Nancy Schiesari, filmmaker of TATTOOED UNDER FIRE

The massacre at Food Hood was a terrible reminder of the vulnerability and mental fragility of our forces currently engaged on two war fronts with the prospect of multiple tours. One could only imagine last week’s fatal event––young men and women recruits waiting for flu shots and filling out paperwork, nervous and anxious about their eminent deployment, when suddenly they are being shot at with an automatic weapon. They had no means to escape or defend themselves.

Perhaps only families who have lost a son or daughter can understand the enormous grief that has befallen the parents and loved ones of those killed on November 5. The rest of us stand bewildered and distraught looking in from the outside at the impenetrable façade of Fort Hood.

We also carry an uneasy burden knowing there is a war going on over which we have no control, but few of us will ever experience. So who goes and why? While working on TATTOOED UNDER FIRE, my crew and I sat listening for many hours while soldiers underwent the lengthy preparation and execution of getting a custom-made tattoo at the River City Tattoo Parlor.

Tattooing satisfies a serious creative need for self-expression by soldiers in the face of anonymity and possible death––a unique art form that relies on a subtle relationship between artist and client. There are as many unique tattoos as there are reasons for enlisting: to escape small towns where there are few jobs or future prospects, to pay for college, to gain citizenship or to leave unhappy families or abusive parents. While some, mainly women, could only gain vital heath care for sick children by going to war. Others are told the discipline of the military would turn them into men.

As one of the soldiers in the film says to an elderly lady who offered to pray for him, “Lady it ain’t going to do much good, I’m either gonna get to kill a whole bunch of people or my ass is gonna die.”

Soliders must be ready to kill. Is Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused psychiatrist, the mirror image of the hate we muster up towards our enemy? Did he hear one story too many of the hate, brutality, inhuman behavior from both sides of perpetrators of violence? Did he begin to feel like a victim himself, after hearing about body parts of comrades falling to the ground to be picked up, bagged and sent home? Or the stories of Muslim children being killed by accident or because they had a bomb strapped to their bodies heading towards a convoy?

What all troops at war risk is a dangerous gamble that they may return permanently scarred by memories out of their control that bring anguish every time they flash back. And what happens to their perceptions and feelings towards people from the Middle East? Doesn’t hate turns into racism and become contagious? Slowly this seeps back into the culture and before long other groups are feeling uneasy and an otherness towards Arabs and people of Middle Eastern descent. After Pearl Harbor, thousands of Japanese Americans paid for their ethnicity by internment and losing everything they owned. What can come of fighting hate with hate, but more death and mental illness. In the meantime, we owe our soldiers fighting in our country’s name the best mental heath care available.

The documentary team of TATTOOED UNDER FIRE would like to express our deepest sympathy to the families of the brave men and women who died in the service of their country.

-Nancy Schiesari, filmmaker of TATTOOED UNDER FIRE

Get a look at what daily life is like in Killeen, Texas, home to Fort Hood–America’s largest military base:

Young men and women share their thoughts about joining the U.S. military and going to Iraq.

Premiering this month on public television (check local listings), the film offers an intimate, character-driven portrait of Iraq-bound and returning U.S. soldiers, professing their pride, sharing their secrets and confessing their fears as they go under the needle at a tattoo parlor serving the Fort Hood community. Shot over four years TATTOOED UNDER FIRE has captured the chronological history of the stress and anguish of military duty experienced by these young men and women as they prepare and return from war. What emerges is an evocative, poignant and highly personal look at the human and cultural cost of war, and the pressures of life on America’s largest military base.

“When a tragedy like this occurs at a place like Fort Hood, it is very unusual that public television can respond immediately with a national premiere of a new program so deeply connected to these difficult events,” said Sally Jo Fifer, CEO and president of ITVS.

As we struggle to understand the meaning and impact of the horrific incident at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 30 injured, we hope this very timely and important film will help shed some light on the lives and challenges of our soldiers, and of life in the Fort Hood community.

TATTOOED UNDER FIRE airs this month on public television (check local listings).
A co-production of ITVS in association with KLRU/Austin

Next month, TATTOOED UNDER FIRE airs on public television and follows war-bound and returning U.S. soldiers as they go under the needle––openly professing their pride, sharing their secrets and confessing their fears.

Check out the new Flickr group inspired by the film. Are you a solider with tattoos? Share your photos with us.

Visit the Flickr group >>