Posted by: Bob Stott

I'm halfway through "Stop-loss", the latest war movie about American soldiers stationed in Iraq, trying to make it through the daily grind of roadside bombings and checkpoint firefights, when it strikes me how true to life the film actually is.

I can remember my dad's war movies, "The Green Berets" or "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and how easily the film glazed over injuries, ranging from gunshots to explosions to shrapnel wounds. The outcome of these injuries were relatively easy to predict: if the soldier was badly injured, they died (usually midway through a stoic monologue), but if they were mildly injured, they lived. Very cut and dry, and doesn't leave the audience enough time to ponder the severity of the stab wound in a soldier's arm, cutting nerves to move a hand and fingers, or the the infection that can grow around even the smallest piece of sharpnel in a soldier's leg.

That doesn't quite tell the whole story, and while many have survived their tour of combat in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan, everything is not necessarily OK simply because they made it out alive. "Stop-loss" made it a point to demonstrate exactly what I had been researching and interviewing military therapists for my article A Separate Peace: after returning home from overseas, sometimes, the war is just beginning.

Beyond the noticeable injuries of burn scars and prosthetic limbs, there are hundreds of returning soldiers suffering from undiagnosed disabilities, including periodic numbness of the limbs, chronic migraines caused by unreported concussions, battle stress and chronic fatigue, permanent ringing in the ears, and respiratory infections caused by dust, resulting in pneumonia, raging fevers, and weight loss.

More than ever, it seems that therapists are needed both afield and on the homefront to break through the "code of silence" among soldiers. Trained to perform optimally under extreme conditions, soldiers are not accustomed to the traditionally slow rate of rehabilitation practiced in the civilian sector, and often will not report a problem because they consider themselves to be in better shape than injured comrades, who truly need therapeutic aid.

"Stop-loss" fleshes out this problem and speaks to the vital role of the therapist in sifting through our returning servicemen and women, who are suffering in silence, and unable to continue with their former lives.