The Ground Truth: These are Stories Every American Needs to Hear

While deployed to Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne, I fell in love with a little girl named Robia. It was the closest to parental affection I've ever felt, and I wasn't alone. Every soldier in Charlie Company would go out of their way to make Robia comfortable, to bring her toys, to try to make her smile. She never smiled.

Robia had a bone sticking out of her leg. At some point she had suffered a compound fracture, and without proper treatment the wound had healed around the bone, leaving it exposed.

I was so mad when I first heard Robia's story. How could this happen to such a beautiful little child? What kind of savage, backward country had we invaded, where children had to walk around with open fractures? Then I read the casualty statistics for our War on Terror. Until then, I hadn't known that thousands of Afghan civilians were killed by our bombing raids. How had Robia's leg been smashed? Was her family fleeing from a village that had been ruined by a 500-lb bomb? Even if her injury had nothing to do with the war, I had to accept that people wearing my uniform had killed hundreds of children just like Robia.

From that point on, I always had to wonder when a child came to our clinic with missing limbs or a burned face. Had we done this? Was I partly responsible for all this pain, destruction and terror? All this before we heard news of Afghan prisoners being tortured and murdered.

When I returned home, I decided that I couldn't participate in OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) or any other war. I filed for conscientious objection, and I was given an honorable discharge in November of 2004.

I've chosen to share these experiences because I think stories can change things. At a time when public dialogue is dominated by hyperbole and self-conscious irony, I believe that there is a great deal of power in a simple, human story.

That's why I hope everyone in the country sees The Ground Truth.

My hope is that these stories will get people to pull away from YouTube or reality TV, to remove their white earbuds and listen, to acknowledge that the world is deeply messed up and we're partially to blame. And then, hopefully, they'll try to change that.

If The Ground Truth isn't playing in your city, go to www.thegroundtruth.net. Buy a DVD, hold a house party, spread the word. You can also hear more from me and some of the other veterans in the film by checking out: www.aimpages.com/thegroundtruth. Most of all, please get involved.