http://socialistworker.org/2008/05/16/war-through-eyes-of-vet
Sherry Wolf reviews a new film that shows one veteran's
transformation into an opponent of war.
May 16, 2008
ON HIS fifth day of service in Iraq, Tomas Young was shot while
riding in an unarmored truck through Sadr City, which left him
paralyzed from the chest down at the age of 25.
A new film by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, Body of War, chronicles
Tomas's painful physical, emotional and political transformation from
Top Gun fantasy warrior to active spokesman with the Iraq Veterans
Against the War (IVAW).
Incensed by the corporate media's gung-ho coverage of the war in
Iraq, Donahue and Spiro spent three years chronicling the odyssey of
this one critically wounded soldier to expose the harsh reality
behind the bipartisan rush to war. In its most powerful moments, Body
of War allows the audience to witness the devastation of life after
war for many of the 30,000 wounded so far.
As Tomas relates, most people see a man in a wheelchair and think he
just can't walk, but watching him struggle to put on his pants, sit
without falling over or passing out, insert a catheter he must wear,
take morphine to kill the pain and grapple with his inability to have
an erection fuels outrage at the way governmental indifference leaves
the wounded to deal with these daunting burdens alone.
At one point, Tomas is rushed into the Veterans Affairs hospital for
an emergency operation to deal with life-threatening lead levels in
his blood--something he had to fight the bureaucracy to even test him
for. He's left lying on a gurney afterward with fewer medical
instructions than he received after getting his tattoo.
In a meeting with a paraplegic Vietnam veteran, he discovers that the
less seriously wounded vet before him spent nearly two years in
hospitals and rehabilitation to regain his strength and abilities,
while Tomas was rushed through the system in less than three months,
with no after-care or genuine rehabilitation.
The stress and superhuman patience and constant nursing he requires
daily eats away at his new marriage to a young woman whose personal
life is narrowed to non-stop caretaking for a man whom she sadly
relates has only been able to have sex with her five times.
Scenes of Tomas attending his first antiwar march in September 2005,
speaking before a church audience, joining Cindy Sheehan in Crawford,
Texas, at her vigil to confront Bush that August, and becoming
involved in the nascent IVAW are reminders of how a vocal and visible
antiwar movement can draw in and give greater purpose to young vets
like him--and his mother, who begins to rail against the imperial
aims of the U.S. government.
She comments about the insanity of how young men are made to feel
that only as soldiers can they be brave and honorable as she watches
Tomas' younger brother head off to fight in Iraq. She'd be just as
proud if he were working at Target for six bucks an hour.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE FILM is seriously weakened by its adherence to Democratic Party
politics and the invisibility of Iraqis as the primary victims of this war.
The backdrop to the film is the October 2002 "debate" and vote on the
Iraq war in Congress. Scenes of Tomas going about his daily struggle
and evolving politicization against the Bush regime and war are cut
with familiar clips of both Republicans and Democrats repeating the
lies about WMDs and Saddam-Hitler comparisons in the run-up to the war vote.
While Donahue and Spiro don't hesitate to show Democrats like Sen.
Hillary Clinton enthusiastically chiming in for war, they transform
the 23 senators who voted against it--in particular, the palsied
Constitution-waving Sen. Robert Byrd (D.-W.Va.)--into heroes of the
story. Byrd's passionate rhetoric against a rush to war and for the
constitutional responsibility of Congress and not the president in
declaring war aside, the political content of his and the other
no-vote Democrats' appeals hardly amount to a principled antiwar stance.
Some are seen arguing for a United Nations or multilateral invasion,
as if that would have made the destruction of Iraq and killing of 1.2
million people more acceptable. There is an underlying presumption
that the Afghan war, given that country's supposed ties to al-Qaeda
and 9-11, was justified. Despite five years of Democratic votes to
fund the war--including the current debate, in which a
Democratic-controlled Congress actually added $70 billion to Bush's
requested $102 billion war-spending bill--the film portrays the war
as Bush's boondoggle, not a bipartisan imperial project.
Byrd, who voted for the USA PATRIOT Act and has been a war hawk for
most of his 50 years in Congress, is strangely pictured as the elder
antiwar icon in this film. As the Senate Appropriations Committee
chairman, Byrd is one of the architects of the Senate's current ploy
to toss in a few domestic spending carrots to make this bloated
war-funding bill appear palatable to voters in this election season.
In a Q&A with Donahue at the preview screening in Chicago, it became
clear that, despite the filmmakers' good intentions, they blunted the
message to avoid arguments for immediate withdrawal and didn't
portray the war's horrifying impact on Iraqis because of their false
presumptions that Americans are too right wing.
But the Gallup polls showing Bush's handling of the war and economy
placing him at sub-Nixonian levels and the 80–95 million
twenty-somethings who register record pro-union and ardently antiwar
positions tell a different story.
Tomas Young's tale is a harrowing one that deserves a better
conclusion than nudging viewers to go vote for Bush's pro-war
collaborators in November.
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