Film Screening and Discussion: “What I Want You To Know”

Film Screenings

Wednesday, March 20
7-9:00 PM
Noble Room
Hendricks Chapel of Syracuse University
Presented by The Moral Injury Project

Thursday, March 21
4:30-6 PM
Grewen Hall
Le Moyne College
Presented by The Moral Injury Project

The Moral Injury Project of Hendricks Chapel is pleased to host the screening of the documentary What I Want You to Know, which examines the topic of moral injury among troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The film’s executive producers, Travis Weiner and Tommy Furlong are combat veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.  They set out to make a documentary film that gives veterans of these wars the opportunity to tell the American public about their deployments, their feelings about the wars, and the invisible wounds and moral injuries they brought home with them. America has already forgotten the wars, they argue, while veterans and their families have to live with the effects, which for many will be lifelong.

The 13 veterans featured in this film address their experiences fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, their questions about the wartime mission, and their challenges coming home with physical, mental, and moral injuries that few in the U.S. civilian public understand. The film probes questions they ask about their service and U.S. involvement in these wars: What was it all for? What’s to stop it from happening again?  What do civilians need to know about the long-term effects of these wars?   What I Want You To Know is a courageous and unblinking look at the cost and consequences of war.

The  question and answer session following the film will be hosted by:

Garett Reppenhagen:  Garett served as a US Army Cavalry/Scout (with the 2-63 Armor Battalion) and completed a nine-month peacekeeping mission in Kosovo and then served as a Sniper in Baquaba Iraq. He joined Iraq Veterans Against the War in 2004 while deployed. He co-authored the anti-war blog Fight To Survive while still serving on active duty in Iraq. He was honorably discharged on May 31, 2005, after being involuntarily extended by a ten-month Stop-Loss. Since returning from Iraq, he has served as an advocate for veterans’ rights and benefits and served on the Board of Directors for the Iraq Veterans Against the War and was the Executive Director of Veterans for Peace and a small business owner in Maine.

The screening is sponsored by The Moral Injury Project of Hendricks Chapel, https://moralinjuryproject.syr.edu/

Event Contact Eileen E. Schell eeschell@syr.edu

From the “What I Want You To Know” website:

After the 9/11 attacks, the United States rallied a large coalition of allies and sent military forces into Afghanistan. Two years later, President George W. Bush told the nation that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and had to be preemptively stopped. Then the US invaded Iraq.

The 13 veterans featured in this film trusted their leaders and believed what they were told about why they needed to go fight and possibly die: to protect America, defend American freedoms, and help the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. But what they found on the ground was shockingly different. The endless cycles of searching for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and getting blown up. The raids against civilians in their homes terrorized women and children, and turned many into insurgents.

The anger civilians felt against US troops as Iraqi and Afghan men, women and children were killed or maimed by insurgents, the Taliban, or in some cases by US troops and US airstrikes. The despair and anger US troops felt as their fellow soldiers and Marines were injured or killed and civilians turned their backs.

For twenty years, the wars rolled on. The inescapable conclusion these veterans faced day after day was that the lessons of Vietnam had been forgotten.

The veterans in this film, like so many other veterans of these wars, brought home physical and mental injuries that will be lifelong. They also suffered moral injuries from the terrible things they saw and did. Their suffering is compounded by questions they can’t stop asking themselves, even as people thank them for their service and tell them they’re heroes: What was it all for? Why were we lied to? What’s to stop it from happening again?

What I Want You To Know is a courageous and unblinking look at the cost and consequences of war, and the moral tragedy of sending America’s young men and women to fight wars their country has no need to fight.

Executive producers Travis Weiner and Tommy Furlong are combat veterans who worked together at a Boston-area nonprofit providing clinical care to veterans and their families for traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and other invisible wounds of war. They were frustrated by civilians and government officials who referred to them as heroes but wouldn’t listen to their experiences and feelings about the wars they fought. Over and over, they worked with veterans who felt the same way. They told each other that someone should make a documentary film to give Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans a chance to tell their true stories, and realized that ‘someone’ would have to be them. Luckily, Travis’s aunt Catie Foertsch, a veteran commercial filmmaker, was ready to help and to direct her first feature-length documentary.

For more info, visit the film’s website.