Wounded Iraq war veteran's plight pushed talk show host into action

Phil Donahue's film inspiration
Wounded Iraq war veteran's plight pushed talk show host into action
By Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post Film Critic
Article Last Updated: 08/16/2008 11:19:59 AM MDT
It's a powerful scene in a film blessed — and, given the subject, cursed — with them.

In "Body of War," Tomas Young attends an anti-Iraq-war event. Members of Gold Star families reach out toward the man in a wheelchair.

"They can't take their hands off him," says Phil Donahue, who co-directed the film with documentary veteran Ellen Spiro. "For that moment, while they're holding a card or picture of their loved one in one hand — a loved one who was killed — with their other hand they're touching the warm face of Tomas Young."

Then the first-time filmmaker (but TV talk show legend) shares an insight he learned from Young's mother, Cathy, who figures prominently in the movie.

"For a moment, they're allowing themselves to believe they're touching the loved one they'll never touch again."

Donahue met Young at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Young had requested a meeting with Ralph Nader, who invited his friend along.

"He claims he remembers meeting me," says Donahue. "Boy, I would be surprised. He was totally whacked, medicated. As I stood at his bed looking down at this kid — he was 24 at the time — his mother explained the nature of his injuries. The first thing that goes through your head is, 'Why him, not me? What random fate brings this life-altering tragedy to a 24-year-old?' "

Young enlisted in the Army soon after the attacks of 9/11. The Kansan was 22. He arrived in Iraq in March 2004. On April 4, on his first mission, a bullet entered above his left collarbone, paralyzing him.

Donahue, who never made a feature film before, wasn't looking for a wounded soldier to build a movie around. Young forced him out of retirement.

"All I knew was I met a man at Walter Reed Hospital, and I wanted everybody to meet him. I wanted every American to meet him."
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