Monday, September 25, 2006

War Tapes

We saw War Tapes yesterday and it was moving, provoking and completely devastating all at once.
Three guys in the NH National Guard were given videocams to tape their time in Iraq. Now these guys were all, to some degree, invested in the US military or in Bush or in the U.S. They landed in Iraq with very little training and immediately are guarding supply trucks from Haliburton and being exposed to every form of unpredictable violence. They return broken men although still harboring some admiration for Bush or the military or America. It was hard to watch but not nearly as hard as to be there. None of the three will lead normal lives after this. Even the most sane, the most articulate, was destroyed by his time there. The few minutes of cheering that greeted their return to NH was not a just reward for one minute in Iraq. Their experience will be articulated by their physical and mental problems, which the government will try not to acknowledge.
God forgive us for ruining another generation of Americans.

1 comment:

Maria said...

I'm glad I didn't see this. I feel helpless to do anything to make any of it better.

What you say, in the end, about how the government will try to whitewash it, is the part that, for some reason, I find the most unforgiveable. Maybe because it's deliberate cruelty.

We take these people, and we do this to them, and then we pretend it didn't really happen. Agent Orange. Whatever. Own the truth.

I was raised catholic, and I broke from the church for largely the same reason. Preists as pederasts. People are falliable, I understand that, I don't blame the church, per se, but when they KNEW and they DENIED it and shuffled people around? That's unforgiveable.

As far as I'm concerned, when someone fights for this country and comes back fucked up, they should get a free ride, on the governments buck, for the rest of their lives. The whole situation is sickening.