Purple Hearts (2005)

A photo series that the New York-based Nina Berman made of wounded Iraq veterans led to the making of this documentary. She also wrote the book 'Purple Hearts, Back from Iraq', in which soldiers tell their stories. Documentary filmmaker Roel van Broekhoven crossed the United States to visit the people portrayed in Berman's photos. Documentary of the lives of several wounded veterans who have returned from Iraq. They detail the events on the day they were wounded; the reactions of their friends and family when they returned home to various cities and small towns around America. Ironically most of them still maintain a loyalty to the military they once regarded as their career even though it no longer wants them or has any use for them. Many desperately resist what is slowly dawning on them, that they were manipulated into making their sacrifice for something that looks less and less likely to benefit their country.