The Ground Truth: When the Killing Ends

“The Ground Truth” ought to be a good documentary. Its material is important and timely, and it researches it well enough to really offer us something. But it strays from its subject and starts arm-waving toward the end, and ends up being hard to trust.

The subject is the status and well-being of soldiers after they return home from war. It’s not really a new subject; almost all of Hemingway’s characters suffer from internal wound inflicted by war, and then there are great movies like “The Best Years of Our Lives” (about soldiers returning from World War II) and “The Deer Hunter” (Vietnam.) In the opening act, Patricia Foulkrod tries to make a case that the ways the military is training soldiers for war has changed significantly, but I was reminded again and again of “Full Metal Jacket,” and that was made 20 years ago about a war that happened 30 years ago. Still, the point is worth making: boot camp messes with soldiers’ heads. It’s supposed to. It turns them into good soldiers — “killing machines,” and often terrible civilians.

Essentially, “The Ground Truth” is a series of interviews with soldiers who have returned home from the war. Some are missing limbs (the result of better body armor is that grenades that used to kill you now just blow your arms and legs off) and some are physically intact, but psychologically damaged. The interviews are edited, sometimes choppily, to follow the different soldiers chronologically through their military experience. There is a segment on recruitment, where little kids hold a grenade launcher in front of big balloon GI Joes. The point is made that, though obviously these young men are being recruited to kill, the word “kill” is never used – in speech, in the handbooks, in the manuals. It’s all about career opportunities and health insurance.

Then we move on to boot camp, and I’m totally curious how Foulkrod got the footage that she got. This is the best part of the documentary, and the one that relies the least on talking heads – we get to see the screaming drill sergeants, hear the disturbing songs about killing children, and watch young men become young killing machines. There are interviews with experts, including Dave Grossman, who has written several books on the psychological impact of killing and combat on soldier’s minds. My brother-in-law, a policeman, says that Grossman’s books should be required reading for anyone in law enforcement or military.

We follow our soldiers to Iraq, into combat, and then back home. This is all ground that has been covered before by other documentaries, notably, “The War Tapes” and “Gunner Palace,” both of which I felt did a much better, more nuanced job of showing us a soldier’s life in Iraq. But neither of those documentaries give us the recruitment and boot camp stages, so they are what make “The Ground Truth” stand out.

As a testimony – an opportunity to hear the voices of the soldiers talk about their experience in Iraq – it is moving and powerful. As long as the film stays on that ground, it is excellent. Their voices need to be heard, and it’s clear the government isn’t really listening. The problem occurs when “The Ground Truth” diverges from their testimonies into questions about the war itself – what are we doing in Iraq? Should we be there? What is the purpose of this war? And — please, don’t get me wrong here — these also are important questions that desperately need to be asked and examined. But they are very complicated questions, and they are beyond the scope of this documentary. It hits you over the head with the psychological impact element, and then slips in its opinions about the war itself. Psychologicial and physical damage to soldiers is a cost of war, not an argument against war. The cost needs to be counted, but this kind of bait and switch is sneaky and dishonest and ultimately significantly takes away from the integrity of the film.

One thing that became very clear to me while watching “the Ground Truth” was that, no matter who is elected President in November and how fast or slow we get out of Iraq, the war is not going to go away, like “Desert Storm” did. Vietnam has been a heavy scar on the psyche of this country, and not just because we lost. Iraq will be also. Some wars are necessary. Some aren’t. Whether or not the war is justified or necessary, perhaps we need to consider: did we dive in too eagerly? Did we forget to count the cost, not just in dollars and diplomacy, but in the damage done to a generation of young men?

Recommended

if you have a loved one in Iraq. God help you, this documentary might prepare you for when they return.
If you’re concerned about the toll this war is taking on our young men.
if you’re already vehemently opposed to the war, and are looking for more ammo for your protests.