Baghdad ER - on the internet now

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

BAGHDAD ER can be downloaded at Information Clearinghouse FREE.

BAGHDAD ER is an emotional, devastating and honest account of modern-day war.
12-time Emmy® Award winner producer/director Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill capture the humanity, hardships and heroism of the US Military and medical personnel of the 86th Combat Support Hospital, the Army's premier medical facility in Iraq. Sometimes graphic in its depiction of combat-related wounds, BAGHDAD ER offers an unflinching and honest account of the realities of war.

In case you don't have HBO (I don't), the entire movie can be seen at
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13192.htm


About 3/5 of the way through, one of the injured soldiers says that
he got into this (the military) so he could get his family a house, and pay a few bills.
He lost his thumb and part of a finger, and is getting post tramatic stress counseling.
His driver was killed.

That says something about what used to be the greatest country in the world (the US)
that there aren't decent opportunities for many.

There is plenty of tragedy and reality in this movie, it is the real stuff,
plenty of horrific injuries, although there are even more shocking injuries that
they didnt' show.

This is the modern day "MASH", with less editorializing.

Instead of using our billions of tax dollars to build up our economy and education,
we empty our national treasury into the pockets of Halliburton and Bechtel,
and meanwhile use our soldiers as cannon fodder.

The longer this goes on, the worse it gets, the more money Dick Cheney's Halliburton makes.

[Drum]

1. Thank you!!

What a very cool link to provide us. D/l'ing now.

[Windy]

2. This country is numb to the fact that we are at war

Everyone needs to see this as a reminder!!

[Jazzgirl]

3. Thank you and got it!

I haven't made my daily trip to IHC so thanks loads. I do have HBO (and a DVR) but keep forgetting to set it. This is great and I can pass it around to some people that don't have cable or satellite.

JG

[NJ_Lib]

4. Even this is "sugarcoated"...

... Meaning that war is a hundred times more gruesome and heart-wrenching than depicted here... I got this staight out of a Vietnam Vet's mouth... Can you imagine? ( Sigh...)

[IndyOp]

5. Sugarcoated - That is what troops who served in Iraq told the producers

when the producers screened the film for them before it debuted on HBO. The producers were on DemocracyNow! a few days before it played on HBO -- the US military had put out 'warnings' that people in the military should not watch because it could trigger PTSD. The troops who saw it at a US base said it PALED in comparison to what they saw and lived in Iraq.

Baghdad ER: Documentary On US Military Hospital in Iraq Gets Cold Reception From Army
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/17/1510218''

MATTHEW O’NEILL: I talked to some of the soldiers who saw the film yesterday in Fort Campbell in a closed screening, just for people in the C.A.S.H. who were involved with the film, and one major called me up and she said, "I don't understand what the warnings are about. You guys only showed the tip of the iceberg. They were saying this was gruesome, and you showed nothing.”

Emphasis mine.

:grr:

[NJ_Lib]

6. Yup, and this vet started the list with...

... "they didn't show you the boys who lay mortally wounded in the field, screaming and crying for MOM, which happens almost every time"... As a mother, I cannot think of anything more horrible. If I knew my child went like this, I would commit suicide, I just couldn't bear to go on..."

[SeattleGirl]

8. While it's true they didn't show anywhere near the real gruesomeness

of the effects of war on the body, on the other hand, it did show more than most people in this country have seen before, because of the sanitizing of war footage that has been going on since the first Iraq war (I mean, how many times did they run the same night-vision shots of bombs falling in IW-I? I swear, that's about the ONLY thing they showed).

[shadowknows69]

10. They showed enough so I could only get through about 10 minutes

I am going to force myself to watch the whole thing but only on a day I can afford to be completely incapacitated with grief. I already am.

[SeattleGirl]

12. The scenes where they showed the wounds WERE hard for

me to watch, and I'm not a real squeemish person. I was bawling like a baby by the end of the movie, for every single person caught up in this nightmare.

[shadowknows69]

16. I'm not squeamish either

I mean send me to a splatterfest movie marathon any day of the week but knowing it's real people is too much.

[elvisbear]

7. Thanks.

I've been hoping to view this.

[progressoid]

9. .....

[Suich]

11. .....

:cry:

[w8liftinglady]

13. if you can fast forward to the end...

the chaplain says a prayer over a dead soldier that still makes me burst into tears...but it is so touching..."May his death hasten the cause of peace-in this senseless war"

[SeattleGirl]

14. That's where I lost it, too.

Did you hear the mom of that young man interviewed on Randi Rhodes? I did, and also saw her on one of the news broadcasts. On the news broadcast, she burst into tears talking about it, but said that she was glad that she was contacted by the folks who did the documentary, because she did not know waht happened between the time her son was wounded and the time he died. She still has enormous grief, but the love and care these men and women in the ER showed toward her son brought her a little bit of peace.

[jarnocan]

15. thanks very important

to know.

[SharonRB]

17. Thanks for posting the link

I didn't know when it was going to be on HBO again and I wanted to see it. Very powerful.

[Pachamama]

18. This documentary is a must see!!!!

I just finished watching it....its so well done and it leaves the viewer with a real sense of the "casualties" of war and what gut wrenching injuries and awful things are happening over there every day. IEDs are brutal and they are maiming, killing and injuring our soldiers in huge numbers. Its truly amazing what these teams of Doctors do in saving their lives, and its an amazing contrast to see Doctors who are also soldiers saving the lives with the vow they have to "do no harm" and yet are soldiers in a battlefield.

But no matter how you look at things, this war is plain wrong and to see the carnage that is happening daily is just awful....a painful reminder of what this administration has done...

[Renew Deal]

19. kick

:kick: