This Is Not a War Story (2021) - full transcript
A ragtag group of veterans in New York deal with the aftermath of war by creating unusual art.
♪ When I came back
from Luang Prabang ♪
♪ I didn't have a thing ♪
where my balls used to hang ♪
♪ But I got a wooden medal ♪
and a fine harangue ♪
♪ Now I'm a fucking hero ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ And now the boys all envy me ♪
♪ I fought for
Christian democracy ♪
♪ With nothing but air ♪
where my balls used to be ♪
♪ Now I'm a fucking hero ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ When one and twenty
cannon thunder ♪
♪ Into the bloody
wild blue yonder ♪
♪ For a patriotic
ball-less wonder ♪
♪ Now I'm a fucking hero ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ If you wanna be
a hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ In Luang Prabang
there is a spot ♪
♪ Where the corpses
of your brothers rot ♪
♪ And every corpse
is a patriot ♪
♪ Every corpse is a hero ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ If you wanna be
a hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ If you wanna be
a hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ If you wanna be
a hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
Ladies and Gentlemen...
The next L train...
Hey man, it's Eli.
Uh, look, we... we heard about
Timothy and I'm really sorry.
I know you probably don't want to
hear much of anything right now
We're here for you, man.
We're at the studio,
don't disappear on us.
It means
that poverty is a new slavery.
It means that the new Jim Crow
is an intense form of slavery.
It means that working people
locked into a declining economy
in which wages stagnate,
prices escalate,
and profits go, hit the top,
is also a form of slavery,
metaphorically and
literally speaking.
Now, climate change for me,
is a very serious issue.
I don't think it's going
to be the catalytic issue.
I think it's either going to
be revolutionary transformation
that allows us to
get some control
over banks and corporations,
so we can treat nature as a
"thou" rather than an "it,"
but when I hear a lot of
discourse on climate change,
I hear people
thinking, "Oh my God,
my life is going to
be like a wasteland."
Well, you know, for poor people,
it's a wasteland everyday.
How y'all doing?
I'm Will, and uh...
I want to share a poem
by a good friend of mine,
Jan Barry, he served in Vietnam.
How big would the
War Memorial wall be
if it listed all the names of
soldiers who died of suicide?
Abel Baker Charlie,
Jacob David George, three
tours in Afghanistan,
Jeffrey Lucey.
I dunno how long, looking
out the glass door at this car,
'cause I was convinced
that somebody was coming,
maybe not for me specifically,
but like they, they
picked my house
and they were coming
into my fucking house.
I'm crouched in my kitchen at
two a.m. holding a handgun,
'cause there's a car
parked across the street.
Like what the fuck am I doing?
I wasn't in my body.
I was...
I don't know where I was.
Did they?
Really?
fuck kinda
organization is that?
- Well...
- Yeah.
Okay
What were the numbers?
Operation Truth,
you remember that?
- Well, I'm gonna go back in...
- Alright...
- Need a hand?
- Yeah.
In 1969 and '70, in Okinawa,
There was a, like a
GI, uh, concert hall
that they called themselves
The Filmore West.
Yeah I mean you could get it, but it was real
expensive 'cause it was not home grown...
Like opium, hashish
and all that...
This really wild beach, where you had to
wade across this lagoon, to get to it...
...climb around on these hills,
and there were these caves...
...find these like
porcelain boxes...
on what look like
dragon-claw feet
and when you open it up
inside was a human skeleton...
What's up?
Hey, how's it going?
You're here for the workshop?
- Yeah.
- Right on, my name's Eli.
Isabelle.
Good to meet ya.
- You a vet?
- Yeah.
What branch?
Marines.
Cool, welcome home.
I was in the Army
myself, I was a Medic.
What was your MOS?
- MP.
- All right, that's cool,
even MP's are all right here.
Which state were you in?
Confusion.
The idea is that we
make handmade paper
from military uniforms.
We want vets to
tell their own story
in their own words and images
on paper that they
make themselves.
So, we do letterpress
printing...
If you want to do a book,
maybe, out of your old journals.
I'm working on
stencil over here.
It's a memorial for
a buddy of ours.
These guys are binding
a book right now,
all by hand
and right here, we're just
cutting some rag.
So this is where the whole
thing begins, basically.
Hey guys, the cops are here.
I'm just kidding,
this is Isabelle.
She's a MP for the
Marines, she just got out.
Semper Fi, Baby.
This is uh, this is the gang.
These are our
Vietnam geezers here.
Walt, he's a Vietnam vet
and his son was in
Afghanistan too.
We got Jan over here,
he was in Vietnam.
- Kevin's Iraq vet.
- Hey.
Malloy over here
was in Iraq too.
These guys over here,
this is Will over there,
he was in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nate was in Iraq back
during the invasion,
that's around the
time I was there too.
Um, you got your own uniforms?
I do, I didn't
bring them though.
That's cool, that's what
these are here donated for,
so really it's a pretty
straight forward process.
We cut this stuff up and it
goes in the machine in there,
it beats it to a pulp and then
we form sheets on screens,
press them, dry 'em and then
it's up to you, a blank slate.
So yeah, we give
you the toolbox,
it's up to you to decide
what you want to do with it.
We're just going to help
you along the way, so..
You know, just to kind
of get yourself going,
do something easy
first, you know?
the best come
out of the Survival...
Feels good, huh?
Survival manual...
How to get water
out of a cactus...
I been hooked on paper making
ever since the first
time I heard that sound.
Snare a seagull's
leg or some shit.
Like impossible things,
if you got to jump off a ship,
they advise you to
take your pants off
and put them over your head.
That shit works?
I don't know.
I guess it kinda does!
it's better than nothing, but...
So sometimes
what we'll do
is we'll cut the uniform
off the veteran's body.
So like the first
guy who did it,
he cut it from his own body
and then I had him and another
friend cut it off my body
as this sort of rite of passage.
Okinawa's a
pretty trippy place
even without LSD.
So I remember
going, in high school,
going the guidance
counselors office.
"What do you want to
do after you graduate?"
So I wrote on there,
I wanna go to college
and work with computers
and I spelled college
and computers wrong.
I was never really
good at spelling.
I'm better now, but
the guy pivots in his
chair, within arm's reach
is a whole rack of
recruiting pamphlets.
He grabs the US Army with
the Apache helicopter
right on the top.
Up against the car and I
said, I'm here for the party.
I'm here for the party
because I genuinely thought
that I was at the right house.
I thought I was there
for, for a party
and he said, I
don't know that guy.
They cuffed me, stuffed me,
took me to the county jail.
Wrong fucking house.
Felony criminal trespass,
public intoxication,
do 90 days in jail,
then after that go to the
military, I get a clean record.
My life was going this
direction and very suddenly,
it turned and went
this direction,
like I stepped into an
alternative reality or something.
So how are you
holding up, man?
I'm good man, thanks.
You sleeping?
Yeah, me neither.
So, you've been in touch
with his family yet, or what?
Yeah man, I uh,
called his mom.
I didn't know what the fuck
to say, just hysterical.
There's not much you can say.
I'm here, you know, need
anything, blah, blah, blah.
Ask her for a photo or
uniform, make a memorial.
It seems like every time
I'm finishing up one,
I got to start on another.
Yeah man, just let me
know what you want.
I'm happy to help.
When I was at WestPoint,
they were talking about,
"Well, we'll send them
the big battalions."
That's what they
sent in in 1965.
Battalions? Not divisions?
We didn't even have
helmets that much
in, in that
timeframe in Vietnam.
You know, I never saved
any of my uniforms,
so I don't have one to cut up.
Really?
Yeah, I just wanted
to get out of the military,
Finally got so frustrated,
I went and joined
a peace demonstration in 1967.
Somebody had provided a banner
that said Vietnam
Veterans Against the War,
so they were at the very
beginning of this march
coming out of Central Park
and we'd been told
that you'd get in big trouble
if you wore a uniform
to a political event,
but in January of 68,
enough people were
fed up with the fact
that the war continued
and continued.
Timothy or Tim
either is really fine.
So am I supposed to say
how I feel or something?
Know how the little smileys,
you know, that says
like, "How d'ya feel?"
- Nah...
- Yeah?
- All right?
- Yeah, fair.
Hi, Neil.
Thousands of people,
veterans, staff members,
family members coming
and going to the hospital
and also residents
on the street.
I took out this sign.
This project had been on
my mind for some time.
Alright, Bud, I'll
see ya next week.
Okay, thank you.
Awesome.
Every time I called it
a war Timothy got upset.
Corrects me.
What did he
want you to call it?
An occupation.
Shit, Vietnam was an
occupation too, still a war.
This is different.
Every generation thinks
their war is different.
You know, I'm back
on the meds myself.
I'm sorry to hear that.
I figured I was pretty
well past all this shit.
Then I started seeing you
guys coming home, burned,
amputated limbs, PTSD, this
traumatic brain injury now,
all that shit.
Just like when I came back.
Resurrects a lot of shit.
You've been doing peer
to peer now for what?
Three years? It's inevitable.
You were gonna go through this.
I'm thinking some time off.
Did you speak to his regular
doctor or his VA shrink?
The department's looking
into this kid's case,
but you know what
they're going to say.
They didn't know
about the other meds.
Everyone signs that agreement.
They're not getting meds
from an outside provider.
That's how they
cover their asses.
VA is gonna wash
their hands of it.
I know the system's
fucked in a lot of ways,
but it ain't on them.
And it ain't on you either,
brother, you gotta know that.
Either he had a provider
from outside the system
or he was getting that
shit off the street.
I know what you're
going through.
I mean, shit, if he was lying
about what he was taking,
there's really no way
for anyone to know.
I hate to say it, but
if a kid wants to die,
he's gonna find a way.
Out of nowhere,
4,000 Vets show up.
I mean, you can feel it,
people, Arkansas, California.
- Was cold as shit.
- Cold as shit!
The youth started that fight.
- Hm mm.
- The elders lost it.
'Cause they were telling us,
"Yeah, we can trust the courts."
"This thing it's gonna
be fine, we can go home."
"We don't want
anyone to get hurt."
Meanwhile, the kids
were the radicals.
They were saying, "No, we
don't want this pipeline."
- "Or any pipeline."
- Right, right.
"We don't trust no court. We
don't trust the President.
"We're gonna physically
block this thing."
- Hey, welcome back.
- S'up?
Just getting set up.
Can I help?
Yeah all of this
has to go out.
You bring your uniform?
I did.
Standing Rock was nuts...
Belgium. They
rebuilt it, actually...
When you rebuild
a building like that, though
is it still, like...
it's not the same thing.
Feel like they should
have to give it a different name
If something's destroyed you can't
rename its replacement the same thing
- Well, ya know, the...
- Let the name die with the thing
It didn't die
If it burned
down, it fuckin died
it was resurrected
It's a building, it ain't-
a fucking Messiah.
Well, I'll tell you something,
if there's any possibility...
of a ressurrection,
I would think....
Nah, I was uh... I
deployed three times.
Once in Afghanistan,
twice in Iraq.
Intel.
He's a guy... everybody
should know Smedley Butler
Practically nobody does.
But in the Marine Corps,
he - he is still a hero.
Even Leatherneck magazine
acknowledges what he did,
y'know, warning Congress
about all these capitalists
wanting to overthrow the
Roosevelt administration.
Fucked up
It's okay
Sometimes you'll get really
rough ones like this,
but you know, once you
get the hang of it,
you can make them smooth
and corners sharp.
Can kind of control
how much of that...
super-handmade
paper look you want.
What's
that ARMY stand for?
What's that A R M Y?
Aren't Ready to be Marines Yet?
What is that,
United States Moron Club?
Anyway, tell
the Beglians that.
I'm not saying people
shouldn't rebuild shit
when it's destroyed,
by all means we should,
but I think you should give
it a new name, a new identity
- part of acknowledging...
- Well, I'm gonna write...
that it came to
the end of one life,
- and it's beginning another...
- Wait, no, not in there.
I'm gonna
write them a letter...
C'mon, I'll show you.
A letter, the
Belgians and tell them...
Tell em to
change that fucking name.
Rename it the
Eli Wright Building.
No, no...
cause he has an opinion to
straighten you people out.
Pour it in there.
See, one thing that I
love about this process is,
it's forgiving, you know?
Like if you fuck up,
you can always fix it
and you can always do it over.
I mean, it's not like some
exclusive art in that way.
Anybody could do it.
See, in here, you got...
sand, blood...
Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan,
South Carolina.
Uranium, sweat...
Panama...
You, uh, you seen the paper yet?
This is a dope process, man.
Right?
It's messy as fuck.
Fun to get your hands all...
I had this uh...
"incident" happen.
It wasn't an incident.
But it got me thinking...
it'd be good to be
around people more.
I mean...
Not just any people.
I mean...
I only feel comfortable
around people who want to
kill themselves. So.
Yeah.
Think I hear you on that.
Was as much of
a hero in civilian life
as he was as a general.
Yeah,
sometimes Marines can...
can do something that's
a halfways intelligent.
What?
Wait a minute.
Does that shirt
say "bad brains"?
What's that "bad brains" mean?
it's a Reggae punk
band from the Eighties,
- don't you know that?
- No...
Better.
Reggae punk band
from the Eighties.
♪ Ain't no cure for
the summertime blues ♪
Best version ever.
Well, Motorcycle Irene?
Stark naked,
unsacred Motorcycle Irene.
I'm just gonna
use a book-binding knot
- This is tough.
- Yeah
If you...
are more comfortable doing that.
It doesn't necessarily matter
what type of knot you use.
I use this knot because it's...
how I learned to do it in
medicine, so, it works for this.
If you have a book
binding knot by all means.
I'm pretty sure I
fucked this up pretty bad.
Oh, you didn't snip
your thread, that's why.
That's all...
- Okay, well...
- But don't take it out.
You're fine there,
all you gotta do is...
Just do it there, right there?
Yeah, go ahead.
How're those tweezers
working for you?
- Fuck off!
- Those aren't scissors.
The fuck do they look like?
All right, hang on.
They teach you how
to use a gun as an MP
but you can't even use
a pair of scissors?
Are Marine MPs more
bad-ass than army MPs?
Fuck yeah, of course!
The fuck kinda
question is that? Shit!
That's why they
don't hire Army MPs
to guard the embassies.
Only the Marines
get to do that...
So did you want to
be a cop... as a civilian?
and used the Marines as a
way to get there, or...
No, the only... nah...
What was your thing?
You got a pet peeve?
No, I, I did
something really stupid.
I headbutted my brother and
I knocked him out.
Ho ho! Headbutted?
Damn!
What'd he say to
deserve that one?
Nah, it wasn't like that,
game was already over.
Dude comes up, fucking
shoves me in the back,
while I'm putting on my jacket
like he wants to fucking
say, "Good game, Bro!"
But he's trying to
start something.
So of course I do.
Next thing you know, we...
Fuck it.
Hey, kiddo!
Look it
got you a smartphone.
Alright, get rid of that
piece of shit that you have,
get you on the
family plan, okay?
Anyway, yo, that thing I was
saying yesterday about
starting a dog farm...
that was a dumb fucking idea.
But you know, I got more
where those came from.
You know, maybe you uh...
find something outdoorsy
ya know, that's you.
Oh, before I forget,
uh, about the visit.
Not this week.
Yeah, she said she's,
she's not feeling so good.
Her back, you know?
- That's why I raised concerns
- Okay? Let's get to it.
about the treatment of
prisoners at Guantanamo,
the abuse of prisoners
at Guantanamo,
torture of prisoners
at Guantanamo.
Serving in the US
military as a chaplain
that I had to speak out.
Motherfuckers think
you owe them something
that the greatest casualty
really is,
being left behind,
left behind.
Timothy, lemme
ask you something.
You been out a few
years... does it get any better?
I don't know.
I hate the word healing.
It's not some fucking
point of arrival.
It's just...
something you're doing...
all the time.
I wanna...
Time to kill though?
- Yeah.
- What do you think?
We can drive this guy in a
circle for a fucking hour.
What about you, Isabelle?
You got something you're
gonna read at the gallery?
Yeah, I got one, I mean,
it's not finished, it's just,
I've been kind of
scratching it out.
It's about...
a detainee.
We covered their
eyes with sandbags,
deprived their will
of singing praise.
Nine men kneeling.
None of them cried out.
Like secret police
snaking the night,
we slipped into their bedrooms.
We zip-tied their wrists,
tight, blood droplets,
ink on their orange jumpers.
We tried to snatch
their dignity,
spread fear by word of mouth.
We learned it don't work
like that, who knew?
A cornered human won't eat
from your hand, who knew?
We covered their
eyes with sandbags
deprived their will
of simple purpose.
We got the right guy.
LT says again and
again, again and again,
echoing off into nothing.
Even then I knew, even then
I felt the black hole open.
I'll try harder in another life.
I won't pretend to be a man,
born to kill.
Now their ghosts
wander my thoughts.
They're somewhere else already.
And I am here.
Listen.
What haunts me are not
their curses, but this:
the man who speaks
perfect English,
whose name is not
ISN154234, but Ahmed.
He's a fruit seller.
Father of three.
He passes me a paper flower,
says he forgives me
for I know not what I do.
See what the gallery
crowd makes of that.
That's a gut punch
they're gonna need to hear.
What are
you gonna read, Eli?
I'm not sure yet I've
been working on this one.
This is all the things I wish
I would have figured out.
I never knew what to say.
Never knew how to cut through
all the contradictions
and confusion.
It's like dancing on landmines
and swimming in sandstorms
while marching into a war
you didn't get to vote for,
with a rifle slung
over one shoulder
and a medical aid
bag over the other.
It's doing everything you
can to save a man's life
who just did everything
he could to end yours.
It's seeing medics
engaged in torture
and infantrymen
engaged in medicine.
It's feeling deaf from the
sound of a pounding heart
while praying for a pulse
and preaching to the choir
about salvation.
It's choking on the smoke
of everything you
used to believe in,
after you burned it
all to the ground,
it's building bridges
then putting up barriers
so nobody can cross them.
It's like locking all the
doors everywhere around you.
Then scattering the
keys in obvious places,
hoping nobody will find them.
It's like coming back,
feeling like a stranger
then running away to
feel at home again,
it's being surrounded
by everyone you love
and feeling suffocated
at the exact same time.
Like writing speeches when
you feel completely speechless
and speaking out while
you're being strangled,
it's ducking for
cover in the sunshine
and searching for a ray
of light in the shadows.
It's drinking away the night
just to sleep away the day.
It's chain smoking
cigarettes under stress
just to catch your breath.
It's your worst vice
saving your fucking life.
It's why I've taken
to wearing my heart
on my sleeve nowadays to escape
the prison of my rib cage
because I'm sick of being
trapped in this past life.
How big is this
gallery? How much wall space?
It's a decent
size gallery space,
we got at more than
a few hours, to...
We're doing
poetry first, or...?
Yeah, like let people
come in, just see the artwork,
check it out for a while.
Right, don't
want to scare 'em away.
♪ There is power,
there is power ♪
♪ In a band of working folks ♪
♪ When we stand, hand in hand ♪
♪ That's a power,
that's a power ♪
♪ That must rule in every land ♪
♪ One Industrial Union Grand. ♪
♪ Would you have freedom ♪
from wage slavery ♪
♪ Then come join the Grand... ♪
♪ Industrial Grand ♪
Why does it keep doing that?
Because...
You suck at inking.
♪ There is power,
there is power ♪
♪ In the hands of
working folks ♪
♪ When we stand, hand in hand ♪
Well, I don't got
it all over my face.
♪ Power that must
rule in every land ♪
♪ One Industrial Union Grand ♪
Looks like you gave
me a black eye over here.
Alright, let's do
this for real now.
- Hold on to that.
- I got this.
Oh, you got this.
I bet you had to say that
all the time in Iraq.
My CO even said he'd put
that on my grave at Arlington
if I died out there.
No more room at Arlington.
Well, we gotta come up with,
what's the new
Memorial gonna be?
if can't keep putting
headstones down.
Just get a big screen.
Jumbo-tron.
Flash all the faces and names.
We are guys who like to drink!
Well. Off-hours, anyway.
Maybe we could
have a system like,
make labels, or something.
Yeah, we used to have
something like that.
I don't know what
happened to it,
Fuck labels, man!
I been laying on my bed...
and I'm just awake,
just always fucking awake.
Lately I can't stop
thinking about how
my mother,
before I deployed,
she was talking about how...
what's a woman doing
in a war
what's a woman
doing in a uniform
What's a woman doing, trying to
act like... a man or something.
And she basically said
to me,
"If you go there,
I don't want to know
nothing about you."
"You're not mine anymore."
I don't know if she meant
that or what, but anyway,
that's what the fuck I've
been thinking about at night.
I do, uh, peer
to peer counseling.
And one of the guys that...
he's the youngest guy I was...
And he... a month ago,
he killed himself.
You want to think that like...
you can know it's gonna happen.
Right?
You can feel it, you
can do something.
What was his name?
Timothy.
You remember how
they used to fire
off guns at weddings?
Full auto, 30 round bursts.
Must go through
a dozen magazines
every time someone gets married.
In the beginning when
we first got in country,
we'd hear shots off
in the distance,
four or five miles away.
And we'd see the tracers
flying up through the air.
We would go tearing
down the road
in our gun trucks,
looking for a fight.
But there was nothing.
No firefight, no insurgents.
Just, just a couple of
people getting married.
Of course. After, after a
while we figured it out,
we'd hear the gunfire
at the certain hour
and look at our
watches, figure out
what day of the week it was,
nod back and forth and say,
"Yup, just another
wedding." Right?
But I don't think we ever
really did figure it out.
What was
there to figure out?
that it was...
just a couple of people
getting married.
Timothy, let me
ask you something.
Why do you think they
turned down your claim?
I really don't know.
Look,
to be approved by the
VA for post-traumatic stress.
You got to demonstrate
some traumatic experience.
Life-threatening situation,
something along those lines.
- See what I'm saying?
- Yeah.
When I looked at
the VA's decision,
it says you didn't have
that kind of experience.
I told them my story.
They just didn't get it.
Yeah, well.
That happens.
You think you could
tell me your story?
Yeah.
Yeah, of course.
Eli, the labels
go on lower right?
Yeah.
He's gonna come along and
move 'em all, anyway...
All the artwork
you see in this gallery
was handmade from
American military uniforms.
We take the uniforms, we
cut them into small pieces
- and we put them...
- We were involved in
Interrogation processes...
Sure, US put him in
there in the first place.
As a medic they want you to
monitor and - and -
- throw acid on
LaVena Johnson's genitals
whether they're able to
endure further interrogation
So, at this point, this dude had
been in there for three days
It's been a disaster!
Johnny was involved
in multiple situations
Where they kept calling
him back to take care of...
- all of these prisoners
- Peace is the only...
- real war memorial.
- interrogation processes that...
included torture.
Coming back from Iraq,
Johnny killed himself.
They give you a free
hall if someone dies.
A lot of the artists
are on the premises now
All outta wine,
I'll go get some.
Nah, it's cool, I'll get it.
It is a way to kind
of tell their stories,
since they can't.
Thank you for your service!
You heading out?
Yeah, I was gonna
get some smokes.
Man, I love Eli's piece with
the dude with a skeleton hand
and the phone? That
shit's bananas.
Ah yeah, super dope piece.
Barbed wire?
I'm gonna do something with
barbed wire, I got... an idea.
Thought you quit?
I did. But.
I don't know, cigarettes
are my friend right now
you know?
Sometimes, you know, "cause
it kills you!" is just not
a fucking 'nough, you know?
Yeah, I try and
just think of it
like this giant
corporation that could
give a fuck whether
I die or live, so...
I don't want to be run by that.
Don't wanna be dependent,
fuck that.
You talk with a kind
of a lilty, like, lispy thing.
Where are you from anyway?
Baton Rouge.
I don't think you mean lisp.
And all those people in there?
It's great that they
come out, you know, but...
you can't, like, have
the conversation.
You can't really have it.
No one wants to talk
about dying, yeah.
There's never any
context for it, you know,
we don't make space for
it, ever. We just...
But then how do you...?
Well, yeah, I mean, how
do you prevent something
that you can't fucking
talk about ever, right?
I had, uh, I had a friend
from New Orleans once,
he was kind of a drug dealer,
but he was, he was a cool guy.
It's right here.
I'll wait here.
Yo, what are you doin'?
I'm okay.
I'm just, this fucking
thing just keeps
correcting me all
the fucking time.
I'm fine.
I'm good.
Hey, maybe you should
just breathe, you know,
take a breath?
I'm okay.
I had a flip phone, man.
It like fucking creaked
when you opened it,
it went
and it worked fine.
It fucking was fine. It
never told me what to do.
You know?
Are we gonna stand here...
and breathe?
And you're gonna tell me
that I'm not a bad person
and that I deserve to be okay.
Right?
You're not a bad person.
How do you know?
Look, let me bring these in
and I'll like... come back down.
Okay?
Ya know I don't really know
what you're doing over there
at that uh - that paper thing.
But I was trying to
tell Mom about it?
I don't know how she's gonna be.
I told her that you
wanted to see her,
but she still got
that pain in her back.
And I don't know, it's a...
Hey, how's that, uh,
phone working out?
Cha cha cha.
What?
I've got Izze
outside, she wants to say hi,
you know, she came over,
she's doing better...
What's different,
with her? What's different?
It's a good thing.
You know, she she's got her
whole life sorta worked out
- Vets, military...
- Ugh, God!
No, no it's good.
No, it's it's a good
thing, it's good.
Let her dedicate herself.
She came all the way out here.
Do it for me please. Would
you just go talk to her?
I dragged her all
the way out here.
I'm - I'm too busy today...
you're enough, believe me...
You're enough, you fill
my heart, it's all I need ok...
She's standin
out there, just...
Sorry, kiddo she doesn't
want to see you right now.
Next time, okay?
Well
we have to create, in essence,
walled communities, where
we nurture and protect
those values, that
the wider society
are attempting to destroy.
As much as possible we have to
create parallel institutions
to sustain ourselves
and empower ourselves.
And all of that will
be done locally.
Because when collapse comes,
we'll have to take
care of ourselves.
That's why, you know,
food, local food markets,
sustainable agriculture,
sustainable energy.
You know, all of this becomes,
in moments of distress,
these become political acts.
How you doing with this?
You doing all right?
You wanna hand with this?
Gimme a sleeve,
I'll help you out.
Yeah,
pass me some, too.
What's the story
with this uniform?
What was the last
time you wore it?
It was checkpoint.
in Youssoufia.
I was out there so fucking
long, I don't even know.
Days, nights, weeks,
just out there in the heat,
staring down a highway.
A hundred hours of heat
goes by with nothing.
And then a car comes
out of nowhere.
our CO told us there's
only one way to tell,
the good guys from the bad guys.
The bad guys don't stop.
We'd fire, and we'd
walk up to the vehicle,
and almost every single time,
there was nothing, there
were no explosives.
There were no weapons.
And we kept trying
to figure it out
what the fuck was going on?
Why don't they fucking stop?
I know in our AO,
we covered everything
between Ramadi and Fallujah,
almost to Abu Ghraib,
we were over there
when the photos got leaked,
all of a sudden word's
out on the street,
every Iraqi knows that we're
torturing the shit out of them.
I don't blame them for not
stopping at the checkpoint.
They thought that
we might arrest them
and send them to Abu Ghraib too.
We never never get the story
from the Iraqi's perspective.
Some foreign military
was on my street?
You know how that would go,
here in the US.
Red Dawn in every town.
Red Dawn in every town.
Guilt and shame...
are pretty fucking heavy
to carry with you.
World War II vets didn't
come back and kill themselves
in these kinds of
numbers, right?
They had a clear mission.
They knew who they
were fighting.
They believed in their purpose.
It didn't take me
very long to realize
that there was nothing
there for me to believe in.
In this bullshit
war, who's proud?
I'm proud I survived.
Yeah, proud of doing this.
Take a lot of pride in how
many uniforms I've cut up.
Wonder what kind of uniforms
will be cutting up in 10 years?
You know, what color
are those going to be?
Spacesuits.
Spacesuits.
Spaceforce!
Tinfoil and goddamn nylon.
You guys are startin to sound
like a couple of Commies over here
I don't give a fuck, I'll say it
We'll be up there fighting
space ISIS, in orbit!
Space ISIS, there you go.
Coming home from a
war that you don't feel
morally justified
being a part of...
is not easy to live with.
Especially if you drank the
Kool-Aid all along... then have
to wake up to that one day
and realize that instead of
being one of the Jedi, we
were the Storm Troopers.
Find out that my bags
are lost on the airline
and all I got's my
Black Sabbath t-shirt.
So next morning I
show up to formation.
Sergeant comes out and he goes,
"What the fuck are you doing?"
I don't have my uniforms.
He said, all right
Ozzy, just get down
and start pushing.
Ozzy...
Moment of truth.
Hey, have you guys seen
Will in the past couple weeks?
Nah, not really.
It's been a while.
Think he went upstate?
To his dad's place?
Yeah, probably hiding out in
the bunker for a little bit.
I could use some time
chilling in the bunker,
out of the city.
It's a nice spot, too.
You been up there yet?
No, it's near where my
parents are from though.
I know the town.
Will, what's up?
It's Nate.
I don't know if you got
my last message, but...
just calling to see
how you're doing.
It's been busy, we
made a hell of a mess.
So maybe it's good you're
gone, but I don't know.
Calling to see how you're doing.
Yeah, man. Hope you're well.
Hit us up,. Peace.
Get out of the way!
Yo.
Get out of the way!
Hey kiddo!
What you doing out
this late, huh?
Whoa, whoa!
Hey look, I got her, Nick
I got the Marine
C'mon, try and get out.
Come on.
Come on.
Is that the best you got?
I'm barely even holding on.
Come on soldier!
Come on.
Why you go so easy on me?
Yo, we're heading to Claude's
if you wanna come.
No?
All right.
Buddy, move back.
Hey.
I am... sorry.
I'm sorry.
You okay?
Me?
I'm, yeah, are you okay?
I almost got fucking
sideswiped by this pickup truck
coming up here.
Fucking Confederate
flag hanging.
What's that even mean up here?
Upstate New York, fucking dodo.
Right?
Why didn't you
like call me, or...?
I just, I just needed to get
the hell out of the city and,
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to scare you.
Who has a Confederate
flag up here, man?
What does that mean
except "I am a racist"
"I am a racist" right?
Look...
Look uh... I got
something for you.
On the bus coming
here all frustrated
I wrote some shit down...
on the back of this thing here.
Should I read it?
Yeah, sure.
Read it.
Uh...
We don't want to fuck.
We don't want to love.
We don't want to feel anything.
We just want to know
what it feels like.
We're like those chickens
with their heads blown off.
We know...
Whatever, it keeps going.
It's like a poem.
I was using the royal we.
I can just go.
This is fucking nuts,
I'm a fucking nut.
No, no, hey!
It's okay.
Hey.
It's okay.
I'm sorry.
Don't be sorry.
Does this make me like
a psycho or something?
So what was up
with those chickens?
I was voluntold.
This is where you live?
I don't have to come in.
I just wanted to see...
that you're okay.
How do I seem?
Which one of those
clowns gave you my address?
Everyone's Google-able.
They said Danby, so I just...
It's furniture.
You hungry or thirsty?
I got my walnuts.
I always carrying
walnuts and almonds
in case there's ever a
total fucking crisis.
I'm good.
Okay.
Well I'm having something.
I got this tea someone
gave me, supposed to be dope.
Calming type shit.
Valerian root and Tulsi.
I made all these fucking
notes... for being here.
This looks kinda
like a Granny place.
Yeah, I guess.
My, uh...
pops found this place
in the seventies
and then my mama got it
in the divorce. Then my Auntie,
She was here for a while,
but she just moved out.
It's paid for, taxes aren't
bad, so we're keeping it.
The quiet is hurting my ears.
Tulsi...
Tastes like dirt.
Those your notes?
These are directions to you.
Fuck GPS, I don't
depend on that shit.
So this is where you were
This is where you walked
And this is where we are?
Yeah.
All right, well you can help
me build this bed frame.
I was pretty fucking
hammered when I sawed most
of that shit up, so there's a
good chance it'll be just a bunch
of random ass fucking pieces,
and I be sleeping
on the floor again.
Let's build a shed by mistake.
I could live in a
shed if I had to,
I could survive in small spaces.
With your walnuts?
Here, wanna play some music?
There's a hookup
right over there.
Cool, give you that thing.
♪ This is how it
feels to be alone ♪
♪ This is how it
feels to be alone ♪
♪ This is all that
we can call our own ♪
Can you hand me that hammer?
♪ Dust, flesh and bone ♪
You making plans for this thing?
No, that's just something
my dad... before he split,
he was always saying - "check if
something's a piece of shit
or not, feel the weight of it"
Cause if it ain't got weight,
...it's worthless.
Uh, sorry, this shit
is putting me to sleep.
And I don't sleep either.
Will...?
Yeah?
Nothing.
it's awesome you have
a place to hide out.
Like anything could
happen here, right?
Wish I could fucking sleep.
I don't even know
what month it is.
I'm okay.
You don't have to be.
You want me to sleep here?
I would love it
if you slept here.
Stay
I just wanted to see what
was going on out here, man.
You want some
breakfast before you go?
Yeah, I was gonna go...
buy a bunch of food
and I didn't wanna
just take your truck.
I mean, you might wonder
what the hell, right?
And then I didn't know where to
fucking go, because of my phone.
It's good,
you know?
You're a good egg.
Yeah, so are you.
Good egg.
Sleep is so fucking important!
I gotta write that down.
Hey, I just didn't
want you thinking
I came up here for
some sketchy reasons.
I just wanted to see...
that you're okay.
So that's why I'm...
It's okay.
It's okay that you're here.
Okay.
Alright.
- Okay.
- Okay.
- Cool.
- Cool.
Okay.
Good.
All right.
I can do better.
Yeah that was the one.
Okay.
Ow!
All right, I know
what we gotta do.
FUCK!!!
That a fuckin
horse? What is that?
Fuckin demons everywhere.
There's this homeless couple on
my block... I always see them,
just sitting there.
I just want to sit down,
I just want to do nothing.
I'm wanna tell them:
I know, I get it,
I'm there! When you can't -
move - one - more...
But I can't tell 'em.
My throat doesn't work.
Someone...
someone said to me,
just make sounds,
just to keep
on making sounds.
There's so much
and I can't say it.
I have threshold, man.
I have a threshold.
That's all I'm saying.
What's your threshold?
Timothy,
Last time we talked together,
told me about this woman
in a hardware store...
apron... selling him something,
who...
thanked him for his service.
How he doesn't blame her, but...
he's so fucking confused.
Are you thanking me for
killing people in Sadr City
who were just -
driving down the road?
Or how about for ripping a
man in Samarra away
from his family?
humiliating him,
detaining him,
starving him,
torturing him,
thousands and thousands of him?
Are you thanking me
for blowing up a school
or for blowing up
a hospital?
Are you thanking me for
slaughtering a family in Mahmudiya?
Maybe you're thanking me
for collateral murder.
For SOP 360 rotational
fire on an entire village
in response to an IED.
Or you feel some gratitude
that we protected the interests
of Exxon - and laid down
our lives for Halliburton or
quadrupled profits for Raytheon.
Could you be thanking me for
Abu Ghraib?
or just for taking the pictures?
No... you're thanking
me for the kill count.
200,000 dead civilians.
Or is it "thank you
for the drone strikes"
that destroyed Mosul, Ramadi,
Aleppo, Baghdad, Rakka...
Thank you for MST?
For burn pits?
Maybe I should thank you for standing
by while it was all happening.
I mean, I know you're not
thanking me for being a hero.
I was a pawn.
Anyway.
That's what I would've said.
I would never say all that.
That's what his death said.
A final fuck you.
All of them, just sitting there.
They don't even know
they're watching him die.
It's just the proportions
are off, you know?
Like why am I carrying
all this shit?
You'll never see a recruiter
in the Upper West Side.
Fuck it.
Three cheers for
the American dream.
The whole goddamn
world's nightmare, but...
our dream.
What?
What the fuck man?
Nothing, I'm just
fucking with you.
I just wanted to do one of
those war movie moments,
you know, where the
veterans like, oh fuck,
I'm going back there, and then
he like freaks the fuck out.
Some dude army crawling
at his kid's birthday
when a balloon pops.
Incoming!
I hate those fucking movies.
Yep.
Fuck American Sniper.
Fuck Hurt Locker.
Fuck Zero Dark Thirty.
Especially fuck
Saving Private Ryan.
Fuckin ra ra military bullshit.
Good War bullshit.
Like there can be a good one.
Fuck that.
Yo check this out.
This is the outer material
for a sleeping bag.
Doesn't have any date on it,
but I think it's like - Fifties?
maybe even Forties?
It was the rain cover.
Keeps everything out.
This would make some
awesome paper, but...
It's also pretty fucking
awesome as it is, right?
I don't know what to do with it.
What's up?
We gonna have a staring contest?
What is it?
Sorry, I'm sorry I
can't... fucking talk...
Stop saying you're
fucking sorry, Jesus!
Come on, what is it?
Just... talk.
You're not mad?
Does it look
like a mad at you?
You're all here and
then you disappear,
you just left me there, man!
I left because of my own shit.
I know.
I don't know what I
told you about him...
Yeah, you... you told me.
Okay.
I don't always remember.
You know what
you're doing, man.
You know how to be with people.
You know how to be alone.
You have it, I mean, I
want to know how you...
You make it look easy,
man, just being here!
Nothing about
this is easy, okay.
I don't know what you're seeing.
I don't have this down
to some kind of fucking science.
All right, I'm
making it up as I go.
I'm just trying everything I
can think of from one moment to
the next that doesn't
hurt anyone or hurt myself or,
land me in some fucking abyss
where I just hate myself
to fucking death, so.
You know how to live.
No. I really don't.
That's what I'm doing, man.
I keep... It's like
sick, it's like,
I keep trying to fucking find
someone and grab them and be like,
okay, show me how
to fucking live!
Okay.
I'm catching on, all right.
This body, this being - mine.
Responsibility, mine!
Right?
Yeah, pretty much.
Fuck.
I wanna tear my fucking
skin off, man!
I fucking hate myself so much.
Fucking die, I hate
you, fucking die.
I'm here.
I feel a lot for you.
That's okay, isn't it?
I don't know.
What?
Maybe I came here to hurt you.
Everything hurts me.
There's nothing you
can do about it.
I don't want to be bitter.
I don't want to live that way.
That's what you know how to do.
I could barely walk across
those things with my boots on.
Do you ever take
those boots off?
Yeah.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I take a shower sometimes.
Yeah right.
Once a week at least.
That's very
attractive, that's dope.
I'm going to triple these up.
These are gonna be
strong motherfuckers.
All right?
I mean, I think double
is fine, but you know,
do you.
You're just putting
the - the birthday?
You're not putting the...?
Nah.
It's cool.
This is...
You know...
Remember life.
Woods are like
outer space to me, man.
Should I read it?
Yeah.
Marine cammies will be your
flesh, will be your pride.
My DI told me.
Too baggy, too
long, don't matter.
You'll fill them,
you'll blend in.
Learn to kill silently.
Learn to kill screaming.
Learn to take more
and more and more.
Remove your uniform.
It's been lying.
Remove it, cut it to pieces.
It's a lie, your
performance, your pride.
What tells me to kill,
who tells me to kill.
Hear the whispers
grow to shouting,
shouting from inside,
from that place begging no more,
shouting no more,
screaming no more.
Shout what you already
know, what your new tribe
has come to know.
The world you once loved has
brought you to this place.
The world you once loved
never was, never will be.
Do you need something?
Just tell your
brother to come over.
I have to call Herbert
again about the sink.
Every fucking day with this guy.
At least your brother dropped
that what's her name, huh?
Did he?
You would know.
He's stealing my Tramadol.
Either that or I'm
going fucking nuts.
the right to
keep and bear a gun...
You have no idea what
it's like....
Oh, that's your
father, always saying
"you have no idea what it's like
You have no idea what it's like"
You wouldn't remember.
You were too young.
I have an idea of
what it's like.
we used to have the ten
commandments posted in our school rooms...
our students would see what God
almighty has said, thou shalt not murder...
You see this?
You see this on my skin?
I can't stop taking this shit.
Look at me.
You have no idea...
The people I work with...
they think I'm contagious.
And that nigger downstairs
keeps staring at me.
He's nice.
He smiles.
But why is he standing there?
There's other places.
I didn't sleep again last night.
Just...
Just tell your
brother to come over!
I bought a stool last
summer... for my birthday
and uh...
I bought a notebook, also...
And I bought a round trip bus ticket
to the Port Authority bus terminal.
I walked to the Veterans
Administration hospital.
The disability I was claiming
was post traumatic
stress disorder.
I was interviewed by a Veterans
Administration psychiatrist.
"Do you know that most Vietnam
veterans with your diagnosis
killed themselves
a long time ago?"
At that time, 1970, 71... I was
experiencing brutal nightmares
every night,
night after night,
week after week,
I would wake up screaming,
fighting demons and ghosts.
And that psychiatrist told me
it was only going to get worse.
At that time... I was
having terrible depressions.
In hindsight, I would say...
I was close to being catatonic.
It took everything I had,
to put my feet over the edge
of the bed in the morning
and to stand up like a man.
And that psychiatrist told me
it was only going to get worse.
Never better.
One of the first lessons
I had to learn as a medic
was that in order
to treat the wound,
first we have to expose it.
That body armer that
used to protect you,
that camouflage that was
supposed to hide you.
Now it's just
getting in the way.
At that time...
the single biggest thing
in my mind was suicide.
It was not where,
it was not how,
it was only when.
Tonight. Tomorrow.
Just when.
I could not cross
a railroad track
without thinking of stopping
and putting my head on the rail.
I could not cross a high bridge
I probably spent 1000 hours on
the George Washington bridge,
pacing back and forth.
And that psychiatrist told me
it was only going to get worse,
never better.
So now. About 44 years later.
About 44 years later.
Another psychiatrist tells me
do you know that most Vietnam
veterans with your diagnosis
killed themselves
a long time ago?
As I thought of him, a
little poem came to my mind.
You called me monster.
You cornered me and trapped me.
You forced me to chew my leg
off... and to hobble
from one suicidal
day to the next.
It don't mean nothing.
...that's great, you
wanna bring the troops home...
that's the campaign
you're runnin on?
Cool, we got a plan
to help you with that,
because we're the troops who've
been there, and done that....
And the cops, you know,
it's the middle of summer,
the cops are in
full battle rattle,
much fancier gear than we had,
in Iraq.
And they were hot as shit.
You could tell they
were miserable,
sweating.
And so we were talking directly
to the cops - tellin 'em, look
we know what y'all
are dealing with.
We been out there in the
heat and all this gear too,
it sucks, doesn't it?
You should just go home, cause...
you don't really need to be here
doing this shit with us.
Anyway, a couple of them
ended up walking off the line.
And... whole front rank of vets,
all in dress uniform,
carrying flags.
They stepped off and said,
I'm not going to like,
I'm not going to go beat a bunch
of fucking veterans carrying flags.
They weren't going to do it.
We kept telling them... we're going
to advance, we're going to advance.
And we kept advancing slowly.
Yeah, but we kept
saying we're unarmed
and we're here to
make a statement.
Hundreds of us there.
So after
the long standoff,
they did end up
letting two of them in.
And they presented it and his
military affairs guy was like
Hey, this is a solid plan.
We want to talk to you
guys further about this.
Let's implement this
into our policy.
So. We thought everything's
good, the cops called it off.
Everybody was cheering, hugging.
And then we packed up
and went to the RNC
to try to do the same thing,
not nearly as successful there.
And you know the rest of the
story from there, you know?
Obama gets elected
the left goes to sleep
the war continues on
and here we are.
...go up on the
left just a touch...?
from Luang Prabang ♪
♪ I didn't have a thing ♪
where my balls used to hang ♪
♪ But I got a wooden medal ♪
and a fine harangue ♪
♪ Now I'm a fucking hero ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ And now the boys all envy me ♪
♪ I fought for
Christian democracy ♪
♪ With nothing but air ♪
where my balls used to be ♪
♪ Now I'm a fucking hero ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ When one and twenty
cannon thunder ♪
♪ Into the bloody
wild blue yonder ♪
♪ For a patriotic
ball-less wonder ♪
♪ Now I'm a fucking hero ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ If you wanna be
a hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
♪ In Luang Prabang
there is a spot ♪
♪ Where the corpses
of your brothers rot ♪
♪ And every corpse
is a patriot ♪
♪ Every corpse is a hero ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ If you wanna be
a hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ If you wanna be
a hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ If you wanna be
a hero, follow me ♪
♪ Mourn your dead
land of the free ♪
♪ You wanna be a
hero, follow me ♪
Ladies and Gentlemen...
The next L train...
Hey man, it's Eli.
Uh, look, we... we heard about
Timothy and I'm really sorry.
I know you probably don't want to
hear much of anything right now
We're here for you, man.
We're at the studio,
don't disappear on us.
It means
that poverty is a new slavery.
It means that the new Jim Crow
is an intense form of slavery.
It means that working people
locked into a declining economy
in which wages stagnate,
prices escalate,
and profits go, hit the top,
is also a form of slavery,
metaphorically and
literally speaking.
Now, climate change for me,
is a very serious issue.
I don't think it's going
to be the catalytic issue.
I think it's either going to
be revolutionary transformation
that allows us to
get some control
over banks and corporations,
so we can treat nature as a
"thou" rather than an "it,"
but when I hear a lot of
discourse on climate change,
I hear people
thinking, "Oh my God,
my life is going to
be like a wasteland."
Well, you know, for poor people,
it's a wasteland everyday.
How y'all doing?
I'm Will, and uh...
I want to share a poem
by a good friend of mine,
Jan Barry, he served in Vietnam.
How big would the
War Memorial wall be
if it listed all the names of
soldiers who died of suicide?
Abel Baker Charlie,
Jacob David George, three
tours in Afghanistan,
Jeffrey Lucey.
I dunno how long, looking
out the glass door at this car,
'cause I was convinced
that somebody was coming,
maybe not for me specifically,
but like they, they
picked my house
and they were coming
into my fucking house.
I'm crouched in my kitchen at
two a.m. holding a handgun,
'cause there's a car
parked across the street.
Like what the fuck am I doing?
I wasn't in my body.
I was...
I don't know where I was.
Did they?
Really?
fuck kinda
organization is that?
- Well...
- Yeah.
Okay
What were the numbers?
Operation Truth,
you remember that?
- Well, I'm gonna go back in...
- Alright...
- Need a hand?
- Yeah.
In 1969 and '70, in Okinawa,
There was a, like a
GI, uh, concert hall
that they called themselves
The Filmore West.
Yeah I mean you could get it, but it was real
expensive 'cause it was not home grown...
Like opium, hashish
and all that...
This really wild beach, where you had to
wade across this lagoon, to get to it...
...climb around on these hills,
and there were these caves...
...find these like
porcelain boxes...
on what look like
dragon-claw feet
and when you open it up
inside was a human skeleton...
What's up?
Hey, how's it going?
You're here for the workshop?
- Yeah.
- Right on, my name's Eli.
Isabelle.
Good to meet ya.
- You a vet?
- Yeah.
What branch?
Marines.
Cool, welcome home.
I was in the Army
myself, I was a Medic.
What was your MOS?
- MP.
- All right, that's cool,
even MP's are all right here.
Which state were you in?
Confusion.
The idea is that we
make handmade paper
from military uniforms.
We want vets to
tell their own story
in their own words and images
on paper that they
make themselves.
So, we do letterpress
printing...
If you want to do a book,
maybe, out of your old journals.
I'm working on
stencil over here.
It's a memorial for
a buddy of ours.
These guys are binding
a book right now,
all by hand
and right here, we're just
cutting some rag.
So this is where the whole
thing begins, basically.
Hey guys, the cops are here.
I'm just kidding,
this is Isabelle.
She's a MP for the
Marines, she just got out.
Semper Fi, Baby.
This is uh, this is the gang.
These are our
Vietnam geezers here.
Walt, he's a Vietnam vet
and his son was in
Afghanistan too.
We got Jan over here,
he was in Vietnam.
- Kevin's Iraq vet.
- Hey.
Malloy over here
was in Iraq too.
These guys over here,
this is Will over there,
he was in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nate was in Iraq back
during the invasion,
that's around the
time I was there too.
Um, you got your own uniforms?
I do, I didn't
bring them though.
That's cool, that's what
these are here donated for,
so really it's a pretty
straight forward process.
We cut this stuff up and it
goes in the machine in there,
it beats it to a pulp and then
we form sheets on screens,
press them, dry 'em and then
it's up to you, a blank slate.
So yeah, we give
you the toolbox,
it's up to you to decide
what you want to do with it.
We're just going to help
you along the way, so..
You know, just to kind
of get yourself going,
do something easy
first, you know?
the best come
out of the Survival...
Feels good, huh?
Survival manual...
How to get water
out of a cactus...
I been hooked on paper making
ever since the first
time I heard that sound.
Snare a seagull's
leg or some shit.
Like impossible things,
if you got to jump off a ship,
they advise you to
take your pants off
and put them over your head.
That shit works?
I don't know.
I guess it kinda does!
it's better than nothing, but...
So sometimes
what we'll do
is we'll cut the uniform
off the veteran's body.
So like the first
guy who did it,
he cut it from his own body
and then I had him and another
friend cut it off my body
as this sort of rite of passage.
Okinawa's a
pretty trippy place
even without LSD.
So I remember
going, in high school,
going the guidance
counselors office.
"What do you want to
do after you graduate?"
So I wrote on there,
I wanna go to college
and work with computers
and I spelled college
and computers wrong.
I was never really
good at spelling.
I'm better now, but
the guy pivots in his
chair, within arm's reach
is a whole rack of
recruiting pamphlets.
He grabs the US Army with
the Apache helicopter
right on the top.
Up against the car and I
said, I'm here for the party.
I'm here for the party
because I genuinely thought
that I was at the right house.
I thought I was there
for, for a party
and he said, I
don't know that guy.
They cuffed me, stuffed me,
took me to the county jail.
Wrong fucking house.
Felony criminal trespass,
public intoxication,
do 90 days in jail,
then after that go to the
military, I get a clean record.
My life was going this
direction and very suddenly,
it turned and went
this direction,
like I stepped into an
alternative reality or something.
So how are you
holding up, man?
I'm good man, thanks.
You sleeping?
Yeah, me neither.
So, you've been in touch
with his family yet, or what?
Yeah man, I uh,
called his mom.
I didn't know what the fuck
to say, just hysterical.
There's not much you can say.
I'm here, you know, need
anything, blah, blah, blah.
Ask her for a photo or
uniform, make a memorial.
It seems like every time
I'm finishing up one,
I got to start on another.
Yeah man, just let me
know what you want.
I'm happy to help.
When I was at WestPoint,
they were talking about,
"Well, we'll send them
the big battalions."
That's what they
sent in in 1965.
Battalions? Not divisions?
We didn't even have
helmets that much
in, in that
timeframe in Vietnam.
You know, I never saved
any of my uniforms,
so I don't have one to cut up.
Really?
Yeah, I just wanted
to get out of the military,
Finally got so frustrated,
I went and joined
a peace demonstration in 1967.
Somebody had provided a banner
that said Vietnam
Veterans Against the War,
so they were at the very
beginning of this march
coming out of Central Park
and we'd been told
that you'd get in big trouble
if you wore a uniform
to a political event,
but in January of 68,
enough people were
fed up with the fact
that the war continued
and continued.
Timothy or Tim
either is really fine.
So am I supposed to say
how I feel or something?
Know how the little smileys,
you know, that says
like, "How d'ya feel?"
- Nah...
- Yeah?
- All right?
- Yeah, fair.
Hi, Neil.
Thousands of people,
veterans, staff members,
family members coming
and going to the hospital
and also residents
on the street.
I took out this sign.
This project had been on
my mind for some time.
Alright, Bud, I'll
see ya next week.
Okay, thank you.
Awesome.
Every time I called it
a war Timothy got upset.
Corrects me.
What did he
want you to call it?
An occupation.
Shit, Vietnam was an
occupation too, still a war.
This is different.
Every generation thinks
their war is different.
You know, I'm back
on the meds myself.
I'm sorry to hear that.
I figured I was pretty
well past all this shit.
Then I started seeing you
guys coming home, burned,
amputated limbs, PTSD, this
traumatic brain injury now,
all that shit.
Just like when I came back.
Resurrects a lot of shit.
You've been doing peer
to peer now for what?
Three years? It's inevitable.
You were gonna go through this.
I'm thinking some time off.
Did you speak to his regular
doctor or his VA shrink?
The department's looking
into this kid's case,
but you know what
they're going to say.
They didn't know
about the other meds.
Everyone signs that agreement.
They're not getting meds
from an outside provider.
That's how they
cover their asses.
VA is gonna wash
their hands of it.
I know the system's
fucked in a lot of ways,
but it ain't on them.
And it ain't on you either,
brother, you gotta know that.
Either he had a provider
from outside the system
or he was getting that
shit off the street.
I know what you're
going through.
I mean, shit, if he was lying
about what he was taking,
there's really no way
for anyone to know.
I hate to say it, but
if a kid wants to die,
he's gonna find a way.
Out of nowhere,
4,000 Vets show up.
I mean, you can feel it,
people, Arkansas, California.
- Was cold as shit.
- Cold as shit!
The youth started that fight.
- Hm mm.
- The elders lost it.
'Cause they were telling us,
"Yeah, we can trust the courts."
"This thing it's gonna
be fine, we can go home."
"We don't want
anyone to get hurt."
Meanwhile, the kids
were the radicals.
They were saying, "No, we
don't want this pipeline."
- "Or any pipeline."
- Right, right.
"We don't trust no court. We
don't trust the President.
"We're gonna physically
block this thing."
- Hey, welcome back.
- S'up?
Just getting set up.
Can I help?
Yeah all of this
has to go out.
You bring your uniform?
I did.
Standing Rock was nuts...
Belgium. They
rebuilt it, actually...
When you rebuild
a building like that, though
is it still, like...
it's not the same thing.
Feel like they should
have to give it a different name
If something's destroyed you can't
rename its replacement the same thing
- Well, ya know, the...
- Let the name die with the thing
It didn't die
If it burned
down, it fuckin died
it was resurrected
It's a building, it ain't-
a fucking Messiah.
Well, I'll tell you something,
if there's any possibility...
of a ressurrection,
I would think....
Nah, I was uh... I
deployed three times.
Once in Afghanistan,
twice in Iraq.
Intel.
He's a guy... everybody
should know Smedley Butler
Practically nobody does.
But in the Marine Corps,
he - he is still a hero.
Even Leatherneck magazine
acknowledges what he did,
y'know, warning Congress
about all these capitalists
wanting to overthrow the
Roosevelt administration.
Fucked up
It's okay
Sometimes you'll get really
rough ones like this,
but you know, once you
get the hang of it,
you can make them smooth
and corners sharp.
Can kind of control
how much of that...
super-handmade
paper look you want.
What's
that ARMY stand for?
What's that A R M Y?
Aren't Ready to be Marines Yet?
What is that,
United States Moron Club?
Anyway, tell
the Beglians that.
I'm not saying people
shouldn't rebuild shit
when it's destroyed,
by all means we should,
but I think you should give
it a new name, a new identity
- part of acknowledging...
- Well, I'm gonna write...
that it came to
the end of one life,
- and it's beginning another...
- Wait, no, not in there.
I'm gonna
write them a letter...
C'mon, I'll show you.
A letter, the
Belgians and tell them...
Tell em to
change that fucking name.
Rename it the
Eli Wright Building.
No, no...
cause he has an opinion to
straighten you people out.
Pour it in there.
See, one thing that I
love about this process is,
it's forgiving, you know?
Like if you fuck up,
you can always fix it
and you can always do it over.
I mean, it's not like some
exclusive art in that way.
Anybody could do it.
See, in here, you got...
sand, blood...
Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan,
South Carolina.
Uranium, sweat...
Panama...
You, uh, you seen the paper yet?
This is a dope process, man.
Right?
It's messy as fuck.
Fun to get your hands all...
I had this uh...
"incident" happen.
It wasn't an incident.
But it got me thinking...
it'd be good to be
around people more.
I mean...
Not just any people.
I mean...
I only feel comfortable
around people who want to
kill themselves. So.
Yeah.
Think I hear you on that.
Was as much of
a hero in civilian life
as he was as a general.
Yeah,
sometimes Marines can...
can do something that's
a halfways intelligent.
What?
Wait a minute.
Does that shirt
say "bad brains"?
What's that "bad brains" mean?
it's a Reggae punk
band from the Eighties,
- don't you know that?
- No...
Better.
Reggae punk band
from the Eighties.
♪ Ain't no cure for
the summertime blues ♪
Best version ever.
Well, Motorcycle Irene?
Stark naked,
unsacred Motorcycle Irene.
I'm just gonna
use a book-binding knot
- This is tough.
- Yeah
If you...
are more comfortable doing that.
It doesn't necessarily matter
what type of knot you use.
I use this knot because it's...
how I learned to do it in
medicine, so, it works for this.
If you have a book
binding knot by all means.
I'm pretty sure I
fucked this up pretty bad.
Oh, you didn't snip
your thread, that's why.
That's all...
- Okay, well...
- But don't take it out.
You're fine there,
all you gotta do is...
Just do it there, right there?
Yeah, go ahead.
How're those tweezers
working for you?
- Fuck off!
- Those aren't scissors.
The fuck do they look like?
All right, hang on.
They teach you how
to use a gun as an MP
but you can't even use
a pair of scissors?
Are Marine MPs more
bad-ass than army MPs?
Fuck yeah, of course!
The fuck kinda
question is that? Shit!
That's why they
don't hire Army MPs
to guard the embassies.
Only the Marines
get to do that...
So did you want to
be a cop... as a civilian?
and used the Marines as a
way to get there, or...
No, the only... nah...
What was your thing?
You got a pet peeve?
No, I, I did
something really stupid.
I headbutted my brother and
I knocked him out.
Ho ho! Headbutted?
Damn!
What'd he say to
deserve that one?
Nah, it wasn't like that,
game was already over.
Dude comes up, fucking
shoves me in the back,
while I'm putting on my jacket
like he wants to fucking
say, "Good game, Bro!"
But he's trying to
start something.
So of course I do.
Next thing you know, we...
Fuck it.
Hey, kiddo!
Look it
got you a smartphone.
Alright, get rid of that
piece of shit that you have,
get you on the
family plan, okay?
Anyway, yo, that thing I was
saying yesterday about
starting a dog farm...
that was a dumb fucking idea.
But you know, I got more
where those came from.
You know, maybe you uh...
find something outdoorsy
ya know, that's you.
Oh, before I forget,
uh, about the visit.
Not this week.
Yeah, she said she's,
she's not feeling so good.
Her back, you know?
- That's why I raised concerns
- Okay? Let's get to it.
about the treatment of
prisoners at Guantanamo,
the abuse of prisoners
at Guantanamo,
torture of prisoners
at Guantanamo.
Serving in the US
military as a chaplain
that I had to speak out.
Motherfuckers think
you owe them something
that the greatest casualty
really is,
being left behind,
left behind.
Timothy, lemme
ask you something.
You been out a few
years... does it get any better?
I don't know.
I hate the word healing.
It's not some fucking
point of arrival.
It's just...
something you're doing...
all the time.
I wanna...
Time to kill though?
- Yeah.
- What do you think?
We can drive this guy in a
circle for a fucking hour.
What about you, Isabelle?
You got something you're
gonna read at the gallery?
Yeah, I got one, I mean,
it's not finished, it's just,
I've been kind of
scratching it out.
It's about...
a detainee.
We covered their
eyes with sandbags,
deprived their will
of singing praise.
Nine men kneeling.
None of them cried out.
Like secret police
snaking the night,
we slipped into their bedrooms.
We zip-tied their wrists,
tight, blood droplets,
ink on their orange jumpers.
We tried to snatch
their dignity,
spread fear by word of mouth.
We learned it don't work
like that, who knew?
A cornered human won't eat
from your hand, who knew?
We covered their
eyes with sandbags
deprived their will
of simple purpose.
We got the right guy.
LT says again and
again, again and again,
echoing off into nothing.
Even then I knew, even then
I felt the black hole open.
I'll try harder in another life.
I won't pretend to be a man,
born to kill.
Now their ghosts
wander my thoughts.
They're somewhere else already.
And I am here.
Listen.
What haunts me are not
their curses, but this:
the man who speaks
perfect English,
whose name is not
ISN154234, but Ahmed.
He's a fruit seller.
Father of three.
He passes me a paper flower,
says he forgives me
for I know not what I do.
See what the gallery
crowd makes of that.
That's a gut punch
they're gonna need to hear.
What are
you gonna read, Eli?
I'm not sure yet I've
been working on this one.
This is all the things I wish
I would have figured out.
I never knew what to say.
Never knew how to cut through
all the contradictions
and confusion.
It's like dancing on landmines
and swimming in sandstorms
while marching into a war
you didn't get to vote for,
with a rifle slung
over one shoulder
and a medical aid
bag over the other.
It's doing everything you
can to save a man's life
who just did everything
he could to end yours.
It's seeing medics
engaged in torture
and infantrymen
engaged in medicine.
It's feeling deaf from the
sound of a pounding heart
while praying for a pulse
and preaching to the choir
about salvation.
It's choking on the smoke
of everything you
used to believe in,
after you burned it
all to the ground,
it's building bridges
then putting up barriers
so nobody can cross them.
It's like locking all the
doors everywhere around you.
Then scattering the
keys in obvious places,
hoping nobody will find them.
It's like coming back,
feeling like a stranger
then running away to
feel at home again,
it's being surrounded
by everyone you love
and feeling suffocated
at the exact same time.
Like writing speeches when
you feel completely speechless
and speaking out while
you're being strangled,
it's ducking for
cover in the sunshine
and searching for a ray
of light in the shadows.
It's drinking away the night
just to sleep away the day.
It's chain smoking
cigarettes under stress
just to catch your breath.
It's your worst vice
saving your fucking life.
It's why I've taken
to wearing my heart
on my sleeve nowadays to escape
the prison of my rib cage
because I'm sick of being
trapped in this past life.
How big is this
gallery? How much wall space?
It's a decent
size gallery space,
we got at more than
a few hours, to...
We're doing
poetry first, or...?
Yeah, like let people
come in, just see the artwork,
check it out for a while.
Right, don't
want to scare 'em away.
♪ There is power,
there is power ♪
♪ In a band of working folks ♪
♪ When we stand, hand in hand ♪
♪ That's a power,
that's a power ♪
♪ That must rule in every land ♪
♪ One Industrial Union Grand. ♪
♪ Would you have freedom ♪
from wage slavery ♪
♪ Then come join the Grand... ♪
♪ Industrial Grand ♪
Why does it keep doing that?
Because...
You suck at inking.
♪ There is power,
there is power ♪
♪ In the hands of
working folks ♪
♪ When we stand, hand in hand ♪
Well, I don't got
it all over my face.
♪ Power that must
rule in every land ♪
♪ One Industrial Union Grand ♪
Looks like you gave
me a black eye over here.
Alright, let's do
this for real now.
- Hold on to that.
- I got this.
Oh, you got this.
I bet you had to say that
all the time in Iraq.
My CO even said he'd put
that on my grave at Arlington
if I died out there.
No more room at Arlington.
Well, we gotta come up with,
what's the new
Memorial gonna be?
if can't keep putting
headstones down.
Just get a big screen.
Jumbo-tron.
Flash all the faces and names.
We are guys who like to drink!
Well. Off-hours, anyway.
Maybe we could
have a system like,
make labels, or something.
Yeah, we used to have
something like that.
I don't know what
happened to it,
Fuck labels, man!
I been laying on my bed...
and I'm just awake,
just always fucking awake.
Lately I can't stop
thinking about how
my mother,
before I deployed,
she was talking about how...
what's a woman doing
in a war
what's a woman
doing in a uniform
What's a woman doing, trying to
act like... a man or something.
And she basically said
to me,
"If you go there,
I don't want to know
nothing about you."
"You're not mine anymore."
I don't know if she meant
that or what, but anyway,
that's what the fuck I've
been thinking about at night.
I do, uh, peer
to peer counseling.
And one of the guys that...
he's the youngest guy I was...
And he... a month ago,
he killed himself.
You want to think that like...
you can know it's gonna happen.
Right?
You can feel it, you
can do something.
What was his name?
Timothy.
You remember how
they used to fire
off guns at weddings?
Full auto, 30 round bursts.
Must go through
a dozen magazines
every time someone gets married.
In the beginning when
we first got in country,
we'd hear shots off
in the distance,
four or five miles away.
And we'd see the tracers
flying up through the air.
We would go tearing
down the road
in our gun trucks,
looking for a fight.
But there was nothing.
No firefight, no insurgents.
Just, just a couple of
people getting married.
Of course. After, after a
while we figured it out,
we'd hear the gunfire
at the certain hour
and look at our
watches, figure out
what day of the week it was,
nod back and forth and say,
"Yup, just another
wedding." Right?
But I don't think we ever
really did figure it out.
What was
there to figure out?
that it was...
just a couple of people
getting married.
Timothy, let me
ask you something.
Why do you think they
turned down your claim?
I really don't know.
Look,
to be approved by the
VA for post-traumatic stress.
You got to demonstrate
some traumatic experience.
Life-threatening situation,
something along those lines.
- See what I'm saying?
- Yeah.
When I looked at
the VA's decision,
it says you didn't have
that kind of experience.
I told them my story.
They just didn't get it.
Yeah, well.
That happens.
You think you could
tell me your story?
Yeah.
Yeah, of course.
Eli, the labels
go on lower right?
Yeah.
He's gonna come along and
move 'em all, anyway...
All the artwork
you see in this gallery
was handmade from
American military uniforms.
We take the uniforms, we
cut them into small pieces
- and we put them...
- We were involved in
Interrogation processes...
Sure, US put him in
there in the first place.
As a medic they want you to
monitor and - and -
- throw acid on
LaVena Johnson's genitals
whether they're able to
endure further interrogation
So, at this point, this dude had
been in there for three days
It's been a disaster!
Johnny was involved
in multiple situations
Where they kept calling
him back to take care of...
- all of these prisoners
- Peace is the only...
- real war memorial.
- interrogation processes that...
included torture.
Coming back from Iraq,
Johnny killed himself.
They give you a free
hall if someone dies.
A lot of the artists
are on the premises now
All outta wine,
I'll go get some.
Nah, it's cool, I'll get it.
It is a way to kind
of tell their stories,
since they can't.
Thank you for your service!
You heading out?
Yeah, I was gonna
get some smokes.
Man, I love Eli's piece with
the dude with a skeleton hand
and the phone? That
shit's bananas.
Ah yeah, super dope piece.
Barbed wire?
I'm gonna do something with
barbed wire, I got... an idea.
Thought you quit?
I did. But.
I don't know, cigarettes
are my friend right now
you know?
Sometimes, you know, "cause
it kills you!" is just not
a fucking 'nough, you know?
Yeah, I try and
just think of it
like this giant
corporation that could
give a fuck whether
I die or live, so...
I don't want to be run by that.
Don't wanna be dependent,
fuck that.
You talk with a kind
of a lilty, like, lispy thing.
Where are you from anyway?
Baton Rouge.
I don't think you mean lisp.
And all those people in there?
It's great that they
come out, you know, but...
you can't, like, have
the conversation.
You can't really have it.
No one wants to talk
about dying, yeah.
There's never any
context for it, you know,
we don't make space for
it, ever. We just...
But then how do you...?
Well, yeah, I mean, how
do you prevent something
that you can't fucking
talk about ever, right?
I had, uh, I had a friend
from New Orleans once,
he was kind of a drug dealer,
but he was, he was a cool guy.
It's right here.
I'll wait here.
Yo, what are you doin'?
I'm okay.
I'm just, this fucking
thing just keeps
correcting me all
the fucking time.
I'm fine.
I'm good.
Hey, maybe you should
just breathe, you know,
take a breath?
I'm okay.
I had a flip phone, man.
It like fucking creaked
when you opened it,
it went
and it worked fine.
It fucking was fine. It
never told me what to do.
You know?
Are we gonna stand here...
and breathe?
And you're gonna tell me
that I'm not a bad person
and that I deserve to be okay.
Right?
You're not a bad person.
How do you know?
Look, let me bring these in
and I'll like... come back down.
Okay?
Ya know I don't really know
what you're doing over there
at that uh - that paper thing.
But I was trying to
tell Mom about it?
I don't know how she's gonna be.
I told her that you
wanted to see her,
but she still got
that pain in her back.
And I don't know, it's a...
Hey, how's that, uh,
phone working out?
Cha cha cha.
What?
I've got Izze
outside, she wants to say hi,
you know, she came over,
she's doing better...
What's different,
with her? What's different?
It's a good thing.
You know, she she's got her
whole life sorta worked out
- Vets, military...
- Ugh, God!
No, no it's good.
No, it's it's a good
thing, it's good.
Let her dedicate herself.
She came all the way out here.
Do it for me please. Would
you just go talk to her?
I dragged her all
the way out here.
I'm - I'm too busy today...
you're enough, believe me...
You're enough, you fill
my heart, it's all I need ok...
She's standin
out there, just...
Sorry, kiddo she doesn't
want to see you right now.
Next time, okay?
Well
we have to create, in essence,
walled communities, where
we nurture and protect
those values, that
the wider society
are attempting to destroy.
As much as possible we have to
create parallel institutions
to sustain ourselves
and empower ourselves.
And all of that will
be done locally.
Because when collapse comes,
we'll have to take
care of ourselves.
That's why, you know,
food, local food markets,
sustainable agriculture,
sustainable energy.
You know, all of this becomes,
in moments of distress,
these become political acts.
How you doing with this?
You doing all right?
You wanna hand with this?
Gimme a sleeve,
I'll help you out.
Yeah,
pass me some, too.
What's the story
with this uniform?
What was the last
time you wore it?
It was checkpoint.
in Youssoufia.
I was out there so fucking
long, I don't even know.
Days, nights, weeks,
just out there in the heat,
staring down a highway.
A hundred hours of heat
goes by with nothing.
And then a car comes
out of nowhere.
our CO told us there's
only one way to tell,
the good guys from the bad guys.
The bad guys don't stop.
We'd fire, and we'd
walk up to the vehicle,
and almost every single time,
there was nothing, there
were no explosives.
There were no weapons.
And we kept trying
to figure it out
what the fuck was going on?
Why don't they fucking stop?
I know in our AO,
we covered everything
between Ramadi and Fallujah,
almost to Abu Ghraib,
we were over there
when the photos got leaked,
all of a sudden word's
out on the street,
every Iraqi knows that we're
torturing the shit out of them.
I don't blame them for not
stopping at the checkpoint.
They thought that
we might arrest them
and send them to Abu Ghraib too.
We never never get the story
from the Iraqi's perspective.
Some foreign military
was on my street?
You know how that would go,
here in the US.
Red Dawn in every town.
Red Dawn in every town.
Guilt and shame...
are pretty fucking heavy
to carry with you.
World War II vets didn't
come back and kill themselves
in these kinds of
numbers, right?
They had a clear mission.
They knew who they
were fighting.
They believed in their purpose.
It didn't take me
very long to realize
that there was nothing
there for me to believe in.
In this bullshit
war, who's proud?
I'm proud I survived.
Yeah, proud of doing this.
Take a lot of pride in how
many uniforms I've cut up.
Wonder what kind of uniforms
will be cutting up in 10 years?
You know, what color
are those going to be?
Spacesuits.
Spacesuits.
Spaceforce!
Tinfoil and goddamn nylon.
You guys are startin to sound
like a couple of Commies over here
I don't give a fuck, I'll say it
We'll be up there fighting
space ISIS, in orbit!
Space ISIS, there you go.
Coming home from a
war that you don't feel
morally justified
being a part of...
is not easy to live with.
Especially if you drank the
Kool-Aid all along... then have
to wake up to that one day
and realize that instead of
being one of the Jedi, we
were the Storm Troopers.
Find out that my bags
are lost on the airline
and all I got's my
Black Sabbath t-shirt.
So next morning I
show up to formation.
Sergeant comes out and he goes,
"What the fuck are you doing?"
I don't have my uniforms.
He said, all right
Ozzy, just get down
and start pushing.
Ozzy...
Moment of truth.
Hey, have you guys seen
Will in the past couple weeks?
Nah, not really.
It's been a while.
Think he went upstate?
To his dad's place?
Yeah, probably hiding out in
the bunker for a little bit.
I could use some time
chilling in the bunker,
out of the city.
It's a nice spot, too.
You been up there yet?
No, it's near where my
parents are from though.
I know the town.
Will, what's up?
It's Nate.
I don't know if you got
my last message, but...
just calling to see
how you're doing.
It's been busy, we
made a hell of a mess.
So maybe it's good you're
gone, but I don't know.
Calling to see how you're doing.
Yeah, man. Hope you're well.
Hit us up,. Peace.
Get out of the way!
Yo.
Get out of the way!
Hey kiddo!
What you doing out
this late, huh?
Whoa, whoa!
Hey look, I got her, Nick
I got the Marine
C'mon, try and get out.
Come on.
Come on.
Is that the best you got?
I'm barely even holding on.
Come on soldier!
Come on.
Why you go so easy on me?
Yo, we're heading to Claude's
if you wanna come.
No?
All right.
Buddy, move back.
Hey.
I am... sorry.
I'm sorry.
You okay?
Me?
I'm, yeah, are you okay?
I almost got fucking
sideswiped by this pickup truck
coming up here.
Fucking Confederate
flag hanging.
What's that even mean up here?
Upstate New York, fucking dodo.
Right?
Why didn't you
like call me, or...?
I just, I just needed to get
the hell out of the city and,
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to scare you.
Who has a Confederate
flag up here, man?
What does that mean
except "I am a racist"
"I am a racist" right?
Look...
Look uh... I got
something for you.
On the bus coming
here all frustrated
I wrote some shit down...
on the back of this thing here.
Should I read it?
Yeah, sure.
Read it.
Uh...
We don't want to fuck.
We don't want to love.
We don't want to feel anything.
We just want to know
what it feels like.
We're like those chickens
with their heads blown off.
We know...
Whatever, it keeps going.
It's like a poem.
I was using the royal we.
I can just go.
This is fucking nuts,
I'm a fucking nut.
No, no, hey!
It's okay.
Hey.
It's okay.
I'm sorry.
Don't be sorry.
Does this make me like
a psycho or something?
So what was up
with those chickens?
I was voluntold.
This is where you live?
I don't have to come in.
I just wanted to see...
that you're okay.
How do I seem?
Which one of those
clowns gave you my address?
Everyone's Google-able.
They said Danby, so I just...
It's furniture.
You hungry or thirsty?
I got my walnuts.
I always carrying
walnuts and almonds
in case there's ever a
total fucking crisis.
I'm good.
Okay.
Well I'm having something.
I got this tea someone
gave me, supposed to be dope.
Calming type shit.
Valerian root and Tulsi.
I made all these fucking
notes... for being here.
This looks kinda
like a Granny place.
Yeah, I guess.
My, uh...
pops found this place
in the seventies
and then my mama got it
in the divorce. Then my Auntie,
She was here for a while,
but she just moved out.
It's paid for, taxes aren't
bad, so we're keeping it.
The quiet is hurting my ears.
Tulsi...
Tastes like dirt.
Those your notes?
These are directions to you.
Fuck GPS, I don't
depend on that shit.
So this is where you were
This is where you walked
And this is where we are?
Yeah.
All right, well you can help
me build this bed frame.
I was pretty fucking
hammered when I sawed most
of that shit up, so there's a
good chance it'll be just a bunch
of random ass fucking pieces,
and I be sleeping
on the floor again.
Let's build a shed by mistake.
I could live in a
shed if I had to,
I could survive in small spaces.
With your walnuts?
Here, wanna play some music?
There's a hookup
right over there.
Cool, give you that thing.
♪ This is how it
feels to be alone ♪
♪ This is how it
feels to be alone ♪
♪ This is all that
we can call our own ♪
Can you hand me that hammer?
♪ Dust, flesh and bone ♪
You making plans for this thing?
No, that's just something
my dad... before he split,
he was always saying - "check if
something's a piece of shit
or not, feel the weight of it"
Cause if it ain't got weight,
...it's worthless.
Uh, sorry, this shit
is putting me to sleep.
And I don't sleep either.
Will...?
Yeah?
Nothing.
it's awesome you have
a place to hide out.
Like anything could
happen here, right?
Wish I could fucking sleep.
I don't even know
what month it is.
I'm okay.
You don't have to be.
You want me to sleep here?
I would love it
if you slept here.
Stay
I just wanted to see what
was going on out here, man.
You want some
breakfast before you go?
Yeah, I was gonna go...
buy a bunch of food
and I didn't wanna
just take your truck.
I mean, you might wonder
what the hell, right?
And then I didn't know where to
fucking go, because of my phone.
It's good,
you know?
You're a good egg.
Yeah, so are you.
Good egg.
Sleep is so fucking important!
I gotta write that down.
Hey, I just didn't
want you thinking
I came up here for
some sketchy reasons.
I just wanted to see...
that you're okay.
So that's why I'm...
It's okay.
It's okay that you're here.
Okay.
Alright.
- Okay.
- Okay.
- Cool.
- Cool.
Okay.
Good.
All right.
I can do better.
Yeah that was the one.
Okay.
Ow!
All right, I know
what we gotta do.
FUCK!!!
That a fuckin
horse? What is that?
Fuckin demons everywhere.
There's this homeless couple on
my block... I always see them,
just sitting there.
I just want to sit down,
I just want to do nothing.
I'm wanna tell them:
I know, I get it,
I'm there! When you can't -
move - one - more...
But I can't tell 'em.
My throat doesn't work.
Someone...
someone said to me,
just make sounds,
just to keep
on making sounds.
There's so much
and I can't say it.
I have threshold, man.
I have a threshold.
That's all I'm saying.
What's your threshold?
Timothy,
Last time we talked together,
told me about this woman
in a hardware store...
apron... selling him something,
who...
thanked him for his service.
How he doesn't blame her, but...
he's so fucking confused.
Are you thanking me for
killing people in Sadr City
who were just -
driving down the road?
Or how about for ripping a
man in Samarra away
from his family?
humiliating him,
detaining him,
starving him,
torturing him,
thousands and thousands of him?
Are you thanking me
for blowing up a school
or for blowing up
a hospital?
Are you thanking me for
slaughtering a family in Mahmudiya?
Maybe you're thanking me
for collateral murder.
For SOP 360 rotational
fire on an entire village
in response to an IED.
Or you feel some gratitude
that we protected the interests
of Exxon - and laid down
our lives for Halliburton or
quadrupled profits for Raytheon.
Could you be thanking me for
Abu Ghraib?
or just for taking the pictures?
No... you're thanking
me for the kill count.
200,000 dead civilians.
Or is it "thank you
for the drone strikes"
that destroyed Mosul, Ramadi,
Aleppo, Baghdad, Rakka...
Thank you for MST?
For burn pits?
Maybe I should thank you for standing
by while it was all happening.
I mean, I know you're not
thanking me for being a hero.
I was a pawn.
Anyway.
That's what I would've said.
I would never say all that.
That's what his death said.
A final fuck you.
All of them, just sitting there.
They don't even know
they're watching him die.
It's just the proportions
are off, you know?
Like why am I carrying
all this shit?
You'll never see a recruiter
in the Upper West Side.
Fuck it.
Three cheers for
the American dream.
The whole goddamn
world's nightmare, but...
our dream.
What?
What the fuck man?
Nothing, I'm just
fucking with you.
I just wanted to do one of
those war movie moments,
you know, where the
veterans like, oh fuck,
I'm going back there, and then
he like freaks the fuck out.
Some dude army crawling
at his kid's birthday
when a balloon pops.
Incoming!
I hate those fucking movies.
Yep.
Fuck American Sniper.
Fuck Hurt Locker.
Fuck Zero Dark Thirty.
Especially fuck
Saving Private Ryan.
Fuckin ra ra military bullshit.
Good War bullshit.
Like there can be a good one.
Fuck that.
Yo check this out.
This is the outer material
for a sleeping bag.
Doesn't have any date on it,
but I think it's like - Fifties?
maybe even Forties?
It was the rain cover.
Keeps everything out.
This would make some
awesome paper, but...
It's also pretty fucking
awesome as it is, right?
I don't know what to do with it.
What's up?
We gonna have a staring contest?
What is it?
Sorry, I'm sorry I
can't... fucking talk...
Stop saying you're
fucking sorry, Jesus!
Come on, what is it?
Just... talk.
You're not mad?
Does it look
like a mad at you?
You're all here and
then you disappear,
you just left me there, man!
I left because of my own shit.
I know.
I don't know what I
told you about him...
Yeah, you... you told me.
Okay.
I don't always remember.
You know what
you're doing, man.
You know how to be with people.
You know how to be alone.
You have it, I mean, I
want to know how you...
You make it look easy,
man, just being here!
Nothing about
this is easy, okay.
I don't know what you're seeing.
I don't have this down
to some kind of fucking science.
All right, I'm
making it up as I go.
I'm just trying everything I
can think of from one moment to
the next that doesn't
hurt anyone or hurt myself or,
land me in some fucking abyss
where I just hate myself
to fucking death, so.
You know how to live.
No. I really don't.
That's what I'm doing, man.
I keep... It's like
sick, it's like,
I keep trying to fucking find
someone and grab them and be like,
okay, show me how
to fucking live!
Okay.
I'm catching on, all right.
This body, this being - mine.
Responsibility, mine!
Right?
Yeah, pretty much.
Fuck.
I wanna tear my fucking
skin off, man!
I fucking hate myself so much.
Fucking die, I hate
you, fucking die.
I'm here.
I feel a lot for you.
That's okay, isn't it?
I don't know.
What?
Maybe I came here to hurt you.
Everything hurts me.
There's nothing you
can do about it.
I don't want to be bitter.
I don't want to live that way.
That's what you know how to do.
I could barely walk across
those things with my boots on.
Do you ever take
those boots off?
Yeah.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I take a shower sometimes.
Yeah right.
Once a week at least.
That's very
attractive, that's dope.
I'm going to triple these up.
These are gonna be
strong motherfuckers.
All right?
I mean, I think double
is fine, but you know,
do you.
You're just putting
the - the birthday?
You're not putting the...?
Nah.
It's cool.
This is...
You know...
Remember life.
Woods are like
outer space to me, man.
Should I read it?
Yeah.
Marine cammies will be your
flesh, will be your pride.
My DI told me.
Too baggy, too
long, don't matter.
You'll fill them,
you'll blend in.
Learn to kill silently.
Learn to kill screaming.
Learn to take more
and more and more.
Remove your uniform.
It's been lying.
Remove it, cut it to pieces.
It's a lie, your
performance, your pride.
What tells me to kill,
who tells me to kill.
Hear the whispers
grow to shouting,
shouting from inside,
from that place begging no more,
shouting no more,
screaming no more.
Shout what you already
know, what your new tribe
has come to know.
The world you once loved has
brought you to this place.
The world you once loved
never was, never will be.
Do you need something?
Just tell your
brother to come over.
I have to call Herbert
again about the sink.
Every fucking day with this guy.
At least your brother dropped
that what's her name, huh?
Did he?
You would know.
He's stealing my Tramadol.
Either that or I'm
going fucking nuts.
the right to
keep and bear a gun...
You have no idea what
it's like....
Oh, that's your
father, always saying
"you have no idea what it's like
You have no idea what it's like"
You wouldn't remember.
You were too young.
I have an idea of
what it's like.
we used to have the ten
commandments posted in our school rooms...
our students would see what God
almighty has said, thou shalt not murder...
You see this?
You see this on my skin?
I can't stop taking this shit.
Look at me.
You have no idea...
The people I work with...
they think I'm contagious.
And that nigger downstairs
keeps staring at me.
He's nice.
He smiles.
But why is he standing there?
There's other places.
I didn't sleep again last night.
Just...
Just tell your
brother to come over!
I bought a stool last
summer... for my birthday
and uh...
I bought a notebook, also...
And I bought a round trip bus ticket
to the Port Authority bus terminal.
I walked to the Veterans
Administration hospital.
The disability I was claiming
was post traumatic
stress disorder.
I was interviewed by a Veterans
Administration psychiatrist.
"Do you know that most Vietnam
veterans with your diagnosis
killed themselves
a long time ago?"
At that time, 1970, 71... I was
experiencing brutal nightmares
every night,
night after night,
week after week,
I would wake up screaming,
fighting demons and ghosts.
And that psychiatrist told me
it was only going to get worse.
At that time... I was
having terrible depressions.
In hindsight, I would say...
I was close to being catatonic.
It took everything I had,
to put my feet over the edge
of the bed in the morning
and to stand up like a man.
And that psychiatrist told me
it was only going to get worse.
Never better.
One of the first lessons
I had to learn as a medic
was that in order
to treat the wound,
first we have to expose it.
That body armer that
used to protect you,
that camouflage that was
supposed to hide you.
Now it's just
getting in the way.
At that time...
the single biggest thing
in my mind was suicide.
It was not where,
it was not how,
it was only when.
Tonight. Tomorrow.
Just when.
I could not cross
a railroad track
without thinking of stopping
and putting my head on the rail.
I could not cross a high bridge
I probably spent 1000 hours on
the George Washington bridge,
pacing back and forth.
And that psychiatrist told me
it was only going to get worse,
never better.
So now. About 44 years later.
About 44 years later.
Another psychiatrist tells me
do you know that most Vietnam
veterans with your diagnosis
killed themselves
a long time ago?
As I thought of him, a
little poem came to my mind.
You called me monster.
You cornered me and trapped me.
You forced me to chew my leg
off... and to hobble
from one suicidal
day to the next.
It don't mean nothing.
...that's great, you
wanna bring the troops home...
that's the campaign
you're runnin on?
Cool, we got a plan
to help you with that,
because we're the troops who've
been there, and done that....
And the cops, you know,
it's the middle of summer,
the cops are in
full battle rattle,
much fancier gear than we had,
in Iraq.
And they were hot as shit.
You could tell they
were miserable,
sweating.
And so we were talking directly
to the cops - tellin 'em, look
we know what y'all
are dealing with.
We been out there in the
heat and all this gear too,
it sucks, doesn't it?
You should just go home, cause...
you don't really need to be here
doing this shit with us.
Anyway, a couple of them
ended up walking off the line.
And... whole front rank of vets,
all in dress uniform,
carrying flags.
They stepped off and said,
I'm not going to like,
I'm not going to go beat a bunch
of fucking veterans carrying flags.
They weren't going to do it.
We kept telling them... we're going
to advance, we're going to advance.
And we kept advancing slowly.
Yeah, but we kept
saying we're unarmed
and we're here to
make a statement.
Hundreds of us there.
So after
the long standoff,
they did end up
letting two of them in.
And they presented it and his
military affairs guy was like
Hey, this is a solid plan.
We want to talk to you
guys further about this.
Let's implement this
into our policy.
So. We thought everything's
good, the cops called it off.
Everybody was cheering, hugging.
And then we packed up
and went to the RNC
to try to do the same thing,
not nearly as successful there.
And you know the rest of the
story from there, you know?
Obama gets elected
the left goes to sleep
the war continues on
and here we are.
...go up on the
left just a touch...?