[In the form of documentary maker James Gandolfini]
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/opinion/21herbert.html
The New York Times
August 21, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Wars Chilling Reality
By BOB HERBERT
Bryan Anderson, a 25-year-old Army sergeant who was wounded in Iraq,
was explaining, on camera to James Gandolfini, of all people what
happened immediately after a roadside bomb blew up the Humvee that
he was driving.
I was like, Oh, we got hit. We got hit. And then I had blood on my
face and the flies were landing all over my face. So I wiped my face
to get rid of the flies. And that is when I noticed that my
fingertip was gone. So I was like, Oh. O.K.
So that is when I started really assessing myself. I was like, Thats
not bad. And then I turned my hand over, and I noticed that this
chunk of my hand was gone. So I was like, O.K., still not bad. I can
live with that.
And then when I went to wipe the flies on my face with my left hand,
there was nothing there. So I was like, Uh, thats gone. And then I
looked down and I saw that my legs were gone. And then they had kind
of forced my head back down to the ground, hoping that I wouldnt
see.
HBOs contribution to an expanded awareness of the awful realities of
war continues with a new documentary, Alive Day Memories: Home From
Iraq.
Mr. Gandolfini, one of the executive producers of the film, steps
out of his Tony Soprano persona to quietly, even gently, interview
10 soldiers and marines who barely escaped death in combat.
The interviews are powerful, and often chilling. They offer a
portrait of combat and its aftermath that bears no relation to the
sanitized, often upbeat version of war not just in Iraq, but in
general that so often comes from politicians and the news media.
<end excerpt>
Michael