Comments on: "There's three times they tried flying me out, and all three times I died on a helicopter."

"There's three times they tried flying me out, and all three times I died on a helicopter."

kirkaracha — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:14:06 -0800

"Everyone I've talked to knows the exact date when they've been hit."
"Yeah. It's burned into your memory."
James Gandolfini interviews 10 wounded Iraq war veterans in Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq [review]. The documentary is viewable online.

"Alive Day" is what wounded soldiers call the day they didn't die. Bryan Anderson, Crystal Davis, Dawn Halfaker, Dexter Pitts, Eddie Ryan, Jay Wilkerson, Jake Schick, John Jones, Jonathan Bartlett, and Michael Jernigan tell their own stories. (The profiles have before-and-after photos.)

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:27:16 -0800

In other war news two of the soldures who wrote this NYT op-ed just died

By: anthill

anthill — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:47:18 -0800

At 32 minutes in. The blind vet who, after his divorce, had an oculist grind the diamonds out of his wedding band and set them into one of his prosthetic eyes... hardcore.

By: twsf

twsf — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:47:48 -0800

I started to watch and then just couldn't continue. These are soldiers who survived, yet all I hear in my head - still - is John Kerry's question from his 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:51:08 -0800

This is so painful, moving, heartbreaking and inspiring all at the same time. I was only going to watch a few minutes and finish later tonight, but I couldn't break away. I'll have to watch it again sometime because I missed some of it through my tears. Thanks for posting this, kirkaracha.

By: ferdydurke

ferdydurke — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:58:28 -0800

Thank you for posting this. It is very moving

By: rtha

rtha — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:00:55 -0800

Yeah, I can't watch more right now - it's bad form to cry at your desk, I've heard. Maybe it's because I never watch the network news anymore, but the footage shown of soldiers goofing around, or pulling wounded (dead?) comrades out of wrecks, gave me a strong flashback to seeing the Vietnam war on the television news when I was a kid. My friends and I even played a game where one of us would pretend to be a reporter (usually Cronkite), and the others would pretend to be Vietnamese villagers being interviewed - it was that much a part of our consciousness (we were all about six or seven years old at the time). I know there's a lot of footage like this on youtube etc., but does it ever get shown on the regular TV news anymore? Thank you for posting this.

By: anotherpanacea

anotherpanacea — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:11:03 -0800

Saw Halfaker's interview the other night, and found it strangely unaffecting. Then the Dexter Pitts interview began and I realized I couldn't sit and watch them all in a row the way the movie intends. Thanks for this. I'm reminded that, in English, to testify is to 'bear witness.' The witness bears her testimony like a burden, and then unloads it on her audience, who bear the burden a little further. The load is lessened by sharing it with others, but you can't deny that these are heavy stories to hear.

By: semmi

semmi — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:13:49 -0800

It's good to look at reality instead the constant rhetoric.

By: unwordy

unwordy — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:50:22 -0800

I have been waiting to see this--thanks a bunch! I had no idea that it was watchable online, and for free no less!

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:11:06 -0800

Absolutely heartbreaking, I'm going to start crying in a few minutes. Thank you for this post.

By: minervous

minervous — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:58:53 -0800

I'e just finished watching it. I'm quite quiet inside now, sitting here in my warm, safe apartment. ...I suppose it makes sense, in a way, that it took such personal, raw stories to close the distance between my well-reasoned and intellectualized thoughts about war and sacrifice and honor and my ... you know ... heart. But this did it. I'm not crying, actually. I'm stunned. I'm beyond crying. I'm humbled. Thanks for posting this.

By: thehmsbeagle

thehmsbeagle — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:37:10 -0800

Oh man! I was okay through the first interview, and then I got to the part in the second one where the Marine's mom is pointing to the scars of the surgery that replaced her son's skull with acrylic and titanium, and then I lost it. Thanks so much for this post-- I didn't know this was online.

By: False Jesii Inc.

False Jesii Inc. — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:42:52 -0800

Normally threads on the blue related to soldiers go badly that it depresses me greatly. I'd really like to thank everyone so far.

By: bluesky43

bluesky43 — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:07:28 -0800

This is an incredibly powerful film and should be required viewing by every member of George Bush's White House but most importantly Rumsfeld and Cheney. I feel heartbroken by these stories but I am also so proud of the way these soldiers and their families carry their burden. Thank you so much for posting this.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:21:10 -0800

This is the saddest and most terrifying thing that I have ever seen.

By: snoktruix

snoktruix — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:10:40 -0800

It's depressing if the army internally really does have the attitude that PTSD is due to personal "weakness", as reported by Dex. That's just ignorance, and makes it doubly difficult for the people that suffer from those problems.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:12:35 -0800

Wow. That was incredibly powerful. I have no words.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:56:04 -0800

I had read reviews of this but since I don't have cable I was thinking I'd never see it. I'm thankful that HBO put it online so people could watch it, and thanks for posting it. The reviews all said that James Gandolfini did a great job of staying in the background and letting the soldiers remain in focus, and I totally agree. I really did appreciate that at no point did the documentary focus on him. People just opened up to him. On a side note, it seems like James Gandolfini is really working hard to process his years of playing Tony Soprano. And who could blame him, really. Lately he's been very visibly reaching out to people he considers to be tough guys, though.

By: SeanMac

SeanMac — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:28:44 -0800

snotruix.. I haven't personally seen that attitude that 'PTSD is a personal weakness', at least where I am-- I work with a lot of iraq/afghanistan vets here in Korea (my 1SG is an Iraqand an Afghanistan vet)-- and those who have it, are pretty open about it, because they don't want people to be surprised if they freak out randomly at shit that doesn't affect those of us who haven't been deployed. We accept the fact that PTSD happens, and can be very confusing and difficult for those affected to work through it. Neither me nor anyone I know or Soldier with hold anything against 'em for it. I only hope that when/if I do deploy n support of OIF/OEF, that I can handle it as well as my comrades have.

By: fourcheesemac

fourcheesemac — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:36:30 -0800

Fuck George Bush.

By: MapGuy

MapGuy — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:37:50 -0800

By: snoktruix

snoktruix — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:02:38 -0800

Thanks for the info SeanMac, that's good to know.

By: wafaa

wafaa — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:13:49 -0800

Thank you False Jesii for pointing that out, but of course, the day's still young. I'm sure we'll hear from the depressants shortly, so, having learned my lesson, I'll not be following this thread...

By: homunculus

homunculus — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:50:46 -0800

War Critic Dies In Iraq, Mom Wants Answers: Mother Seeks Details Of Soldier's Death Weeks After He Co-Authored Op-Ed Criticizing War

By: homunculus

homunculus — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:52:53 -0800

In other news: Al-Jazeera man 'close to death' at Guantanamo Bay (updates this thread).

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 11:57:44 -0800

American war culture in a nutshell

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 12:07:03 -0800

Gates Raises Possibility Of Deploying More National Guard And Reserve Forces To Iraq