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Fair warning, this is a semi movie review of Stop-Loss. While the movie wasn’t as entertaining as I would have hoped, and included long and dragging scenes, it did however hit the core concept of what the director wanted to convey. That this Iraq war is affecting everyone, including the families, and most especially the veterans, who may or may not get out, but either way, their lives never seem to be the same. And because there is no draft, a stop-loss order is the result.

And stop loss, in short, is the involuntary extension of duty.

Like many moviegoers I did not know what a Stop-Loss order was, but was soon acquainted with how politics could easily rear its ugly head into the lives of many military personnel and their families.

Stop-loss,

was created by the United States Congress after the Vietnam War. It has been used on the legal basis of Title 10, United States Code, Section 12305(a) which states in part: “… the President may suspend any provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to any member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the United States” and Paragraph 9(c) of DD Form 4/1 (The Armed Forces Enlistment Contract) which states: “In the event of war, my enlistment in the Armed Forces continues until six (6) months after the war ends, unless the enlistment is ended sooner by the President of the United States.” Furthermore, every person who enlists in branch of the Armed Forces signs an initial contract with an eight (8) year obligation, regardless of how many years of active duty the person enlists for.

If this isn’t a backdoor draft, it sure as heck comes pretty close to that definition. Politically, a draft will be too dire for politicians to impose. They want Americans to support the war, but imposing such a draft will mean that (1) the military is spread out too thin (2) the politicians and those part of the international effort to impose a coalition of “the willing” are failing miserably (3) they are mismanaging their current resources (4) there are not enough supporters for the war (5) they can’t face the public outcry in case of a draft.

Let’s face it, and I know this personally, the military is trying desperately to recruit, recruit, and recruit. This stop-loss is a means to retain those who wish to get out, but isn’t enough to publicly elicit a massive indignation of the mismanagement of America’s international policy.

While the movie, may not be the best of War Movies, it does portray successfully the situation of military personnel as they grapple with patriotic duties and with personal duties towards their families and themselves. If this movie is seen as “exaggerated” it is only so because many Americans fail to realize, even 5 years into this Iraq War that there are problems, deep and embedded problems in the military that has come to full light because of this war. That the American soldier is honor bound and patriotic enough as it is, but the politicians have successfully taken that trust and trampled on it only to survive politically for their own gain.

This may not be a popular view at some points in our current history, but it is a view that must be portrayed.

It is not exaggerated. It is truth, that is as damning to the current political climate in America, as it is damning to those who support the war. That there is tragedy, and although, there is no mention of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, it is real, and servicemen who have gone to Iraq face this reality. This is why, in this movie, we have a soldier digging a ditch to protect himself, only for the moviegoers to laugh, because he is digging a ditch in front of his own front yard. This is PTSD, it trauma, and it is this trauma that these soldiers may have as their own government tries to utilize a loophole in their contract to send them back to the HELL they have just faced. Stop-loss, could easily have been a movie about PTSD as well.

I am perplexed as well as indignant when I hear critiques of the movie, such as we find at The Atlantic, where the reviewer writes,

Peirce’s film is certainly not animated by disdain for the troops. Rather, she seems to think of her subjects as overgrown children, complicated and tragic, yes, but not ready to withstand the rigors of adult decision-making. It’s easy to imagine that she wants the adolescents in the audience to identify with her characters, and maybe even to think twice before accepting a military recruiter’s pitch. This is a fundamentally protective instinct that is admirable in its own way.

I certainly and categorically disagree. I think the director wanted to portray men, grown men, willing to go to war for their country, only to be dismantled of their honor because of the disease of this war. Men who come back torn of their sense of reality, because they have gone to the extremes of what any experience — to take life, to lose life — and to do it over and over again.

But, as I have told a friend, if it were solely about the subject of the Stop-loss order, then the 1 minute ending would have been enough. But this movie is about the impact, not about the policy. It is about the impact of the war, PTSD, stop-loss, and the chaotic effects of warfare in the lives of families. In this sense, I think it was a success.

Stop Loss Movie Trailer

Note, I’m not sure of the statistics and numbers that were on that screen at the end of the movie, where they give the numbers of stop-loss orders. But here’s the number that I got (among others),

60,000: Number of troops that have been subjected to controversial stop-loss measures–meaning those who have completed service commitments but are forbidden to leave the military until their units return from war. [US News and World Report, 2/25/08]

In the end, they wish to impose stop-loss, then those who support it should stop playing politics, and impose a draft. It’s the same thing, but different politically.

tags: iraq war