“Body of War” And for What?

And for What?

BODY OF WAR is a movie everyone should see about something that should never have happened. It is a documentary about what life is like today for a young man who joined the Army after 9/11 and served in Iraq for only five days. Tomas Young’s unit had never been in Iraq before, and on their very first mission Tomas was in a truck and took a shot from above that hit him in the left shoulder and paralyzed him from the chest down. He never fired a bullet, and his war was over.

So, we follow Tomas around now that he is back in the United States, giving talks to various groups, meeting with different people, and just struggling to get around.

In an early scene, Tomas is at Ground Zero in New York City, and he says, “If it weren’t for this, I wouldn’t have joined the Army.” And if he hadn’t have joined the Army, wanting to go fight the terrorists in Afghanistan, he wouldn’t have been shot in Iraq, he wouldn’t have become paralyzed, and he wouldn’t have become dependent on the help from his mother and the wife he married after coming home.

Throughout the movie, we see and hear the roll call in the U.S. Senate as the Senators vote overwhelmingly to give President Bush the powers to go to war, as well as the testimony of various Senators and Congressmen in support of the bill.

One notable exception, however, is that of Senator Robert Byrd, who cautions against rushing into judgment and doing something they will regret.

There are also scenes from the White House Correspondents Dinner at which President Bush makes fun of looking for weapons of mass destruction in the Oval Office and everyone laughing inappropriately at the so-called “joke.”

You cannot watch this movie without crying for what we have done and for what we have allowed to be done.

The final vote in the Senate was 77 to 23, and the movie ends with a meeting between Tomas and Senator Byrd in which Senator Byrd refers to the 23 no-voters as the Immortal 23 and reads their names to Tomas as their votes are shown to the audience. Then Senator Byrd and Tomas congratulate each other for serving their country.

BODY OF WAR leaves everyone with the question, “And for What?”

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”