‘Wartorn’ lays bare effects of PTSD through any war - Military TV, Television - Military Times

‘Wartorn’ lays bare effects of PTSD through any war

The new HBO documentary “Wartorn” isn’t meant for those who already understand the mental outcomes of war: The nightmares, the grief, the failed relationships.

But in a nation in which polls show most Americans rank the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan below the economy and “big government” as concerns, producer James Gandolfini has some lessons to share.

First, war can devastate even those who suffer no physical injuries. He shows how, with graphic depictions of bodies and blasts and World War II veterans who still fall to pieces when they talk about lost friends.

Second, troops have always reacted to combat trauma with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder — and probably at the same rates as today’s veterans.

The images of troops twitching and shivering after artillery attacks during World War I, or audio clips of men explaining how they felt after killing someone in Vietnam, or video of them not interacting with their children after serving in Iraq, are more disturbing than the bodies and blood.

Military experts explain how combat affects anyone who lives through it, to varying degrees. They say that anyone who has compassion for human life cannot end life or watch it end without being affected. They say about 30 percent of service members exposed to combat come home with symptoms of PTSD.

The footage Gandolfini chooses is gruesome, and it should be, because while veterans already understand, many civilians are oblivious to war’s toll. And that only adds to some veterans’ suffering.

Gandolfini focuses on service members from each branch, as well as family members. A mom talks about her son’s suicide — about how he shot out the mirror in his truck and destroyed his face in each of his pictures, unable to look at himself, before holding his dog tags to his head and shooting through them. A wife and child talk about how their soldier no longer interacts with them.

The documentary is vignette after vignette, dating from the Civil War until today. It includes stories of pain, but also of callousness, such as Gen. George S. Patton’s belief that a combat-stressed soldier was a coward.

“People don’t understand what people go through here,” Army Gen. Ray Odierno says, telling of the time his son was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade that wounded him and killed a friend.

“He’s here, but he’s not home,” a wife says of her husband, an Iraq war veteran.

“I still have nightmares, and it takes all … night to kill somebody,” a World War II vet says, 65 years after he fought his last battle.

Another man has a grandson serving in Iraq. “How do I tell my grandson he won’t come back the same?” he asks.

“Wartorn” is scheduled to premiere at 9 p.m. Eastern time Nov. 11 on HBO.