The End of the Page

Operation Homecoming: Words From The Front Lines

by Luke Goldstein

“How can tomorrow ever come when today never ends.”

Rating: 8 out of 10

There are experiences that can never be truly traded away or passed along, no matter how hard we try. The amazement and beauty of childbirth, the crushing sorrow of losing a parent, or even the serenity of knowing a job is well done. Try as we might, these things exist inside us and everyone else will only feel a sliver of what it is like through how we describe it. One of the most profound and life altering experiences is war and no one is affected by it more than those on the front lines. There is always training, there is always a new method to try to prepare, but no one comes back from war the way they went in. Our country is now in the midst of welcoming home thousands upon thousands of soldiers from the fighting in Middle East and those brave warriors face not only the struggles of reintegrating into society (and finding a job), but figuring out rote answers to that all too common question, “What was it like?” Those can be extremely hard conversations to have, but this film documents a program trying to help those soldier find a path to communication.

Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience is an essay/memoir writing program that teaches soldiers how to use creative and journal style writing to get their thoughts and experiences cohesively onto paper. These tales of horror, fright, bravery and solitude pull the curtains away from the glorified image of war and patriotism, humanizing the soldiers.

The film brings together not only some of the authors of the essays, but also fellow writers, professionals in telling stories, who happen to also have personal experiences with wartime and being soldiers themselves. Together they weave a painfully accurate and unflinching tapestry of what wartime is really like, not painted in the bright red, white and blue of the flag, but doused in the blackest of night and dripping with the deep red of dead enemies, comrades and innocents. Some of them show the confusion suffered at the other end of a motor attack, while others detail the adrenaline rush of being ambushed and making the split second decisions on whether the person your sights is a combatant or a bystander, and does it even matter.

One by one, you hear about the deconstruction of the basic human belief to protect life as it rages against the programmed need to defend your country, your fellow soldiers and yourself. The documentary does not play itself out as a case for pacifism by any means, but there lingers a certain belief when the screen finally goes black that philosophers have intoned for years: in war, there is no winner.

Politics and beliefs aside, the real effort and success of this is the program itself and how it helps those soldiers returning from a living hell on earth, find their way back into a society that will never be completely theirs. It allows them to find a method of communication, almost a new way of speaking to the uninitiated about the nightmares they have lived through and continue to struggle with. More and more soldiers are coming back with PTSD and a variety of psychological issues, leading to drinking, drugs and a silently suffering uptick in post-return suicides. This program is certainly not the only weapon needed in the fight for the mental health of our returning warriors, but every effort counts and they’re are worth it.

The End of the Page recommendation: Operation Homecoming is an incredibly clear picture of the true life and times of our soldiers, including the issues they face returning to civilian life.

You can also watch replays of this on the Documentary Channel on 2/25 (8pm & 11pm EST) or go ahead and stream it here.

———————————————————————-

Like The End of the Page on Facebook, Follow The End of the Page on Twitter, Grab the RSS feed.

2010 Midterms: Feeding Frenzy Overtakes Reason

For every dangerous animal out there, a bigger one exists.

It’s nearing that time of year again when all the news networks, and partisan sounding boards, break out their horn choirs and play that familiar ‘Decision’ music. It’s meant to inspire, it’s meant to encourage, and it’s meant to fill our hearts with the desire to take part in the core meaning of our democracy. Instead, what it reflects now is the onslaught of fear-mongering and fact distortion in the most heinous of manners. One side is struggling to buck historical trend and not lose too many seats, while the other is struggling to hold on to any semblance of its previous character, having sacrificed themselves at the altar of public reactionaries. Both sides smell blood in the water, but they ignore that too much blood makes the water impossible to drink and it cannot nourish the nation.

Issues are now distorted instead of debated and the public is suffering at the hands and wills of those we are brought up to trust, our elected leaders. One step down from them is the ‘pure’ news outlets, who are finding themselves a lonely species in the world, ousted by a new hybrid, the news/partisan echo chamber. Crawling out of the political ooze, this fledgling evolution of money, power and influence is now wielding its might like a toddler with a baseball bat, unaware of the dangerous power to damage and destroy.

Every story now is another opportunity for the extremists on both sides to gin up more rage and anger, but most boil down to absolutely nothing when dragged into the bright light of the day. These political assassins are becoming masters of the newly coined, ‘non-troversy’, and these hack job stories are currently dominating the country’s dialogue, which is now on the verge of descending into nothing more than hastily scribbled placards and photoshopped racist images of their enemies.

At the top of the non-troversy totem pole right now is the “Ground Zero Mosque” debate. While I can completely understand that it is a sensitive issue and there is still much grief and sorrow floating in the air in Manhattan and around the country, here are a few key facts that are very rarely mentioned in the so-called ‘news reports’:

- The proposed mosque is not just a mosque, it is a cultural center that includes a mosque, as well as a pool and a community center for people of all religions.

- The location, while close, is not actually at Ground Zero. It is two blocks away, completely blocked by many other buildings from the now hallowed ground. So far only the Associated Press has directed all their employees to discontinue any usage of the term “Ground Zero Mosque” because it is intentionally misleading.

- If this cultural center is such a horrific idea and flies in the face of our freedoms and what we suffered nine years ago, what about the other mosque two more blocks beyond? When was the last time you heard in a news report just how many mosques there are already in that small area, not to mention New York as a whole? Hundreds.

- Some have tried to label the proposed cultural center as a ‘terrorist headquarters’ in the heart of New York, but do they recognize that there is a mosque right now located inside the Pentagon? Why not rally and protest that one? Seems like an incredibly dangerous location, don’t you think?

- While the opponents of the cultural center are claiming they can follow the money back to radical Islamic terrorists, they are trying to conveniently avoid showing how the money actually leads back to the second largest shareholder in Fox News and other religious leaders previous hailed on their very network as “moderate Muslims” and as shining examples of the peaceful and proper worship of Islam.

Those are only a few of the facts that might shift the debate were they to be boldly and loudly preached through the airwaves. Almost all the major news networks are to blame for taking the pill and getting on the ride for the sake of generating viewership over reporting on the facts. The direct and immediate danger of this is we are watching our country, which was once so wonderfully hailed as a place of religious freedoms and individual liberties, devolve into a religious monarchy, where only one religion rules the masses and the preacher’s pulpit will become the new oval office. We are already seeing the effects of the disease being spread. As I mentioned before, the location of the proposed cultural center in New York can easily draw up some raw emotion, but what about Murfreesboro, TN or Sheboygan, WI? Are those also too close to Ground Zero? We are creating an invisible line in the sand that is pushing any worship of Islam, or anything outside the Judeo/Christian norm, out into the oceans on either side of the country.

Yet there may be a flickering light at the end of this tunnel. The opponents of ‘the other’ are beginning to overplay their hand. They are losing supporters in the very base they are trying to rally. The violence is beginning to lash out in unavoidable ways, causing even the most staunch supporters to lower their hands. From the cab driver who was recently stabbed after being asked “are you a Muslim?” to the Ground Zero worker who was harassed at a protest rally just because he looked Muslim. Even Ron Paul, the un-official leader of the libertarian conservatives, has come out against this baseless fear-mongering:

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.

We have reached the breakwater and it is time to turn this ship home. So next time you think about screaming about protecting your country from the dangers of Islam or blurring the lines in our Constitution referring to the “separation of church and state” and “freedom of religion”, it might be time to sit down, take a deep breath and look around at where that path will lead you.

Oh, maybe turn off Fox News as well.

What are your thoughts? What stories do you feel are meaningful or being blow out of proportion for political gain?

Zeitoun: Patriotism Drowns in Tidal Wave of Fear

One man, one canoe, one country’s terrible mistake.

Rating: 10 out of 10

When people begin their journey to earn the title of ‘writer’ or ‘author’ the phrase they hear most is, “Write what you know.” So when Dave Eggers broke onto the literary scene he seemed to personify that motto with his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Surely that title sounds a touch egotistical, but Eggers holds his own and backs it up with a tale of such candor, wit and humility that you can’t help agree with the given moniker.

Since then, Eggers has gone on to expand his wordy sphere and he now has his own publishing house, McSweeney’s, and been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades. Yet the most interesting turn in his career seems to be his switch from talking about his own life story to detailing the lives of others, with the same skill and grace as before. His fictional works are also quite good, but Eggers is really at his finest when describing the trials and tribulations others have gone through, and that is what he tackles in his newest book, Zeitoun.

Zeitoun is the story of a middle-aged Syrian-born man who stays behind to watch his house and business while his family retreats to safety in the face of the oncoming Hurricane Katrina. When he awakens to the true devastation being caused, Abdulrahman Zeitoun does what many people would not, he jumps in his canoe and begins rowing around his neighborhood helping people out of their homes, locating supplies for some, even feeding the local dogs trapped in their homes with no food or escape. While efforts like these should be commended with medals and keys to various cities, Zeitoun is awarded with an arrest by Federal officers, humiliation, degradation and unwarranted terrorist accusations based on nothing more than his race and the overwhelming chaos of the moment. Zeitoun becomes an unwilling disciple to the doctrine of fear and the corruption of unregulated power.

The first half of the story lulls the reader into a comfortable state of being, where we celebrate the fact our country is a place where an immigrant like Zeitoun, a practicing Muslim, could arrive here, find love and build a successful business in one of our greatest cities, New Orleans. His early tales of the building of his family and work force can only be described as a true American triumph due to his sheer hard work and determination. Yet what follows is a horror story filled with not only the worst traits inside everyday people, but the nearly fatal flaws in our system of government and emergency response. The violations of Zeitoun’s civil rights, among many others, are painted with harsh strokes, dripping with the blood of a city washed backwards in time, to a wild west of roving gangs of looters and trigger-happy deputies, their fingers twitching as much from fear as excitement over their next capture.

The scenes that come alive in this book are ones we believed lost to the annals of history and the atrocities committed on our soil in WWII. Yet the phrase we all know so well, but try so very hard to ignore, rears its head once more: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” [George Santayana, The Life of Reason Vol.1 1905]

What we repeated here as a country was the unleashing of unbridled fear. After 9/11 we let fear of another terrorist attack rule every decision we made and we began a systematic shielding of each and every part of our society against these ghosts. We didn’t look at how far back that fear was pushing our country, how many of our own prized rights and privileges were being stripped away in order to ensure something that could never be proven or guaranteed. Eggers truly breaks it down as he says:

This country was not unique. This country was fallible. Mistakes were being made. He was a mistake. In the grand scheme of the country’s blind, grasping fight against threats seen and unseen, there would be mistakes made. Innocents would be suspected. Innocents would be imprisoned.

We chose to turn a blind eye to the rights of those innocents and many still do to this day. The combination of a nationwide catastrophe, like Katrina, and the well-touted doctrine of fear created the ultimate breeding ground for the travesty that Zeitoun was dragged through. We need to hear these stories and we need to remember these stories so we can protect our children and our fellow citizens from ever becoming one of these stories.

The End of the Page Recommendation: There is a reason why this book is a national bestseller and named one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Huffington Post and many others. If you feel you can stomach the bitter and harsh truth of some of the things that happened outside the reach of the news cameras during Katrina, pick this up.

To those who have read this already, what did you think? Any other favorites from Dave Eggers?

Vantage Point: Clever, but Pointless

See there? Right there! Genius! How could you not have loved me in “Inner Space”?

Every situation, every moment that passes us by, it all is processed in our heads through what only we can see. So what would it be like to look at something from all sides, from all viewpoints. Would we get a better understanding of the situation? Would we be able to make better judgment calls or form more solid opinions? You might think so, but this film goes down that path and in the end really doesn’t make any statement in any direction at all. For all the non-linear switches and revolving storylines, which were mostly incredibly well thought out, the film winds up too clever for its own good. I would love to try and style my review to that of the movie, but in this case, I think it’s better to just start from the beginning and stay moving forward. No backtracking, I promise.

Vantage Point is the feature film directorial debut of Pete Travis. Pete has done some TV movies and mini-series, so he knows his way around a story and a set, but for a first time feature this is a bold move. Many directors have a problem trying to tell one story from beginning to end, but Pete tackles one story from beginning to another beginning and on and on. The trailers for the film are a little misleading though for what you get in the actual theater. You sit back and let yourself ease into the story, but once the climactic event takes place, the footage rewinds and you are whisked back to a half-hour before the event occurs. This time you follow another piece of the puzzle. This is not a bad tactic at all, but the movie does this about six times. I could hear the coughing and sighing begin around take four. They could have let a hint of this type of filmmaking sneak through in the trailers, but they chose to keep it secret, which might have been a mistake. One of the other main issues is the failure for the story to make any sort of point, even after seeing the same 45 minutes over and over again. Barry Levy, also coming to this as his feature film debut as a writer, weaves many different people and perspectives together to form a devious and incredibly specific terrorist plot, but it started to feel like too many pieces were in play without any motive. For those who have seen this, or go to it after this review, please feel free to write to me and tell me what the purpose of the GNN cameraman is. I’d like to know.

Let sidle over the subject of performances. The main star of the film, Dennis Quaid (greatest work to date: Frequency, but he’s in the upcoming G.I.Joe, so this could change soon), plays a shaken up secret service agent who is just coming back on the job after being shot in defense of the President. This detail is brought up again and again to build him up as some type of super agent that will never back down in a time of crisis. All that is fine and dandy because Quaid has a great ability to play the roughneck, dog-with-a-bone, type of men. What they don’t build him up to be is Jason Bourne, which is who he drives like during a car chase in the final act of the film. He goes racing after one of the terrorist group through the packed and crowded streets of Spain, but he handles the traffic, chaos and corners like he was born on the Autobahn. Add to that the car chase lasting nearly ten minutes makes his skills even less believable. Just to add fuel to the fire, the car he drives through this scene takes the title for switching back and forth from damaged to undamaged in between almost every shot (this title used to be famously held by the Porsche in Commando, sorry Arnie, you lose this one). William Hurt (greatest work to date: The Big Chill) joins the cast as President Ashton, who must deal with standing up for his beliefs in a time when everything is moving against them. Hurt’s issue here is mainly playing a role that comes off as too grandiose for the banner waving USA crowd. You almost get the feeling that this is the President we wished we had instead of the one we do, someone who chooses peace and diplomacy over war and power. There were some moments in Hurt’s storyline where it looked like the film was going to show some of the main people inside the President’s inner circle were also part of the plot in order to actually get that war started, but they quickly ended that idea in a series of silenced gunshots. Maybe that was a little too close to the truth for the studios to let through. The rest of the cast, Forest Whitaker (greatest work to date: The Last King of Scotland), Sigourney Weaver (greatest work to date: Alien), and Matthew Fox (greatest work to date: Lost (TV)) all put in their moments, but they don’t stand out from the movie or its structure.

Overall the idea is good, but all movies rest on a point they are trying to make and I felt the point here was to just distract the audience for 80 minutes, which can be good enough sometimes, but not here. But hey, that’s just what I saw from my seat in the second row. Maybe the guy in the ninth row saw a completely different film. Who knows?

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::