Home Front

This respectful documentary examines the post-traumatic lives of soldiers returning home from Iraq. The film is able to show small town America and the effects of a wounded son on a close family. It acknowledges the thousands of wounded Iraqi veterans, a number often overshadowed by a mounting death toll. But this film is not about war. It never pushes for an answer, and doesn't exploit the drama of war, but instead allows the people it documents to exist in their daily lives. In doing so we are provided a human portrait of the aftermath of war. The lives of every member of a family is effected by a wounded veteran. And the veterans themselves must wrestle with many personal issues from their wounds, to life outside the battlefront, but they find outlets to focus their new lives. America is full of heroes and good, honest people, and this film shows that without fanfare, but with respect.

A moving documentary that takes the viewer inside a typical rural, American home and allows us to see the problems that must be dealt with when a wounded soldier returns home. However, even though this film may have been shot before the release of the Downing St Memo, the revelation of no WMDs, and the numerous CIA officials who have since testified that they were pressured to manipulate intelligence for Cheney and Rumsfeld, what this film truly illuminates is the battle that a soldier and his/her family must wage to convince themselves of what they suspect may not be true, in order to keep their sanity. This is very common and sad. You will often see a family member teetering on severe depression at the thought that their loved one's life was destroyed for no good reason, only to quickly revert to a viewpoint that will give them some sense of relief ("this was for the greater good. We were taking down a tyrant") And who can really blame them. You'd almost rather see them take comfort from a false notion than to see them rage a the pointlessness of this, and most, wars.