HBO Documentary Poster Girl Iraq Veteran Female Gunner PTSD

Film Based on WNY Vet's PTSD Story Featured In Reel Mind Series
WXXI News
By BETH ADAMS
4 HOURS AGO

 The story of a Western New York veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder is the subject of a film showing in Rochester this week as part of the Reel Mind Theater and Film Series.

CREDIT HBO.COM

The event focuses on the social stigma of mental illness. Organizers want to provide a message of hope that recovery is possible.

The film “Poster Girl” is showing at the Memorial Art Gallery Tuesday evening. The army veteran mentioned in the title is Robynn Murray, a native of Niagara County.

The title of the movie is based on a poster made from a picture of Murray on the cover of the Army's official magazine. She was depicted in the image as the ideal female soldier.

But Murray's military experience was not picture-perfect. She believes her experience with PTSD began during her first deployment to Iraq in 2003 where she worked as a machine gunner.

"I started to have panic attacks and I had no idea what they were. I thought I had a heart problem because I'd never had anything like that before, so I was sent to clinic on my FOB (forwarding operating base)."
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From HBO

Poster Girl
Robynn Murray is an Iraq war veteran struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). At age 19, shortly after 9/11, Robin decided to enlist in the Army, and recalls the recruiter telling her she would be assigned to the Civil Affairs division – “good guys” who provided humanitarian assistance and helped rebuild infrastructure. At the time, Robynn said, “I’m sold. I want to go and help people.”

Within a few days of arriving in Iraq, however, she was assigned to be the machine gunner for a 20-vehicle convoy, which sometimes meant being ordered to point her rifle at civilians. Today, at an anti-war conference, she holds up a copy of Army magazine, with a photo of herself and two other female soldiers on the cover. “This is what they made me,” she says. Robynn became a “poster woman” for females in combat, insisting that this was a role she never wanted.

Having grown up in a military family, Robynn knew from a young age she wanted to join the military. At her mother’s home in Buffalo, NY, she shows pictures of herself from high school, where she was a member of ROTC, a National Merit Scholar and a cheerleader. A photo of a smiling Robynn on prom night is a stark contrast to the Robynn of today, who has tattoos of rifles on her chest and the letters “V-E-T” on her knuckles. Of the rifle tattoos, she says they represent her disillusionment with the Army, and her “wish to never have my hands on any trigger or gun that would claim a life of another human being.”
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