Watch Phil Donohue's Documentary "Body of War" Tonight, 7PM EST

Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet at 10:10 AM on November 11, 2008.

Earlier this year, I interviewed Tomas Young, an Iraq war veteran and the subject of the searing documentary Body of War. Tomas was shot in Sadr City during the the first week of his deployment in 2004, and the results were catastrophic: He came home in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down. Although the film depicts a man of stunning mobility and awe-inspiring strength -- much of which has gone toward speaking out against the war in Iraq -- more than four years later, he continues to grapple with numerous related health problems. Tomas has spent much of the time since the release of Body of War this spring in the hospital.

Tomas Young, like so many other soldiers returning with broken bodies, provides a sobering reminder of the cost of war at a time when the physical and mental health crisis faced by veterans has reached alarming rates. If you missed Body of War when it first came out, you can watch it tonight on the Sundance Channel. It is a powerful film, one intended by co-director Phil Donohue to blow the lid off what he often calls "the most sanitized war of my lifetime."

For more information on Body of War, go here.

Tagged as: iraq, veterans, body of war, tomas young, phil donohue

Liliana Segura is a staff writer and editor of AlterNet's Rights and Liberties and War on Iraq Special Coverage.