Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An informative film told from the views of our Soldiers and Marines, November 4, 2006
The Ground Truth is being praised by the left and dismissed by the right. I did not feel after watching it that it came down so much to a political debate about the good or bad views of the current war in Iraq, but the consequences and outcomes that we don't see or realize.
The ground truth is a film that should be viewed by anyone who wants to see the other side of war, the one usually not told. Forget the blurbs you see on your Television every night, and take a moment to view this film.
The documentary rolls at a good pace as it spends half the time not interviewing soldiers, sailors and marines who have returned from Iraq, but lets them simply tell the story in their own words. It is not so much concentrated on tearing down the military or our government policies as much as showing, at the same time, that the people coming back are facing something that nobody else can even relate to. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I found it very interesting when one young man was talking about coming home and when someone asked him what happened to his arm (which had to be amputated due to a combat injury) he replied "I lost it in Iraq". The response was "Whoa...you mean that's still going on?" The film does not pull any punches however, as it will come across at times as one sided, but why not? These men and women were there, why don't we listen to what they have to say? I don't think that's too much to ask. What I found ironic (though not surprising) was the parallels to Vietnam in the terms of how the bureaucratic process deals with these men and women after they come back home. The paperwork nightmare of trying to get help from the same people who sent them over there, in harms way in the first place, shows that we have not yet broken the cycle when it comes to our veterans. They are sent off to combat and come back needing physical, psychological and monetary assistance in all ranges and forms, yet continue to get the runaround with a large amount of red tape and denial of recognition of their situation.
War is hell. It always has been. I know after watching this that I want to do everything I can to make sure that the veterans are not whisked aside and in some cases, reprimanded for speaking out about the war. The film does a good job showing us just how much combat these people are facing; some go for weeks without rest. It also showed how easily that the Iraqi civilians are killed, even though it may be accidental, just furthering the trauma that the living have to deal with when they survive and try to come home to assume, if they can, a civilian role in life again. Nightmares, tension, and sleepless nights coupled with a multitude of other issues now face them, and again, it was not surprising to learn that the same process that sent them off and could send many off again and again, is not doing everything in their power to help them when they return.
Overall its a great documentary that I did not feel was at all in poor taste, but powerfully truthful in showing what combat veterans are going through today both on the battlefield and off.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moving and disturbing, January 18, 2007
This documentary shows several Iraq war veterans who are wounded or traumatised, and the relatives of some who died. These are mostly veterans and relatives who are disturbed by what they saw and did, or simply by the lack of treatment that they themselves received.
Some are motivated by opposition to the war, but not all, and the documentary focuses almost completely on the soldiers' experiences, not on politics.
Of course, there are many vets who support the war, but over 1,000 active-duty members of the US military have signed an Appeal for Redress of Grievances that calls for "the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq".
I had read about much of this elsewhere, so it was not such a surprise for me, but I still found the documentary moving.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very fairly presented film in spite of it's anti-war message., October 8, 2006
In the opening scenes of Patricia Foulkrod's powerful documentary about our questionable military venture in Iraq and its effect on the psyches of the soldiers who fight in it, we're introduced to a number of young soldiers who speak candidly and powerfully about the motivations that led them to join the military. As their stories unfold, we hear their surprised reactions to boot camp and combat training as they were taught to dehumanize their enemy, to "kill hadjis and ragheads." Each soldier describes in tight, careful detail their transformation from idealistic civilian to highly-trained killing machine. One soldier states quite bluntly and without sentiment how he watched his own resistance to killing grow weaker and finally fade away as the indoctrination took place. Even more chilling is his later description of looking forward to taking his first human life. "I'd been trained for it," he said, "and I wanted to do it."
For most of the soldiers in this movie, their turning points and epiphanies arrive in the shocking moments when their worldview is shattered, when the solid black line between right and wrong suddenly turns to muddy, indistinct gray. In nearly every story, we hear of their complicity in the deaths of innocent men, women and children, people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One soldier describes having an old woman in the sights of his rifle and being forced to make a split-second decision as she approached an armored US military vehicle. After firing two rounds himself, he watched in horror as the occupants of the armored vehicle opened fire as well, tearing her to pieces. As she fell to the ground, the soldier saw the white flag in her hand. He tells us that he threw his gun to the ground with tears in his eyes. As another soldier notes, "It's one thing to replace your worldview with a new one, but another thing entirely to have your worldview shattered and have nothing to replace it with."
What I found so amazing about this movie was the lack of obvious editorializing. It's a spare, lean movie without obtrusive direction. The soldiers simply tell their powerful stories to the camera. There are virtually no distractions or breaks save for a few brief "intermissions" that feature photo montages overlaid with music, and then it's right back to the soldiers. I've read other reviews that complain about the one-sidedness of the film, but what documentary isn't? That's what documentaries do... they present a biased (yet hopefully intelligent) point of view. They're made with bias and the hope that viewers come to embrace, or at least take into account, the point of view presented by the film.
Any good war documentary is made with a clear agenda, and this film's purpose is to show the madness of a war that lacks a clear objective, a notion that seems to have filtered down to the soldiers as well. One soldiers states that most of the soldiers he speaks with have no clear idea of the war's stated mission. "Something to do with 9/11" is a common response. Without a clear stated goal, the soldiers adopt the only one that makes any sense to them... kill or be killed. Kill so that you can eventually go home to the ones you love. Kill because if you don't, you're not a good soldier. It's little wonder that they return home with little or no idea how to readjust to civilian life. The Bush administration pitches the conflict in Iraq as part of the larger war on terror, yet the soldiers interviewed tend to see themselves as participants in an escalating body of terror rather than defenders of freedom.
And yet one of the most powerful things about this film is personal passion of the soldiers themselves. Even before we hear each soldier's entire story, we realize that they aren't a bunch of whiners. They are people we feel we can trust. Each was a patriotic young person who stepped forward to do his or her duty. Most went to boot camp with a sense of purpose and pride, and returned home disillusioned with what they learned. In the end, each made a very personal decision how to deal with what they discovered, a decision to either suck it up and put a cap on it, hoping it wouldn't blow, or confront it and be willing to speak the truth, no matter the consequences. The Ground Truth is the story of soldiers coming to terms with the reality of a misguided war, and dealing with their discovery with grace and courage.
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