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Tavis: Deborah Scranton is a first-time director who's won wide acclaim for her documentary about Iraq called "The War Tapes." The movie is a look at the war through the eyes of the United States military personnel stationed in Iraq. One of those featured is Sgt. Zack Bazzi who spent eleven months in Iraq. The movie opens today in Los Angeles with other markets on the way. Here now a scene from "The War Tapes."

[A film clip is shown]

Tavis: Deborah, Zack, nice to have you both here.

Sgt. Zack Bazzi: Nice to be here.

Deborah Scranton: Thanks for having us.

Tavis: My pleasure. We have talked a thousand times on this program and, for that matter, I think all Americans know this new term created in part by this war: imbedded journalists. We all know what it means to be imbedded as a journalist. This takes that to a whole other level. These are not imbedded journalists. These are soldiers, military personnel, who are actually shooting this documentary. It's a fascinating story about how this project came to be. I'll let you tell it, Deborah.

Scranton: Based on an earlier film I had made, I got a phone call of an offer to imbed as a filmmaker. Literally, that night I went to sleep, and I woke up in the middle of the night with this vision of what if I gave the soldiers the cameras to, in effect, virtually imbed, work with them over the Internet, to be able to tell the story through their eyes? The one thing that I wanted to know was what did war look like, smell like, feel like to those who are on the ground and have to fight it.

Tavis: These are National Guard soldiers, we should point out.

Scranton: National Guardsmen. It's from one unit, Charlie Company of the 172nd. They're a Mountain Infantry Unit based in New Hampshire.

Tavis: How did you get the military to sign off on this idea?

Scranton: On this idea? Well, I got the call of the offer to imbed and then I called them back the next day. I said, "I have this idea." To their credit, they listened to it. The Public Affairs Officer went to Major General John Blair who was the then Adjutant General of the State and talked it over with them.

They understood and they said, you know, "We want to support you in this because we understand you think this is a better way to tell the soldiers' story." At the time, in New Hampshire anyway, the National Guard was at a fifty-six percent deployment rate. I mean, across the country, forty percent of the National Guard is deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan now.

Tavis: I'm sure the first question that many are curious about, Zack, and I certainly was when I heard about the story, how in the world are you concentrating in Iraq, of all places, and shooting a movie at the same time?

Bazzi: That's a fair question.

Tavis: You're like Zack Spielberg.

Bazzi: I was not concentrating on filming whatsoever. The beauty of this project is what you see is what you get. That was done because filming was always secondary and optional. As a sergeant and I was about to deploy to a war zone, having served a few years of active duty myself, I take my job dead seriously.

When Deborah gave her sales pitch to the unit, I thought it was something interesting. I never thought it would be what it is today. I thought it would be cool to get involved with it. But my only concern was how can I do this in such a manner that wouldn't interfere or compromise my duties in leading soldiers?

The way I did it, you know, different people film differently. The specific way I filmed was by mounting the camera on the tripod. The tripod was already secured to the dashboard of the Humvee, so you get a Humvee perspective of that event. No different than you turning on your laptop in your office. I would just turn it on prior to leaving the base and just forget about it.

Tavis: In fact, that's the technology that police cars use today. They have a camera on their dashboard basically that films a lot of what happens on these police stops.

Bazzi: I mean, there's so much to worry about a combat zone. You got two radios to worry about, you maintain your position as a GPS, talk to your leaders, make sure your soldiers are doing the right thing. Of course, there are insurgents and civilians on the battlefield. So you can see that there are just so many things to worry about. The last thing I cared about was that camera. Many times, it ran out of battery and I wouldn't even change it.

Of course, once we came back from the mission, I'd come back and give it to my commander. That was the protocol. I'd give it to my commander, he'd send it to Major Hawthorne and it would get to her. I didn't care what somebody else would think of it because you know what? I'm proud of my actions over there.

Tavis: I don't know where this question is going to take us, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway. From your perspective, Deborah, what is your sense of what we get from them, soldiers doing this, that we would not or have not gotten from others?

Scranton: Well, I think there's a few aspects of that. One, I think it's very profound for the soldiers themselves to press record. You know, it's true, as I said, we're talking and it's always soldiers first, filming second, third, fourth, fifth, depending on what was going on in the arena. You know, that was always a secondary thing.

But I thought that, as an experiment, as a concept, to do a traditional filmmaking structure where we did interviews before they left, home on leave, followed them for ten months after they came home, but for the Iraq portion to see through their eyes, them pressing record, I thought that was really an exciting concept.

Tavis: Let me ask honestly whether or not there were parts of this, once the military gave you permission to do this, that got edited out because they wouldn't let you show certain things?

Scranton: There was one tape which we acknowledge in the film. It happened in Fallujah after some insurgents were killed. We deal with it and one of the soldiers, Sgt. Steve Pink, explains and we have stills from the dead insurgents, so we deal with it in a transparent way. But what I like to emphasize is the fact that the National Guard military led to eight hundred hours and there's one tape they kept.

Tavis: But if the one tape they kept, though - and you know where I'm going with this - if the one tape they kept, they kept because they didn't like the way it portrayed them, then they obviously had some hand in the editing here that does not tell the true story of what the soldiers are enduring. It's what you're telling us that you want us to see.

Scranton: Actually, the story is told in the film itself. I can tell you from my perspective, even if we had gotten the tape, I don't know if I would have used it. There is a line where you want to tell the story, but by no way go so far that it's unbearable for people to watch.

Tavis: That raises a fascinating question, Zack, for me at least, because one of the things - there are many, God knows - but one of the things the Bush administration has been criticized for is sanitizing this war. I mean, you know the old adage that "War is hell."

Bazzi: Yes.

Tavis: And part of what is wrong with the way we treat this war is that we sanitize it whether from your perspective or from the perspective of the Iraqi women and children or men, for that matter. If you're going to tell a story, then be real with it. Tell it. But Deborah says I'm not sure I would have used it because you don't want to go too far. But that's what war is. If you're going to tell the story, why not let people see what war really is?

Bazzi: I agree with you a hundred percent. In fact, I'll even take it a step further. I don't think Americans have the right to be insulated and protected from this war. Right now as it is, it's compartmentalized. Half a percent of the nation, I think, is the military. I might be wrong. It might be even less. And associated with them is their families.

But otherwise, except for the compromises, it's nowhere what it was in World War II when you had, you know, Victory Gardens and you had the home front and people had quotas on gasoline and all sorts of supplies. So if there's no collective sacrifice, what's to prevent us from having a public that doesn't see what war is all about and legitimize one war after another after another?

I mean, hypothetically speaking, we want to invade Iran. Joe Schmoe somewhere in Tennessee, who's never known anything about the military, he's not even paying taxes to support the war. He got a tax cut instead of a tax hike. What's to prevent him from saying, okay, I'll put up my yellow ribbon on my SUV and be a good American? So I agree with you a hundred percent. I don't think Americans should be insulated from the horror of this war in any way whatsoever.

Tavis: That's a courageous answer from a soldier. I appreciate your honesty in that regard. That said, you have to be the only person involved in this project who was actually on the ground who also speaks fluent Arabic.

Bazzi: Yeah (laughter), not many of us speak it.

Tavis: Tell me how that aided and abetted or perhaps hurt your duties in this region of the world.

Bazzi: No, no. I don't come at it from the perspective, you know, that I'm Arabic. It was a combat multiplier. We have this term -

Tavis: - what's the term again?

Bazzi: It's combat multiplier. It's something that makes one soldier basically perform twice or three times as good just because of that ability.

Tavis: This is value added?

Bazzi: Yeah, exactly. So I never thought of myself as an interpreter or anything. I saw myself as an infantry sergeant, a team leader of soldiers in combat. That ability allowed me to do things. One of them is to be a better, more effective leader and work better for my superiors like, "Hey, Bazzi, go find out what's going on down at that accident scene." I'd go talk to them and come back and report to my squad leader and await his further orders and guidance.

Also, it allowed me a better sense of empathy with the Iraqis. If you think about it, according to how it's sold to us in America, the ultimate mission is to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis, right? So if you use that logic, it allowed me to do that better and more effectively. So overall, it made me a better soldier and better able to serve my country and I'm very proud of that.

Tavis: Deborah, this thing had an auspicious start with the Tribeca where this won a major award when it was released?

Scranton: Yes.

Tavis: What do you want the American people to get from this?

Scranton: That it's soldiers' voices. That these are the guys who lock and load and leave the wire and leave the base every day. The guys who got the cameras were specialists, the sergeants, the enlisted men. That's who's serving in our name. You know, so often we hear these terms, a symmetrical battlefield, three hundred sixty degree warfare. I think, through the power of empathy, if you see some of what they go through, I think you'll reach a greater understanding.

Tavis: I'm just curious now. What's it like - it's one thing to have Spielberg on the set yelling, you know, action, cut, take two, whatever. It's another thing for you to be directing this from here to way over there. So how were your instructions communicated? How did you direct this from here stateside to these guys on the ground in Iraq?

Scranton: For the Iraq portion versus when I was here with the crew and filming stateside, you mean?

Tavis: Yeah.

Scranton: Well, we would talk a lot. I mean, for me it wasn't about my vision. It was some soldiers, you know, who we talked to an awful lot on IM about what we were getting and how to best tell the story. Other soldiers, we would talk more about how their day was, what was going on.

I mean, an example for the film would be with Zack where he had told me the story about refusing to translate when the father had the sick child wanting to cross the road. Then when he came home, I was then able to say, "You know, Zack, that story really haunted me. Would you tell it for me with the crew so we can capture that because I think it's an important story to be shared."

Tavis: Zack, did I read somewhere that you signed up again for another tour of duty?

Bazzi: Well, I've been doing the job since I'm eighteen. I'm currently twenty-seven. My entire life has been the military, either Guard or active duty, so obviously if I didn't like it, at that point I wouldn't have joined up, so it's something I like. The bottom line, ultimately, at least on my level, maybe a general's level, it might be different, but it's not a political job. I have my own political views and I'm proud of them. I'm certainly not ashamed of them. I have my own misgivings and doubts about this entire new foreign policy issue we've been pursuing over the last few years.

Tavis: But seeing what you saw in Iraq didn't change your mind about -

Bazzi: - to my mind, I'm capable of separating the two and, in a way, reconciling them. Ultimately, my professional values and my love for the job of being a soldier overrides all that. You know, even though people have kind of doubts about the strategic approach, on my level, at the soldier level, I did nothing to be ashamed of and I'm proud of my service.

Tavis: Sgt. Zack Bazzi and filmmaker, Deborah Scranton, nice to have you both on the program. Congratulations on your work here.

Scranton: Thank you for having us.

Tavis: Up next on this program, humorist Andy Borowitz. Stay with us.