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On Sunday night at 8 p.m. on May 21, and a week later on Memorial Day
weekend, HBO presented a documentary about the war in Iraq called
“Baghdad ER.” It is now available on HBO on Demand and will air
regularly in prime time, as it should.
I originally had no intention writing about this film. I have known
Jon Alpert, one of the two directors for more than twenty years. The
other director, Matthew O’Neill, I do not know. The film and HBO were
getting more than enough publicity in print and online. I decided
enough was enough. After seeing the film in the quiet of my living
room, however, I changed my mind and this is why.
Alpert and O’Neill spent two months in Iraq working with the 86th
Combat Support Hospital with the complete cooperation of the U.S.
Army. The film they made is a brilliant and powerful documentary.
Cliché or not, it is an unflinching look at the war rarely seen on TV,
especially these days where there is too little coverage of the war on
TV other than endless talk.
 Importantly, there is no narrator. There is no need for one. The
action in the film speaks for itself, allowing the sequences to move
from one to the next with a descriptive line or two in a black frame
that separates each. With their seamless ability of seeming to be
everywhere, Alpert and O’Neill demonstrate the horror of war and how
it destroys lives, whether through death or maiming so horrible it
defies the imagination. Yet, to their credit, they are never
obtrusive.
The film is strong. Its reality, potent. Blood and severed limbs are
everywhere, so much so that without any effort you can the smell the
blood on the sheets and on the floors. Seeing the hospital staff
cleanse the operating room of blood, gore and severed limbs, before a
new set of wounded arrives, brings home the horror of war better than
a firefight. Even in war, the OR must be pristine before the residue
of violence settles in to become a permanent fixture of the hospital.
The Army has reportedly advised its forces not to view the film
because it may trigger post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. Well it
might. And if it does, it probably means the Department of Defense
recognizes the horror of this unnecessary war. Afraid of PTSD? A
specious argument by the Army to do what? Protect veterans and their
families from the truth of war? Though the military is not willing to
admit it, every soldier in combat and every returned veteran is a
candidate for PTSD. Just as important, seeing the result of war
close-up also puts a lie to those “wonderfully” produced recruiting
commercials that depict army life as the eighth wonder of the world.
 During the war in Vietnam, I was no stranger to military hospitals in
my job as bureau chief for NBC News. In army hospitals in many parts
of the country, I witnessed triage, the emergency room, ER, and the
operating room, the OR. I saw what war did to our soldiers in South
Vietnam, just as Alpert and O’Neill show what the war is doing to our
young in Iraq. Having personally seen more than enough of what we see
in this documentary, it was still a difficult film to watch.
Mercifully, most people do not have my experience. For them, the film
should be required viewing. These are sights rarely seen, and as
horrifying as they are, ones that no one should miss.
During an interlude between treating patients, one dedicated surgeon
says he hates the war, but that he holds this time in his life very
dear. He says he hopes he is making a difference. Despite his unease,
I am sure he knows he is. Then, despite the carnage he sees every day,
he says, “Would I do it again?” He pauses and answers his own
questions. “In a heartbeat.” Is he against the war? I don’t presume to
know his politics, but I think as a physician and humanitarian he is
probably against the killing and maiming that goes with war.
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Jon Alpert |
This brings me to my final point. I am sure many will call this an
anti-war film. By its nature, because it shows the cruelty of war,
that would be a predictable comment. The film does nothing to glorify
the Iraq war. But it makes no difference what Jon Alpert and Mathew
O’Neill, including HBO, think about the war. It does matter that the
public has a chance to see how dirty war really is, to hear dedicated
medical personnel who never give up or give in to the serious wounds
they treat, and who, it seems obvious, know that tomorrow can and
probably will be worse than today. That honesty is all we can ask of
any film whatever the subject, and with Baghdad ER, it is exactly what
we get.
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At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002. |
