The Ground Truth

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The Ground Truth has been selected for the 2006 Sundance Film Festival

Director’s note: The Ground Truth: The Human Cost of War is a work in progress produced and directed by Patricia Foulkrod and in association with Operation Truth, an non-profit organization created by Iraq veteran Paul Rieckhoff. This film is our soldiers’ perspective of the Iraq War, and how they are being treated upon returning home. It goes beyond the war stories to look underneath our American tradition of engaging in war and then abandoning the warrior.

We see the dreams and harsh realities that set up many soldiers and their families for a lifetime of heartbreak. Americans, on the Right and Left, living in Blue and Red states, spend billions of their tax money recruiting, training, and paying soldiers to kill in distant wars. Yet, we provide little assistance and marginal support once the killing is over, and soldiers come home, now expected to live nonviolent lives.

How do we “Support Our Troops,” when the killing stops? What is behind our silent indifference, and the 272,000 homeless veterans we walk by every day? This film asks Congress and the American people to bare witness to these soldiers and their families, and to consider the human cost of war, above all else.

The Ground Truth is currently seeking finishing funds so it may be released in movie theatres by Spring, 2005. To donate and find out how you can help the rest of America hear our soldiers’ stories, go to www.optruth.org or www.thegroundtruth.org.

Credits

Director: Patricia Foulkrod

Posted by anthony
Anthony Lappé is GNN's Executive Editor. He's written for The New York Times, Details, New York, Paper, The Fader and Vice, among many others. He has worked as a producer for MTV and Fuse. He is the co-author of GNN's True Lies and the producer of their Iraq doc, BattleGround.