I have of course seen many documentaries that take a stand against the war, and with me they are preaching to the choir. I love learning something new about the war that I didn't know. The back channels that were going on as the country geared up for war, the weak in numbers opposition that fought like dogs in the Senate and Congress to stop the march. This film is different from those, it gives a face, voice and sadly broken body to the vets of the Iraq war.
Tomas Young was shot in Iraq five days into his tour. He was shot below his left collar bone, and as it went through his body it severed his spine. He dropped his M16, and as he reached for it his body went numb, he realized his fingers wouldn't work to pick up his weapon. When he regained consciousness a week later he was in the hospital, and without use of his body below his chest.
The film follows him through his day to day life, his wedding, and the anti-war rallies that he attends. He is visibly bitter, and with good reason, he is injured very badly, is that why he is against the war though? In an interview on 60 minutes with Mike Wallace he's asked that, a fair question although maybe in poor taste. Tomas responds with "Yes, I would still be against the war even if this didn't happen to me, I had friends die over there, my brother is over there now"
When he is at the anti-war rallies there are people yelling that all the protesters are anti-American, there is a shot where he is yelling back, and the other person doesn't seem to care or notice that Tomas has been injured in the line of duty, and that yelling at him for being against the war is a truly shitty thing to do.
He shows all the medication he has to take everyday just to keep him going, just because he is in a wheelchair doesn't mean that that's where it ends. He has pain meds, blood thinners, antidepressants and so on. He was lucky enough to regain use of his hands, but and this is something that is important to most people, he cant easily have sex anymore. That lost intimacy coupled with the fact that he needs to be taken care of to an extent that borders on mother/son dependency at times puts an incredible strain on his marriage. There were a few times in the documentary I felt like I was seeing to much, and it was all the stuff having to do with him and his wife and their marital problems.
Seeing the real life effects of what war means is difficult to watch. A number of dead or wounded, or seeing a picture is easy to ignore, but when you have someone in living color in front of you its a different thing. He is an extremely tough individual, but then at the same time has his break downs. He is embarrassed and apologetic about the fact that he can no longer maintain his body temperature automatically. Whenever he has to put his head down from being dizzy from getting to warm he apologizes profusely.
The ones who should be apologizing are those at the top. Those who gave Bush carte blanche to do whatever he felt like with the war, and that's what happened. The Legislative branch gave Bush the use of the armed forces for as long as he deemed necessary and where ever he deemed necessary. That reminds me of something similar, Ceasar, who refused to give up power. And the other is Hitler becoming chancellor after they burned down the Reichstag. Hitler wouldn't ever give up the power they gave him. Now don't get me wrong, Bush was not Hitler, but when you give someone unlimited power over that kind of force you have given away far to much.
More and more people like Tomas are being injured and killed everyday to bring democracy to a country that never attacked us, and didn't want us there, and still don't. I'm not for people anywhere to suffer, but war was not the answer to bring peace there. Our governments contempt for the U.N. is so angering, the U.N. exists for a reason.
The doc. was very good, but difficult to swallow at times. Tomas uses his injury to push his causes along and I say that's his right to do, so much was taken from him. He came home to be lambasted for being against the war. 8/10stars.
Director: Phil Donahue, Ellen Spiro
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