Stop-Loss
"It's easy," I thought, "so easy, to forget that we're at war, that men and women, some barely more than boys and girls, risk their lives every day. Lose their lives every day. In a war that nobody seems to understand, why we started or how to end."
I struggled to wrap my mind around the movie, the war, the just-turned-21 Marines I saw almost daily in my neighborhood, at the Metro station, in the bars.
Newscasters tried to remind us – with announcements of the five-year anniversary, 4,000 dead, photos, and words – but it didn't reach beyond an initial recognition, a wave of awareness followed by other, bigger waves crashing on the shores of my consciousness as I worried about my weekend plans and when I could my check from the economic stimulus package.
"New clothes?" I wondered. "Vacation? And am I really satisfied in my job? Might I prefer an interior office without an officemate to the view and the questions?"
What is wrong with me?
People are dying. Dying. And many of those who don't die are returning broken – physically, mentally, emotionally – by what they have seen and done. And here I sit, worried about plasma TVs, boys and booze.
In her new drama "Stop-Loss," co-writer and director Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry), examines the policy, in the United States military, of the retention of troops to remain in service beyond their expected term of service.
Filled with beautiful, tortured men - Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe), Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) – the movie moved me to tears at one point, despite the Texan accents, despite long, slow bits and Tatum's verbal stumbles, despite the violence or maybe because of them.
King encounters a hero's welcome when he returns to his small Texas town after a tour of duty and tries to return to his life, to pick up the pieces of a world he left behind, only to find that he's been ordered back to Iraq.
The DC audience cheered at some of the lines, the rebellion, the anger that King showed while fewer appreciated the hopelessness. We were, after all, just a movie-going audience in a major metropolitan area. Few of us had ever, would ever, see the sands of Iraq unless 15 years down the road, 20, after the war, somebody opens a 4-star hotel and offers a package deal to see the sights that have survived.
I was embarrassed as I walked out of the movie, about my life, my ignorance, the fact that we're still at war and it doesn't really affect my life.
It should.
Tag: Movies
posted by Kristin @ 10:43 AM
4 Comments:
It's interesting, I had a conversation with my mom recently where I asked, "Where are the protesters?" Granted, I'm not out marching with a sign (I could get fired for that kind of thing), but I think our generation is a bit apathetic about the whole thing ... perhaps because there isn't a draft? It just ain't right.
Its an odd war we are fighting. So few people nowadays have a connection with the military in their daily life (family, friends, neighbors). And given that we have an all volunteer force no one is being forced into the military. Though I personally find the stop loss plans that they use completely deceitful. Its a backdoor draft of some of our best citizens who because of their patriotism are being punished by the government not honoring its commitment and taking a course of taking advantage of the people who will complain the least.
To be fair I also have a horse in this race as I am a soldier as well.
Most of us will never experience the losses of this war personally. But there are 4,000 families out there who know loss only too well.
EclecticBlue - It ain't right, and protesting is viewed as anti-American.
Daniel - It's definitely an odd war. I've known a few guys who were deployed and a few more waiting for their own deployments. I want to support them but don't know how.
Barbara - "We" are at war but the burden is shoulder by so few.
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