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Based on the National Endowment for the Arts anthology of essays, poems and letters from soldiers, Richard E. Robbins’s Oscar-nominated documentary collects writings from soldiers in Iraq using various filmic techniques from photomontages to animation to recreate them. Voiced by actors, the tales range from the humorous to the heartrending. The film puts a real human touch to the war, which has become either a war of political extremes or sanitized in the mainstream media (which that includes Fox News).

The Iraqi soldiers’ stories are interspersed with thoughts on combat from writers who served in wars from WWII to Vietnam. The stories touch on the absurdity of war. Set to reenactments, the beginning story from Army Sgt. Denis Prior discusses the contradictory feelings of awaiting the war to begin – knowing it’s a terrible idea, but afraid that it might not happen. Army Sgt. Brian Turner and SSGT Edward Gyokeres’s stories provide humorous takes on combat. Turner’s takes viewers through a tour of combat clips, enhanced by graphic notes hidden in the scenes, giving helpful hints for the inspiring soldier if they want to survive. Gyokeres’ is manual to address the terrible boredom and living conditions of the combat zone.

The most fictionalized story is from First Lt. Army Sangjoon Han. A collection of various stories worked together, “Aftermath” takes a RASHOMON approach looking at an incident from the point of view of the soldier angry with an Iraqi for running and forcing him to shot him, and then from the Iraqi’s point of view as he’s angry with himself for getting scared and running. Equal in emotional impact, SSG Jack Lewis’s tale discusses how he found a sad common bond with an Iraqi man whom just wants to die after his son in accidentally killed by American troops. This man quickly emerges as not just another Haji. Ed Hrivnak’s “Medevac Missions” looks at the difficulties of delivering bad news to a wounded soldier. The viewer is told that for every one soldier killed, there are at least 10 wounded. In a touching tribute to a fallen 19-year-old soldier, Lt. Col. Michael Strobl recounts his duty of accompanying the body of Chance Phelps to his hometown.

In more visually experimental segments, Spc. Colby Buzzell’s “Men in Black” is animated in a two-color comic book style. The tale chronicles the stresses soldiers deal with when death can await them around any corner, and they’re forced to make split second decisions that could save their lives or take the life of an innocent person. In a photomontage of the fallen soldiers of Iraq, John McCary’s “To the Fallen” discusses how politics fade away when friends start dying.

The clips of the authors who served in previous wars give the film a universal connection, bringing home the idea of a band of brothers. It is a profound experience that a select portion of the population shares. Tim O’Brien, author of THE THINGS THEY CARRIED, argues that there are some things that one shouldn’t get over, because then the sacrifices would be in vain and the mistakes cannot be mended. Tobias Wolff, author of THIS BOY’S LIFE, makes two powerful statements as well. War will make you a racist. It’s a defense mechanism when killing is part of the job requirements. Additionally, when it comes to the Iraq war specifically, he says a society that cannot even sacrifice the simple burden of knowing what is going on in the war is “a sign of a really decadent civilization.” To paraphrase Staff Sgt. Gyokeres, even the guy at the bottom of the food chain has a story to tell. This film isn’t about left or right, or even right or wrong. This film is about simply listening to the witnesses, so that we don’t “get over” what America has done.

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