A Provocative Look at Soldiers' Lives in Iraq

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http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=2111994

June 23, 2006 — The idea is simple and enormously powerful.

Three National Guard soldiers from New Hampshire were given their own cameras and asked to record a year Iraq. The more than 800 hours of video they recorded resulted in a film,"The War Tapes," which took the documentary feature award at the recent New York Tribeca Film Festival.

Specialist Mike Moriarty was one of the three soldiers — he signed up after 9/11. "That was like somebody hitting my house," Moriarty said to the camera. "I had to do something about it."

But Sgt. Zack Bazzi — born in Lebanon, fluent in Arabic — is dubious about America's intentions in Iraq.

"{Expletive} the oil man, {expletive} it," he said. "It's not worth it. I'll even drive a Honda Insight."

"I looked down at his hand dangling from the exposed bone that used to be his elbow," he said, "like a safety-clipped mitten dangling from his winter coat."