[HCCN] Film about Iraq Veterans, Blue Hill 5/28

[Judith Robbins]

"I was blessed that he was home and not in a body bag or coffin, but  
a part of him died over there… and I know he'll never be the same  
person."
Nickie Huze, wife of Corporal Sean Huze, US Marine Corps



BLUE HILL --  On Memorial Day Weekend, Peninsula Peace & Justice will  
show the film THE GROUND TRUTH: AFTER THE KILLING ENDS. The film  
takes an unflinching look at the training and dehumanization of US  
soldiers, and how they struggle to come to terms with it when they  
come back home.
Scenes include a recruiting day at Venice Beach in California, a  
Marine boot camp in 2002, just months prior to the Iraq Invasion,  
combat in Iraq, and interviews with returning soldiers and their  
families.
According to director Patricia Foulkrod “I wanted us to sit with the  
broken hearts and troubled minds of these young veterans, so we can  
take responsibility for their suffering, that is being experienced in  
our name.”

The film will be shown on Friday evening, May 28th, 7:00 p.m. at Blue  
Hill Library. Everyone is welcome. For more info 326-4405.

from the web site:
This film overrides familiar images of heroic soldiers in battle, and  
overjoyed returning faces, reunited with their families with one  
effortless stroke. Instead, we see a scenario that can include  
illness, amputation and injury, depression and post-traumatic stress  
disorders (PTSD), of which Iraq has become a fertile breeding ground.  
While America's poor treatment of veterans is not news to most, The  
Ground Truth makes it so personal and real, it is impossible to  
dismiss its characters simply as war statistics.

The film gives us glimpses into a Marine Corps boot camp that allows  
us to comprehend how a man or woman can kill as part of their job. We  
get hit with more understanding of our soldiers' dehumanization by  
seeing Iraq combat footage that shows routine indiscriminate killing.  
Their jobs over, the confusion, guilt and shame that comes home with  
these "killers" is the tip of the iceberg. Left with few resources  
and families that cannot understand what they have seen or done,  
their anguish only intensifies. Foulkrod's graphic footage and still- 
photographs of the ground conflict in Iraq, should forever shatter  
the sanitized images found on the nightly news and provide a much  
needed wake-up call for all of us.

"You don't go to war with a country, without going to war with its  
people."
Charles Anderson, Petty Officer, US Navy
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