The Hurt Locker

 
      My family and I visited Washington D.C. this past week.  We saw a lot of monuments and even went to Arlington National Cemetery.  I got a little teary talking about going to Arlington but then when we went to the Vietnam Memorial I got very teary.  I had a bit of a hard time getting my emotions under control.  My girls where concerned and began asking questions.  A lot of memories came flooding back to me as I tried to cipher through the emotions. The girls wanted to know why I was so emotional about the Vietnam memorial.  I have always dreamed of seeing it one day and have seen so many beautiful photos of it that always make me teary.  To be there was an amazing feeling that is hard to describe.  I couldn’t hardly take it all in.  I just walked along the wall trying to  ……. 
     I watched The Hurt Locker (2008) all alone. It is a very intense movie and I was engrossed the entire time.  Kathryn Bigelow (K-19: The Widowmaker, Point Break) directed The Hurt Locker. She shot it in a very real way.  You felt like you were right there in the action with these men. Walking the streets of Iraq and into the buildings. IMDB (The Internet Movie Database) gives the best synopsis “Iraq. Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.” I really can’t say it better than that.  One scene I will never forget is a soldier trying to disarm a car that has been turned into an IED (Improvised explosive device) while Iraqis are all around watching him from a distance.  I can’t even explain what it was like to watch.  Because the movie was about an Army squad who did this there were a lot of these kinds of scenes.  Very intense and unimaginable. 
     After the movie I had a conversation with my father who served in the Air Force.  He didn’t go to Vietnam but was in the Air Force at the time of it. The Hurt Locker really stirred up a lot of thoughts about the differences and similarities of the Vietnam war and Iraq war.  I can’t explain why, but I want to understand what these men go through. They sacrifice so much for us.  I was asking my dad all of these questions.  The Hurt Locker is rated R, which should really be no surprise.  I really don’t enjoy hearing cursing in movies but I feel like in a military or war movie it is real and how they talk.  I asked my dad about this and he said it is pretty mild compared to the real thing.  There is another scene where the men get into a violent altercation in their room.  I don’t know how these soldiers ever sleep. There is no down time.  They are on high alert all of the time.  So, when they explode and take it out on each other ……. well it is a very interesting scene.  So, I asked my dad about that.  He said that is pretty accurate as well. I want to know what is real and what is just Hollywood when it comes to those kind of things.  I then began to ask about similarities between Vietnam and Iraq.  I know they had a hard time knowing who exactly the enemy was in Vietnam, I believe so anyway.  There was also a lot of Guerrilla warfare.  I would think Iraq would be similar to that.  My dad’s response was, “no, it is nothing like Vietnam.” He then became too emotional and our conversation ended there.  He doesn’t really cry or get emotional and I try to be sensitive about those kinds of topics so I apologized and felt really bad. 
     While at the Vietnam memorial with my husband and daughters I told my girls this story, about watching the movie and about my dad getting emotional.  They asked if he had friends who died in Vietnam.  I told them I didn’t know and probably never would. I was reminded of an essay I wrote for English in 1989.  It was about the memorial and the soldiers who served in Vietnam.  Even at that young age I wanted to understand. There was a poem I had read about the hurt in the soldiers eyes; it really had an impact on me.  I am not a writer and have never felt like that was one of my strong suits.  I have come to realize that that is one of the reasons I was so hesitant to start this blog.  I can talk, and I can talk all day about movies but doing this ….. it has become more about writing than I expected and therefore I am learning and growing from the experience.
      War stories and our American Soldiers have always had a very special place in my heart. I have seen a lot of war movies covering many different wars.  I cry at any thing involving our military and the sacrifices they make for us.  I will probably never understand where those emotions come from and why it is so meaningful to me.  Just like I may never know why my dad cried when talking about this movie and any time we talk about his service. 
      The Hurt Locker was a wonderful movie, not in a feel good make you happy kind of way, but still amazing.  It is not surprising that it won the Oscar for best picture, in the end winning 6 Oscars total.