Wartorn: 1861-2010

The strain of experiencing wartime atrocities with the nation's patriotic fervor for war was the most striking comparison this film made. Fittingly, our military was not made the culprit. James Gandolfini interviews every range of soldier, from vets and their families to the highest ranking officers. Military leaders throughout "Wartorn" admit that no one, unless they have no feeling at all, can be turned into a killing machine. Vets and their families talk about being trained to be murderers - and not trained to be civilians again. In the discussion after the documentary, panelists talked about the need to remove the stigma of emotional strain and needing mental help. Every one of our leaders in D.C. need to see this movie, but until they do, the armed forces and the V.A. themselves appear to be working harder to heal soldiers from within, to treat mental injuries as seriously as physical ones. There's a lot of work to do. The average vet suffering from post traumatic stress disorder waits 12 years before seeking help, during which time jobs are lost and marriages broken up. Often times the help needs to come to the vet. "Wartorn" is too short, but the discussion afterwards gives it a useful backdrop. It is a difficult and necessary twist to think of a regimented military and top-down society having the compassion it needs to keep as many soldiers as possible out of harms way and to completely treat the ones who make it back.

James Gandolfini, makes the most powerful "About War" film, this film is an amazing masterpiece, the stories about post-traumatic and mental illness patients, its so sad, shows you that America isn't the good guys, WE ARE THE BAD GUYS!. I always support the war because i was thinking that this was Heroic, after watching this, i can't stop crying because those stories gonna touch your heart. "Im not the same person when i left", the words of an WWII Veteran, do you think war OK? KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! they made you a MAD DOG! and America its a Big MAD MAD DOG!. "All this corpses still showing", James Gandolfini knows how to direct a documentary, the best documentary about War that i ever seen in my life, every scene its a Tear, Baghdad or Vietnam, ALL the SAME thing, they think a lot about War....but never about the soldiers. This is film is Totally recommended, its an amazing film, watch it and STOP supporting WAR.

Relentlessly grim, gut wrenching documentary on Veterans afflicted by PTSD, from the Civil War right through Iraq. A plea for more care to be given to soldiers' minds, with estimates in the film of numbers as high as 30% of all soldiers being affected by PTSD. Indeed one active army psychiatrist says he doesn't know how any man or woman could see much active battle and not be deeply scarred, unless they were dead inside to begin with. The individual stories are all tremendously affecting, all so different, and yet all the same at the core, from aging WWII veterans openly weeping looking back to their shattered post-war lives, to a Civil War soldier's series of letters charting his decent from wide-eyed optimism into suicidal despair, to an Iraq veteran's family trying to hold it together with their father not the same man who left for war. It's not an anti-military film. Indeed the film credits the modern army for at least admitting this is a real problem and trying to find better ways to help soldiers cope. But to paraphrase one mother in the film, until the army spends as much time and effort helping these men heal as it does turning them into killing machines, the destruction of souls will continue unabated. How interesting and powerful to see a film that's pro-military but anti-war. And really, is there any better way to be pro solider? To appreciate what they do by trying to protect them the best we can, and by avoiding war and putting them in harm's way unless it's absolutely and completely unavoidable? And to do all that we can to repay them with care and attention, and the funds and social will that takes.

Wartorn: 1861-2010