Operation Homecoming: Writing the War Time Experience

I went to see this Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Feature because it was a documentary of firsthand accounts of our American troops through their own words. A friend of mine had done an independent short allowing four returning soldiers to tell their stories a few years ago, and interestingly enough, it was screened in the same Fine Arts Theater.

This is a magnificent and touching project that shows what you can do when you have money and support behind it. The National Endowment for the Arts created workshops where soldiers and their families participating in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could write their experiences under writing craft guidance and thus come to terms with their feelings. Apparently more than sixteen hundred people responded and those writings - poetry, fiction, memoirs, letters, journals, and essays have been published in an anthology by Random House.

Sixteen hundred pieces from Iraq and Afghanistan by soldiers and their families is far too much to put in one film, so the film takes selections only from soldiers in Iraq. These are read by professional actors and the readings are introduced by the actual authors. Selected blind, there was only one serving woman among all the pieces selected, but the director, Richard E. Robbins, insisted in the subsequent Q&A that that was purely by accident.

They were powerful pieces and quite moving. I was glad I went to it and hope it wins the Oscar. It deserves all the recognition it can get.

The Q&A was attended by some of the narrative reading actors, namely Beau Bridges, Justin Kirk, Josh Lucas, and Christopher Gorham. Now that Beau Bridges is no longer playing General Hank Landry on Stargate: Atlantis, he was sporting a beard, which I have to say made him quite good-looking and distinguished. Of course the three younger actors were very good-looking. From what I could tell, the audience consisted of people who either wanted to learn more about the subject matter like me, or had a vested interest in the subject matter, i.e., relatives and friends of servicemen or people who work with veterans. There didn't seem to be fans there just to see the actors, which was good.

Apparently NEA plans to do another project of workshops, this time they want to offer the writing workshops to soldiers in veterans hospitals. I think that's an excellent idea.