Glenn Hutcheson: Response to The Ground Truth

Although it’s been said many times and in many different fashions there really is only one way to describe war, Hell. Typically when one thinks of hell the only narrations that come to mind are those of an environment that is beyond sanity and to the point where the descriptions alone are hard to fathom. In the film “The Ground Truth,” the viewer is faced with the harsh realities of the war in Iraq and the horrid scenes that are depicted through the eyes of an American soldier and Iraqi citizen.

The film begins with a short clip (television commercial) that has been replayed over every television set in the United States over the past decade. The intriguing part about this approach to the documentary is that we can relate to this commercial, for it is constantly played through the living rooms all over America and therefore have felt its effects. This commercial shows the pamphlet version of the army, in a sense of being a man, serving for your country, and fighting for those you love back at “home.” Although what this commercial doesn’t show you, is the life of a REAL American Troop in Iraq, if the army was to flash children lying dead in the streets, or their own American soldiers getting killed during “friendly fire” then the idea wouldn’t seem as amusing. As the film proceeded through its introduction of previous American troops they all began recalling the chants that they were forced to recite during basic training which would involve verses that include, murdering women at shopping malls, or even killing children in school yards. These chants along with the everyday traditions of basic training begin the process of numbing those that are not capable of pulling the trigger to a point where the urge to kill an Iraqi becomes almost unbearable.

This documentary, although hard to watch, is hard to turn away from, simply because of the realism carved throughout the film. Emotion is the key displayed in many of the scenes, most of which are home videos from the front line which in turn places the audience into the documentary, not just as a viewer, but as if to have their eye staring through the lens. At one point in the film a soldier describes his encounter with his platoon and an elder woman who was walking toward an American tank. The soldier told her to stop and surrender for he wasn’t sure if she was carrying a concealed weapon or explosive, when the woman didn’t stop the soldier was forces to kill her on the spot simply because she was a “suspect.” Of course the woman wasn’t carrying any weapon but rather a white handkerchief that she had tucked away in her palm so that she could surrender and hopefully become removed from such a dangerous environment. “This wasn’t the Marine Corp. I signed up for,” said the soldier that told this story.

As the movie rolled on I began to notice that we as a country have been creating more problems in Iraq rather then fixed. One soldier said, “You begin to feel like a mechanic, fixing things that your friend broke.” This was a response after one soldier recalled his first scenario involving children that had possibly been killed by US fire. These scenes along with a multitude of others are the symptoms that draw soldiers to an unbearable mentality, also known as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). PTSD is the buildup of stress related visions or activities that draw one to an unhealthy sense of guilt and regret. Each of the soldiers introduced were and still are walking cases of PTSD simply because of the unimaginable scenes and visual depictions that roll play in their minds and drive them to insanity. One of the soldiers interviewed described it as an adrenaline rage that had been building up over years, due to questioning the war and its purpose, as well as constantly living with the mentality of either killing or being killed any moment. There have been numerous cases of soldiers that have returned home and committing suicide so that they don’t have to feel and be seen as murderers of children, women, and countless innocent civilians. Those that don’t drive straight into suicide lead to a deep depression and live a secluded and sheltered life while really trying to keep busy so that they don’t have to stop and think about Iraq. Although many have been killed in Iraq and many have survived we are all victims, victims of a war that has been going no where and killing those surrounding it whether in combat or “friendly fire” and on top of it all we are killing ourselves. In a sense we are all going through basic training, we are becoming numb to the face of death and looking at each other as a suspect, we are all in our own personal war, our own hell.