American Soldiers' Perspective

Filmmaker Deborah Scranton and Sgt. Zack Bazzi discuss filming their documentary, which looks at war through the eyes of American soldiers in Iraq.

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?

Deborah 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."

Sgt. Zack 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.

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