The Ground Truth

It wasn’t so much that this documentary was one-sided, since it’s my side and I’m inclined to see it as the side on which truth lies, but that it wasn’t honest about its one-sidedness. If it had presented itself as the testifying voices of Iraqi Veterans Against the War, it would have been more truthful. But instead it slices and dices testimony to make an uncontested case, following a composite of the soldier’s experience from enlistment enticements to the evasion of VA responsibility for aftercare. Only at the end do you realize that the common bond of all these soldiers is antiwar activism, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that should have been announced from the beginning instead of merely dawning in conclusion. It makes the whole film the equivalent of a campaign commercial, and even if I support the cause, I have to take it with a grain of salt. For me the definitive film about the soldier’s eye view of the war in Iraq remains Operation: Dreamland. (2006, dvd, n.) *5+* (MC-74.)