Short clip in an amazing episode from the fantastic series 'America at a Crossroads' on PBS. The episode, entitled "Operation Homecoming:Writing the Wartime Experience", sets incredible stories written by US Soldiers in Iraq to film, and intersperses them with interviews with the authors. A very surprising episode that I highly recommend to anyone.

The films themselves were commissioned and produced by The Documentary Group, http://www.thedocumentarygroup.com/featuredProject.php?pid=6

Their synopsis of the episode follows:

Operation Homecoming is a unique documentary that explores the firsthand accounts of American troops through their own words. The film is built upon a project created by the National Endowment for the Arts to gather the writing of soldiers and their families who have participated in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through interviews and dramatic readings by such actors as Robert Duvall, Josh Lucas, Beau Bridges, Blair Underwood, Justin Kirk, Aaron Eckhart, Chris Gorham and John Krasinski, the film transforms selections from this collection of writing into a deep examination of the experiences of the men and women who are serving in America’s armed forces. At the same time it provides depth and context to these experiences through a broader look at the universal themes of war literature.

The writing in Operation Homecoming covers the full spectrum - poetry, fiction, memoir, letters, journals, and essays. The stories recounted here are sad, funny, violent, and uplifting. Yet each one displays an honesty and intensity that is rarely seen in explorations of the war. Through an extraordinary group of men and women, it offers a profound window into the human side of America’s current conflicts.

The NEA’s Operation Homecoming initiative has collected more than sixteen hundred pieces of writing from service members and their families. The film takes a handful of this writing as a central element – presenting powerful readings of the soldier’s words. These readings are brought to the screen through a variety of innovative filmmaking techniques that push the boundaries of traditional documentary, but avoid clumsy re-creations. Some stories are told through archival news images of the war. Several use striking visual collages to accompany the words of a poem. A few will move even farther a field to illustration or animated still photographs, yet always rooted in a reading of the writer’s original words.