The Messenger of death only comes sometimes

Watching the trailer for The Messenger, two officers arrive to notify families their husbands and wives, their sons and daughters, will not be walking in the door. Death is the end for the Soldier, the Marine, the Sailor, the Airman. It is also the end for the life the family used to have. It's all gone with this knock at the door.

When civilians are notified by a police chaplain someone they love is not coming home, they have to get past the shock, plan a funeral, make phone calls, decide what suit or dress to use for the last image they will ever have of someone they loved. After the funeral, they go back to their homes, deal with insurance polices and social security. Take names off bank accounts, then look at the empty chair in their living room.

Aside from funeral attire for the coffin, pretty much the military families have to go through the same things except when they go home, they have to wonder where they will move to now they are no longer able to live on government property. They have to move out to make room for another soldier's family to move in.

Sound painful? It is. One of the things we never seem to think about when the families live on base or post. With the deaths at Fort Hood recently, maybe this rule will end up being a blessing because they will not have to drive past where their soldier died at the hands of one of their own.

Military messengers do not always come. They do not come when a soldier has been discharged but died as a result of service. When they take their own lives, they are not counted as a war casualty. It doesn't matter that the suicide would not have happened if they had continued to live as a civilian far removed and detached from what few will ever know. The price paid is not paid in full until they are no longer alive. They will never really be a civilian again. They become Veteran. A veteran with a story still being written that few will ever read.

We don't think of what happens to the families after the flag is folded and handed off to the family member on "behalf of a grateful nation" any more than we know what happens to the rest of them after they come home.

If you go to see The Messenger, please keep this in mind as you watch. I have not seen the movie yet so I do not know if they address the fact families have to move away from their friends when they need support from them the most, but in case it does not, we need to think of this.


Synopsis
In his most powerful performance to date, Ben Foster stars as Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is assigned to the Army's Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front. When he finds himself drawn to Olivia (Samantha Morton), to whom he has just delivered the news of her husband's death, Will's emotional detachment begins to dissolve and the film reveals itself as a surprising, humorous, moving and very human portrait of grief, friendship and survival.

Featuring tour-de-force performances from Foster, Harrelson and Morton, and a brilliant directorial debut by Moverman, 'The Messenger' brings us into the inner lives of these outwardly steely heroes to reveal their fragility with compassion and dignity.
http://www.moviefone.com/movie/the-messenger/36286/synopsis