Combat Movie Real

When we shoot videos, we see only part of what is going on around us. The lens records only what we focus on. The mind works pretty much the same way. While troops see what is going on around them, they will focus on only part of it.

This looks like a great shot of two soldiers walking with another soldier out of the shot. We know he's there because of the extra arm.

Yet when you zoom out you see what else is happening.

When they are out of danger, they end up seeing only part of the real movie playing in their minds. They "see" only what they focus on. Most of the time these images are not pretty. They focus on the worst man can do to someone else forgetting about what they do for each other.

The most powerful images they have trapped are bad ones. Much like the newspaper business has a saying "if it bleeds it leads" the worst story holds the most power over us as it does with veterans after living through it.

They need to be able to find peace and the way to achieve it is to watch the whole movie and take another look at what was going on at the time. If they only see the bad they think they have become "bad" but if they open the lens, zoom out and take into account what else was going on at the time, what they were feeling, what they were thinking, then they will see that while they were in the midst of hell, they did not become evil as well.

The above soldier in the middle may end up focusing on his friends coming to help him get out of there but he can focus more on the fact there was a bomb that exploded.  They need help to focus on the positive more so they can overcome the bad they had to live through.  It isn't a movie reel they are watching in the middle of the night back home.  It is a movie real. Get them to watch the whole movie and then you help them heal.