

The hardest by far was the one of Mr. Jernigan. “So much of what I do is about people’s eyes, the concentration in their eyes as they look at the camera,” he said. “And here’s a guy whose eye is diamond and plastic.”

Mr. Greenfield-Sanders’ photographs have quickly become part of the visual landscape of the war — used in HBO advertising, in huge prints at the Donnell Library across from the Museum of Modern Art, scheduled to be shown in November at the Tisch School of the Arts and at exhibitions in Stockholm, Miami and elsewhere.

The film, which features the actor James Gandolfini, who was also its executive producer, is resolutely apolitical, its focus on the stories of the soldiers, not on the war they fought. The soldiers themselves, more often than not, don’t express regrets, say they would do it again. But Mr. Greenfield-Sanders, who says he opposed the war before it began, said that at the very least, the show and the portraits play an important role in bringing the invisible into the light, showing the faces, the scars, the missing limbs, the diamond and plastic eye, making the costs — or some of them — seem less than a million miles away

“I think we need to see this,” he said. “We don’t see the dead coming back in coffins. We’re sheltered from the injured. We just don’t see it. It’s all been brilliantly hidden from view. So this documentary is very important in letting us see these people, let us know who they are, and make us ask if this war is worth it.”

E-mail: peappl@nytimes.com

Ellie