Baghdad ER TV series

Watched this programme the first time last night:

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/baghdader/index.html

12-time Emmy® Award winner producer/director Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill capture the humanity, hardships and heroism of the US Military and medical personnel of the 86th Combat Support Hospital, the Army's premier medical facility in Iraq. Sometimes graphic in its depiction of combat-related wounds, BAGHDAD ER offers an unflinching and honest account of the realities of war.

I know war is grim, futile, painful etc. But watching this programme (program?) really brings it home in a quite shocking way. I am surprised it was authorised by the US government, as you can tell from the comments how hopeless the Doctors find the situation.

These guys are young and suffering horrific injuries or of course paying the ultimate price. The main threat is from IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices).

It all just looks as hopeless as Vietnam, with an enemy you can never eliminate and never catch.

Guys making the film said:

"And in the end, we backed pretty far away from how graphic and violent the emergency room and the operating room are. We're giving you the veneer of the violence. But it's much, much worse than we portrayed it. We just didn't think that an audience would tolerate that. I was for showing more, and Matt was for showing less. And so we would go into editing sessions, and at the last minute I would sneak in a couple really violent scenes, and everybody would be repulsed, and so then we would come back to where Matt had thought it belonged."

Hmm is this a series or a oncer? The site doesnt really make it clear, and the schedule link doesnt work.

It's a oncer. Pretty graphic too. So much so, that the US military banned/censored it when it was released and refused to show it on American Forces Network here in Europe for fear it would trigger Flashbacks and PTSD for troops who have recently returned. (Apparently it was not banned because of the dropping reenlistment rates and what the documentary may do to those!)
I had a friend send it to me from the US and you can order it on Amazon too.

From the title I'd imagined it to be filmed at a Baghdad city hospital with civilians as its main focus. Compare and contrast would be more enlightening IMO.

Cant find it too download.

Where'd you watch it?

I watched on UK SKY Telly. I think it might be repeated.

Pretty full on stuff, they said they could have made it even gorier but decided not to gross people out too much. Its kind of comforting in a way to think that some things never change, its pretty much the same scene since caveman first picked up a club cos he wanted the neighboring tribes hunting ground, if theres one thing we can say about human beings is that we will always find new ways to kill each other. I definitly have a lot less respect for the soldiers on the ground now though, particularly those who intended going back to the bloodshed, violence and maiming as soon as they recover! Its people like that that are the reason we have such wars in the first place. Thanks to TV shows like this people can find out wars not really that glamourous or heroic at all, and I feel fully justified questioning the sanity of anyone wishing to take part.

A real eye opener, cheers for letting us know JE!

WARNING: Does contain scenes of naked male cock. Guess HBO couldnt help themselves there.

I watched this documentary last night, and it was pretty good. You have to feel sorry for the US troops over there fighting this useless battle, but even more so it makes you think about the at least 40,000 Iraqi civilians (almost 20 times the amount of US soliders) that have been killed in this and they didn't have a chopper to evacuate them to a nice secure medical facility.

This war is a fucking joke, and I can't believe that we can let the perpetrators of this get away scot free. In the end, we have invaded a country for no good reason, killed thousands of people and destroyed any security the country may have. We are the bad guys here. I have no idea what can be done to make it right, but America, the UK and its allies have to be made to suffer for this, because it is one of the worst tragedies and injustice in modern times.

The leaders in America have to go to jail for this for the rest of their lives as far as I'm concerned. I don't care if they acted on information from below, they have to pay and maybe this will make leaders think next time they decide they might start a war. I bet this would stop a lot of the bloodshed in the future.