News & Views

“They Come Home Different”

A Shepherd Q&A with Fighting Bob Fest speaker Phil Donahue
B Y L I S A K A I S E R

THIS HAS BEEN THE MOST SANITIZED WAR OF MY LIFETIME. LESS THAN 5% OF US HAS SENT A PRIMARY RELATIVE TO THIS WAR, LESS THAN 5% OF US HAS REALLY SACRIFICED FOR THIS WAR. AND THE 5% WHO HAVE SACRIFICED ARE UNSEEN.

Phil Donahue is angry. Sure, Donahue is still the warm, witty and gen erous man who inter viewed thousands of guests as the host of “Donahue,” which revolu tionized TV talk shows by including the audience in each discussion.

But Donahue is angry, too. Angry at the Bush administration’s lie-laden arguments for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Angry at the members of Congress who parroted the administration’s talking points and obedi ently voted for war. Angry at the adminis tration and mainstream news outlets telling liberal critics of those lies to “shut up and sing,” as he puts it. He’s also angry that his short-lived but popular MSNBC talk show was canceled just before the invasion because he allowed too many war critics to voice their opinions.

But mostly Phil Donahue is angry at the consequences of the war, especially the physical and emotional toll it’s taking on the vets and their families. Donahue was so angry he made a documentary film about the struggles of one vet, Tomas Young, who is now paralyzed, thanks to being shot in the spine during his first week in Iraq. Donahue, who co-directed and co-pro duced Body of War with independent film maker Ellen Spiro, will speak at the Sept. 6 Fighting Bob Fest in Baraboo. On Friday, Sept. 5, the film will be screened at the Barrymore Theatre in Madison, to kick off the festival.

Last week, Donahue spoke to the Shepherd about Tomas Young, the difficulties of being a liberal critic of the war, and the corporate media’s coverage of the war. Here are excerpts, but the full interview can be found at www.expressmilwaukee.com.

Shepherd: You didn’t set out to make a film about returned Iraq war vets—you met Tomas Young and decided to document his story. What was it about Tomas’ story that inspired you?

Donahue: The total catastrophe of his injury. … Here’s a 24-year-old male, prime of life, and it is very possible that he will never walk again. And you sit there and you say, “Why him? Why not me? What random twist of fate allows this?” An inno cent kid, signed up, saw the president on the pile of rubble [at the demolished World Trade Center], heard him through the megaphone: “Get the evildoers.” I think it was Sept. 13 he signs up. His is a bright light, this young man. I just felt that the American people should see this. I knew that they weren’t seeing this. This has been the most sanitized war of my lifetime. Less than 5% of us has sent a pri mary relative to this war, less than 5% of us has really sacrificed for this war. And the 5% who have sacrificed are unseen.

What you see in Body of War is a drama that’s taking place in thousands of homes in this country. Literally thousands of homes in this country. Homes occupied by young people who have come home from this war with injuries more heinous than we’ve ever seen in any other war. We have blind kids, twenty-something. Blind! The IED vapor izes your eyeballs. Women have had their faces blown off. As well as their male coun terparts.

We have spinals, paraplegics, quads. I mean, this is awful! And it doesn’t even account for the PTSD, and the head legacies that are going to rattle around this nation for the rest of this century. We have people who are going to come home from three or four deployments in a battlefield zone and, not all of them, but a lot of them, are going to get bit by alcohol, they’re going to beat up their girlfriends.

You can’t do this to anybody, I don’t care how tough he is. They come home different. They come home different from any war, but when they’re deployed three or four times to a battlefield area, they come home significantly altered. And often unstable.

And that is now revealing itself in the stud ies now being made about people coming home from this war.

DONAHUE continued on next page >>