Part VIII: "Thoughts on post-production"

Many people are wary of being manipulated by filmmakers with an ax to grind. On the other hand, what’s the point, if you have nothing to say? We’ve tried very hard to eliminate all of the stuff that tends to put off viewers who are politically near the middle. The vets are remarkably calm, considering the subject matter. Their stories are straightforward accounts of their experiences, without any grandstanding.
During editing, we relived all of the conversations. Melissa, who waited at home while her husband, Patrick, was in Iraq, dreading a knock on the door. Jose, from NY, was in the military and became a conscientious objector, told me, “Not only are we bombing poor people, but we’re bombing brown people. I’m a person of color living in the United States, and things aren’t so rosy here.” And Fernando, from the Bronx, who read a very clever poem (that he and his girlfriend wrote) in a rap rhythm. He believes that the war is about the US establishing a permanent base in the Middle East.
I was recently asked what I learned from making this documentary, and I think I can answer that question simply. I learned that the war (even looked at only from the American side) is extraordinarily costly in human terms. There is a vast amount of damage done to young people, exclusive of bombs, bullets, and shrapnel (which is bad enough). The risk of psychological damage, some of it long lasting, is quite substantial.

Part VII: "Chicago"

I stop in Chicago on the way home. I talk outside with Eric. Like many of the vets, he still gets very juiced on adrenaline when talking about his experiences in Iraq. Eric describes yet another checkpoint killing involving civilians, the fourth separate incident I have heard about. Three generations of a family were in a farm truck. Something happens, and in the confusion the soldiers open fire, killing everyone but a small child. The child was patched up, and was later placed in a small cage, the height of which Erik approximates with his hand, about three or four feet. He is still outraged. “We kill his whole family, and we put him in prison.” Erik then helped remove the boy’s family members in body bags. He describes a crowd of “at least 500” family members, moaning, waiting to identify the bodies.
The ride home is uneventful and I’m tired and pretty homesick. I spend my last few dollars on a beer between Buffalo and Springfield.
[Above Iraq photos courtesy of Independent Journalist, Dahr Jamail, www.dahrjamailiraq.com]

Part VI: "Meeting vets in Wyoming"

I’m apprehensive as we drive along Rt. 25 to Wyoming. We received some angry emails, after a story ran in the Casper newspaper about what we were doing. People seemed to think we had hunted down some weak-minded vets and brainwashed them into opposing the war. The idea that large numbers of vets could have those thoughts for themselves had not occurred to these people. One email made a vague reference to firearms.
The people in Casper are very pleasant, though. Herds of antelope run across the roads on the outskirts of town. A heavy snow has just fallen. We meet Brian, an athletic guy, and we find out right away that there’s been a mistake of some kind. Brian is totally in favor of the war. For a split second I wonder what is going to happen, but Brian is cool. I decide to include him—why the hell not? He was there. He shows me home movies of pick-up football games in Iraq. He strongly dislikes protests made up of folks who didn’t fight in Iraq. I ask him, “What about Iraq vets? What do you think if they speak out against the war?” Brian shrugs. They were there, he tells me, so that’s up to them.

Part V: "Going West"

Carol kisses me goodbye at the train station in Meriden, Connecticut, and I ride Amtrak through Philadelphia, Washington, and Chicago. Two days later I arrive in Denver, where it is brutally cold, well below zero, but I instantly learn the difference low humidity makes. If the wind doesn’t blow it’s quite bearable, much easier to take than a 30-degree day in the humid New England air.
My friend and producer Dennis greets me in his pick-up. He’s arranged to meet some vets in his home state of Wyoming. I’ve tried to avoid using the word ‘interview’ here, but I don’t have a proper word for what I do. ‘Interview’ sounds kind of condescending to me, as I see my job not as journalism, but simply creating a record of what certain Iraq vets with certain beliefs think about themselves, the country, and the war. Besides, wherever possible, I don’t use the Q&A format. If I can, I just get them talking, without steering anything.
Later, we meet Ben. He’s amazingly direct and sincere. He didn’t believe in the war, and was very conflicted in Iraq. “Everyday, I felt like crap. I felt like such a hypocrite. But you do what you have to, to survive.”
A big part of the problem, he says, is that American voters live in a “comfort bubble,” and they’ll simply vote in anyone who will keep them there.

Part IV: "Our experiences in Philly"

We drive to Philadelphia. Iraq vets from around the country are here for a convention. There is a heavy curtain of fog, and the city looks romantic and a little dangerous.
Dave, from Illinois, smokes a cigarette outside. He’s friendly, but restless and agitated. He comes from a long and proud family tradition of military service. But once in Iraq, he was very turned off by the way the civilians were treated—their cities were totally destroyed and the people were shell-shocked and without basic necessities. Back at home, he heard about protestors, and confronted them angrily. “Who the hell are you to say this? We went through this complete bullshit for you.” He decided, however, that the protestors were on the side of the soldiers. The more he thought about the war, the angrier he became.
Abbie, from Wisconsin, is still very shaken from her experiences in Iraq. “I can’t hold down a relationship, I dropped classes at school… my short term memory is gone.”
Where can you see and hear experiences like these? On the evening news? Not likely. The vet who wants to talk on local or national TV about how this war is a good idea might get the chance to do it, but not these people. This documentary is their chance to say what they want to.

Part III: "We begin to travel the country to find more vets"

Carol scrapes enough money together and we start the long drive south from Connecticut. We leave in the late afternoon and stop in Virginia at midnight, and hit the road early the next morning.
In Georgia, we meet Erick, who worked in a motor pool in Baghdad. Erick was fairly amazed at the lack of major media coverage of a march in Washington that he participated in. “You have all these vets, they’re against the war for a reason, you’d think people would want to know.”
Adam, in Atlanta, was ready for payback after 9/11, but he could never make any logical connection between Iraq and the World Trade Center. “Most of the hijackers were Saudi. We don’t have a single soldier deployed in the war on terror in Saudi Arabia,” he says wryly.
In North Carolina we spoke with Jimmy, a very amiable former sergeant in the Marines, who tells us a harrowing tale of a speeding car that would not stop at a checkpoint in Iraq, where he was in charge. The Marines opened fire, killing everyone but the driver. It was a miscommunication—they were not terrorists. The driver, unharmed, was in agony and began pulling his hair out by the roots. He approached Jimmy, and raised a finger. “You did this. You killed my brother.” Jimmy could say nothing in response. “That’s something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life,” he tells us quietly.

Part II: "Our film begins to take form in Amherst, Massachusetts"

What is this documentary about? We have no game plan and I’m hoping it will take shape as we continue. Are we going to talk with vets from “both sides?” That’s the only fair thing, we’ve been told. I guess that makes sense.
In Amherst, Massachusetts we meet Kevin, purely by accident. He tells us of a very different kind of casualty of war, one that is not on any list. His son, Jeffery, came home without any visible injuries, but he was a very different person. Jeffrey was hallucinating and his behavior became increasingly erratic. He spoke of terrible things that happened in Iraq. He asked to sit in his father’s lap one evening. The next day, Kevin found his son’s body in the basement—he’d hung himself. “He looked peaceful for the first time in months,” Kevin told us.
Tears stream down our faces and I can’t recall being so moved. Kevin tells us that they later learned, from Jeff’s therapist, that the dog tags he wore around his neck had belonged to two unarmed Iraqi men he was ordered to shoot. “He wore them, not as trophies, but to honor those men he knew he was responsible for,” Kevin tells us.

We now know that we don’t have an ordinary documentary on our hands, with the filmmaker’s viewpoint dominating via the omnipresent narrator. People simply need to hear what these vets and their families have gone through, in their own words, and nothing else.

Part I: "We started this film on the Boston Commons"

My wife Carol and I wander a little dazed among the crowd of protestors and anti-protestors. A group of young men and women scream into each other’s faces. “Just sign up,” one woman blasts, through a wicked smile. No one at all appears to have ever done any military service. I turn the movie camera on.
An Iraq vet named Joe takes the microphone on stage. “Don’t tell me to sign up,” he says. “I did my time in Iraq. The recruiter’s office is over there.” He points, and the anti-protestors quickly become silent.
Alex, an Iraq vet, tells us about his shock when he first learned, from a trusted sergeant, that they weren’t there to fight for Iraqi freedom or to topple Hussein. “We’re here for one thing and that’s oil,” the sergeant said. The only motive they were left with was pride in their unit and the need to look out for each other. This was something we were to hear again and again.
We take to the streets. There are many groups present. A huge “get the hell out of Boston” chant goes up outside of some sort of Christian temple. Here, the buildings are tall and close together and the noise is unbelievable. Although the tone is vigorous and confrontational, no one really expects any violence. A neat row of Boston’s finest on horseback stands nearby, watching, and suddenly heavy snowflakes begin to fall.
We realize we have no idea what we’ve gotten ourselves into.

View the Trailer

You can view the trailer for this film
on the official site:
http://mywarmystory.com/trailer.html
or on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD-3tXyxiqc

Director's Statement

My wife Carol & I traveled across the U.S. to make this documentary. Our motive was simple - we felt that an important story about the war was not being told. These vets who oppose the very war they fought in were not making sweeping statements or generalizing. Their ideas developed after seeing and hearing specific things in Iraq.
One vet, an ordinary guy named Dave, from Illinois, went to Iraq believing that the U.S. was there to help the people of that country. He witnessed massive upheaval in their lives -- cities in ruin, civilian deaths, no water, and no power. These experiences eventually helped to change Dave's mind about the war.
Where can you hear stories like this? We weren't exposed to anything like these stories on the major media. There was broad support for the war, on the one hand, or stories of big scandals on the other, but nothing like this, the quiet opinions of many ordinary vets. These are stories that need to be heard.