Taking The Wraps Off The War

Was it hard to see Young's father remain so staunchly pro-Bush and supportive of the war in the face of his maimed son?
That didn't bother us—what really got to us was being this close to this kind of injury. For four years we've had a front-row seat, and the closer you get to this kind of thing, the more it blows your mind. The American people just don't see this—that's why only 10 percent of us brought the war into the voting booth last week. This may certainly be the worst foreign-policy blunder of my lifetime, and we're not even thinking about it. Tomas and these people are invisible—invisible. I think that has been a huge failure of America's press, but it's not too late. Let's get with it. We should be televising every funeral. There are women who've had their faces blown off, kids who are blinded, paraplegic quads, those with severe head trauma—this is going to rattle around this country for the rest of the century. This could not be worse, and it's going to have a shelf life that will go on and on. These young people with three and four deployments to battle areas are going to be the ones who drink too much and beat up their girlfriends. Not all of them, but some—we have to recognize that there are many people who just will not be able to adapt. This is going to be a huge burden for this country, at a time when we're not meeting the other burdens.

In your film, we see Young's brother deploy to Iraq. How is he doing?
He comes back in the very near future. And no, he's not been injured.

How is Young doing these days?
He's doing very well. He had an episode since the film—a pulmonary embolism—and came out of a coma with some reduced movement in his arms. As you know, he has his arms. Now, he can scratch his nose but he can't hold his silverware. But he's working on that now. His speech is also somewhat impaired now, so he's slurring a bit, but he's working very hard on both these things. I saw him two weeks ago, and I was hugely impressed with his physical and emotional well being.

Will there be another film in your future?
I'd love to do another film, but if I do another film it will be with someone else's money. One film per lifetime is certainly my limit, but it's been a chapter of my life. It's become a matter of the heart for all of us who've worked on this, and we will never forget this experience. All of us have to count our blessings. When you start complaining that the stop light is too long—all right, just sit down and be quiet. The whole time standing there next to his bed, seeing his cheekbones and how thin and weak and sallow and loopy on morphine he was, I'd be thinking, "Why him and not me?"

© 2008