‘Who Will Stand’: Healing Hidden Wounds

“We thought we knew what this documentary was going to be about,” narrates Phil Valentine. “After all, we watch the news. We knew what was happening. It was going to be about amputee soldiers returning from the war.” As he speaks, his film shows images of young men missing legs and mobile — riding bikes, walking, going somewhere. During these early moments, Who Will Stand seems a straightforward evocation of heroic resolve and energy: these are men, the film suggests, who will “stand,” in various ways, for themselves.

And then the film shifts tone, the upbeat music soundtrack falls out, and Valentine explains that his research led him to another sort of documentary than he had imagined. “We found some pretty disturbing statistics,” he says, regarding the effects of PTSD on returning troops. Who Will Stand keeps mostly focused on veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but refers as well to Vietnam war veterans, whose experiences in this area are less different from their younger counterparts than they should be. All the Marines and soldiers here describe similar difficulties in coming home, including increased divorce, alcoholism, and suicide rates, as well as a lack of support from institutions assigned to look after them, in particular, the VA. The numbers are rising for veterans of the current wars.

Premiering on Memorial Day at 8pm on the Documentary Channel, Who Will Stand makes a point of not talking to certain sorts of subjects (“You won’t see these guys,” narrates Valentine over split screens showing Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, and Barack Obama). Instead, the documentary interviews veterans, their family members, and the professionals who treat them, from the symptoms of PTSD, like memory loss, sleeplessness, and hyper-vigilance, unemployment, and homelessness. “This is their story,” says Valentine.

That said, the documentary makes choices, focusing on male veterans and their wives, rather than female veterans and their partners. it is also structured as a quest for information and understanding, asking why mainstream media don’t cover the troubles faced by today’s returning troops. Valentine and cinematographer Michael Bedik both appear on screen to underscore their own earnest efforts: “I can’t explain the enormity of emotion that stretched along this beach, alongside a place known for such happiness and joy,” Valentine says over a frame filled with crosses and candles, lined up for a Memorial Day ceremony in Santa Monica. “The story we had been asked to tell washed over us like a huge wave.”

That story is neither simple nor unique. The veterans at this first stop include supporters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as protestors. One unnamed man insists, “The United States military throughout its history has freed millions of people throughout the world.” And Marine Sgt. Jason Lemieux, who works with both Iraq Veterans Against the War and IVAW’s Winter Soldier, laments the tendency to “cling to the Sunken Cost fallacy, that because so many lives have been lost, we have to send more lives to get lost.” The result of believing that “we can win with the mere passage of time, just as long as we stay, stay, stay, stay long enough, because we’re America,” obscures the actual and ongoing sacrifices made by troops.

The film deplores this process of obscuring. More more and more veterans are coming home traumatized, owing to advanced technologies like Kevlar vests, improved treatment on the battlefield, and less time given to debriefing, formal and informal (vets return on planes, over a few hours, rather than spending days and weeks on ships as they did in wars before Vietnam). But they are increasingly left to their own resources. Many are asked to “diagnose themselves” by filling out exit questionnaires, or not diagnosed at all, given that the men tend not to admit they need help (this is a military and broader cultural issue more than an individual one: Major Chuck Green reports, “As a warrior, you never tell your commander” you need help). Even if you do seek treatment, it can be alarmingly inadequate, brief consultations followed by a lack of monitoring while taking prescriptions (this practice occurs in theater as well, some interviewees recall, so that troops head back into action even when they’re unfit).

The film submits that the VA focuses on visible efforts (prosthetic limbs make for terrific photos, unlike treatment of psychological issues). A VA insurance benefits manager notes that the VA is “run by civilians who don’t have the veterans’ best interests at heart,” and so tend to ignore or lowball estimates for treating PTSD. Green describes how hard it is to feel overwhelmed, when men are supposed to bear up. “I you can’t live with yourself, you kill yourself,”” he says during a group interview, his fellows nodding. “It’s what I have, so I’m not gonna try to lie to you. I have those thoughts every day.”

Hearing about the effects of such systemic inattention — including depression, aggression, loss of memory, nightmares, spousal and substance abuses — Valentine says, “Wow. Obviously, PTSD can affect many aspects of a soldier’s life.”

Here the film changes focus, from the deleterious effects to efforts to heal. Sgt Rob Portillo describes his own trouble readjusting to life back in the States. “You’re taught to hate,” he says, “You have to hate the person to kill him, and kill, kill, kill, that is your job” in combat. His wife Margaret is angry: “The military doesn’t want to take responsibility for it,” she says, “Because it’s kind of like admitting that they ruined these men.” She remembers Ron’s troubles with therapists who “come and go,” so “he has to explain to them again and again.” Portillo has devised his own therapy, with an aim to help other vets, in Canines for Combat Wounded. (Though the dogs serve as life companions for veterans, the film focuses its attention on their training as attack animals, footage that is exciting but also odd in this context.)

Who Will Stand showcases other non-governmental organizations that help veterans, from Blue Star Mothers to the Wounded Warrior Project. “It’s about being better than you were before,” says triathlete and amputee Kelli Bruno (she helps train veterans, pointing out that because she lost her leg when she was just six months old, she doesn’t suffer from the same torts of trauma as those she mentors). As veterans and their supporters stand for themselves, the film asserts, “They no longer take for granted a day, a gift, or a friend.”