An army of one

Thaddeus Ressler

What motivates someone to join the military? Is it patriotism for ones country, a sense of belonging, or a way out of a given situation? In the case of three young Americans in Sarah Goodman’s documentary Army of One that galvanizing force was 9/11, and the emotions that can overwhelm a regular person to join the armed forces.

Goodman, who holds both writer and director credits said, “After 9/11, I was reading stories about young people lining up to join the army. It was such a different reaction than my own to the tragedy and I wanted to find out what would motivate a young person to give up four or five years of their lives, especially during wartime. The military became a frame to explore the state of American youth today - directionless and searching, lacking solid foundations upon which to become adults. Instead, they’re looking for instant gratification-instant career, acceptance, and success, and the recruiters promised them this in the army.”

The reasons why Thaddeus Ressler, Sara Miller and Nelson Reyes decided to uproot themselves and defend their country and its principles at the expense of their own lives are as varied and complex as the people in question:

• Thaddeus was a 22-year-old from Chicago who gave up a cushy stockbroker job to pursue fantasies of killing Osama bin Laden, but fails to impress and is ordered to drive supply trucks and clean latrines. He turns to drinking with the rest of his misfit platoon. After months of depression – even contemplating suicide - he asks for an early discharge but instead gets moved to the top of the list for deployment to Iraq because of his “bad attitude.”

• Nelson was a 19-year-old Puerto Rican high school dropout from the South Bronx looking for some respect. He enlists and jumps all gung-ho into basic training, but soon starts to resent the army’s authoritarian system. Nelson goes AWOL; he finally returns to the Bronx with a huge chip on his shoulder until he gets a letter from a buddy in Iraq and breaks down, saying he feels like a failure.

• Sara Miller was a 22-year-old modern dancer from a small town who fails to make it in New York City. Frustrated she returns home to North Carolina where her judgemental father pushes her to enlist. She embraces the army’s values and is promoted to an elite post with the famous 82nd Airborne. Turning her back on her past and her best friend in New York, she is ready for Iraq and the fight ahead.

Nelson Reyes

“Each character embodied a different facet of what I was trying to say in the documentary. We constructed the film so that their themes would weave together,” said Goodman. “Sara and Thaddeus's stories were excellent at showing different reactions to an institution where everything is decided for you… Nelson’s story epitomized the lack of opportunities of his background and shows that his family and society has failed to meet his needs.”

Each wanted direction in a culture of television, video games, and sensory overload. The army has always demonstrated a sense of family, togetherness; it has a purpose, and when you don’t think you do it’s easy to see the allure of belonging.

“When my views about the direction of the war changed I lost a lot of the morale that had kept me going through basic training,” Ressler told S&H.ca in an e-mail interview. “I began to realize that I was just another throwaway pawn in a game of chess I didn't want to be in.

“After seeing the inner workings of the army I'm surprised we can get a damn thing done. God must really bless America ‘cause we sure don't have the smartest people in the army. Don't get me wrong there are exceptions but I've never been exposed to such ignorance and stupidity in my life. On a more serious note though, it really personalized the war for me. Knowing people that are over there realizing that at any minute I could see a memorial for them on TV. Most people have a completely sterile view of the war. I think if they could see the pictures that I've seen from Iraq no one would ever support war again. Except of course those who are going to profit from it.”

Sara Miller

Goodman did admit despite her previous assumptions she realized there were a lot of “decent human beings who are part of the military.” Drill Sergeants stopped being stereotypes of screaming megalomaniacs; many of the ones she got to know really cared about the young people in their platoon. But there is still a military culture that erodes the essence of the armed forces.

“I will say that within the U.S Army there is ignorance of other cultures and a very simplistic ‘good guy, bad guy’ worldview,” Goodman said. “I did find army culture to be fundamentalist, an extreme version of the most conservative attitudes of the U.S. This was one reason I chose to do the film- I wanted to go inside the institution that most fully embodied the general shift in the U.S towards the right, and find out what brought young people into it.”

Army of One recently screened at this year’s Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival

Images courtesy and © copyright 2003 Fovea Productions