Musafir's Musings

It is true that major media no longer gives as much coverage to the war as it once did, and the American public's attention has moved on to other issues. Decline of casualty rate following the surge is one reason, and then the dismal state of the economy; the domino effect of the sub-prime mortgage scam that went sour on quite a few unscrupulous investment bankers on Wall Street and victimized thousands of home owners -- mostly from low and median income groups; the election campaigns and recent spike in unemployment rate all account for lack of interest in what is happening in Iraq.

Bush's war, however, is very much alive, alive but not well. It continues to take its toll both in lives and dollars. And for the families of soldiers serving in Iraq it is an ever present fear about the safety of their loved ones. Latest figures from icasualties.org show that out of 4020 soldiers who died in the war, 509 (12.7%) were 21 yrs old. It is noteworthy that two of the primary architects of the war had dodged Vietnam.

David Denby of The New Yorker, in his review of "Stop-Loss", the movie by Kimberly Peirce, wrote:

• "This movie may become the central coming-home-from-the-war story of this period, just as “The Best Years of Our Lives,” made in 1946, became central to the period after the Second World War. Like that extraordinary work, “Stop-Loss” is devoted to the men’s hidden wounds—the wired-up tensions and nightmares that lead to drunkenness, fights, smashed love affairs and marriages. Throughout the Second World War, Hollywood made dozens of patriotic combat films, as well as occasional home-front movies (like “Tender Comrade,” with Ginger Rogers) about gallant wives. The Korean War, except for B-movies by Samuel Fuller and Joseph H. Lewis, went undramatized until it was over, and this was largely true of the Vietnam War, too. During all these wars, none of the discomforts of the returning soldier, or the dismay of his friends and family, were shown on the screen."

and:

• The movie, which she developed with the novelist and TV producer Mark Richard, is a complicated love letter to American soldiers—and to young American men in general, whose minds Peirce has tried, in a way, to enter before.

• The soldiers are held together by their love for one another, and that element of Army life may make “Stop-Loss” popular with both liberals and conservatives, but no one, I think, will be happy about what the movie suggests is happening to some of the best young people in the country.

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