SCREENING FOR TRAUMA
Bob Bauer is intimately acquainted with his demons.
They invade his sleep, leaving him in a cold sweat. They stoke his temper like a fireplace poker stirring up flames. Once, their incessant tirade left him curled up in a ball on his bathroom floor, wailing and begging to die.
“It’s tough navigating that emotional minefield,” said the Washington D.C. resident, a 62-year-old retired law enforcement officer diagnosed in 1994 with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
A while back, he sat with notebook and pen, preparing to critique the faith-based movie “We Are Stronger” by the nonprofit Reflective Life Ministries in Magnolia. It’s the tale of war veteran Vic Raphael’s struggle with PTSD and its vicarious effects on his family. It’s a story about hope and healing through Christ, the ministry says.
“I thought it would be another little Christian movie with a nice message and bad acting,” admits Bauer, who just minutes into the movie, a nightmare scene, felt compelled to pick up his pen. Vic’s face, frightened and disoriented, a temple-pounding ball of sweat, filled the screen.
“I AM VIC,” Bauer scribbled in big, bold letters, circling his notebook entry numerous times.
Bauer, who saw his Army buddy shot and killed by enemy fire in the Panama jungle in 1978, whose 193rd Army Infantry Brigade recovered bodies from the Jonestown, Guyana mass murder-suicide that same year, knows bad dreams.
He calms the demons through Warriors Heart USA, a Christ-centered group that he founded in 2014 to help veterans and firstresponders dealing with trauma. All those suffering would do well to watch this movie, he says. “It nails it.”
“We Are Stronger” just completed its bigscreen run in independent movie theaters, churches and before a myriad of faith-based organizations across the country. Along the way, it racked up awards from several Christian film festivals, including audience choice for “Best Trailer” at the recent International Christian Film Festival in Orlando, Fla. The American Movie Awards, celebrating the best in independent filmmaking, awarded it this year’s Grand Jury Prize.
“The Lord just kind of took it and ran with it,” said Montgomery resident Jake Allen, the movie’s director and cinematographer.
“Reflective Life Ministries is small,” explains executive producer Carla McDougal, who founded the ministry in 2008. “We rely on donations. And we prayed to God to give us an organic demand for this movie, a natural movement. He delivered. It really has been a grassroots movement.”
The movie is directed at anyone experiencing PTSD, not just war veterans and first-responders, she adds. “Anyone with any kind of trauma, we want it to minister to them.”
McDougal recalls a couple following her into the parking lot at the nondenominational Declaration Church in Spring where she’d presented the movie’s two-minute trailer.
“The woman was crying. She said that was their life. They lived it every day,” McDougal recalled. “I barely got to my car, and I was sobbing. Lord, if a two-minute trailer opened up these emotions, how could we do a full movie without offering people places to go for help? That was a call to action.”
Enter The Stronger Alliance (strongeralliance.com), a hub for Christ-centered organizations that help those with PTSD. Audiences are directed to the website at the end of the film.
“We strongly believe that God chose us because we were unequipped. At the end, he gets the glory because we couldn’t have done this movie without him,” said Ulises Larramendi, owner of Eden Café in Magnolia and the actor who plays Vic.
Mighty Oaks Foundation, featured in the film, holds retreats to address the spiritual wounds of combat trauma. Larramendi attended one of its weeklong retreats in Paso Robles, Calif., absorbing veterans’ stories for his role.
The film’s nightmare scene wasn’t the original, he’s quick to point out.
“We had to reshoot. After hanging with 29 veterans and listening to their stories, we realized the scene was too tame. You know one thing I learned? Wives don’t wake up their guys from a nightmare with a tap on the shoulder and ‘Hey honey.’ They might think they’re someone trying to kill them. They might react by trying to strangle you. No, the wives wake up their guys by tapping their feet with a broom.”
Some actors in the film aren’t strangers to PTSD. Raw accounts of real-life traumas are woven into scenes.
Montgomery resident Don Ortolano, who plays veteran Tommy Ortel, knows emotional turmoil and its effect on selfesteem. Though never diagnosed with PTSD, he recognizes its grip. “I should have gotten help. I never did.”
His real-life account of being sexually abused as a youth is relayed in a pivotal group-counseling scene, as is his visit to Oklahoma City’s memorial after the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing.
Across from the memorial, he noticed a statute of Jesus, hands to his face, weeping. “He didn’t plan for life to be like this. He didn’t plan for this world to be so freakin’ mean and cruel. He loved us enough to give us free will,” a teary Ortolano says in the scene. “So the God I thought wasn’t listening, the God I thought was ignoring the prayers … he was weeping.”
That scene alone has won awards for “Best Biblical Message,” scriptwriter Robin Murray said. “It’s like Don handed us his beating heart.”
Nearly 2,000 men in Huntsville prison units have viewed the film. “It’s not just veterans who struggle with PTSD. There are a lot of prisoners struggling with abuse issues and all types of trauma,” volunteer prison chaplain James Castro said. “Some are locked into trauma that happened when they were just 7 or 8 years old. Their response to the movie was overwhelming.”
Cast and crew held questionand-answer sessions after screenings whenever possible during the movie’s national run. Some moviegoers cried and hugged the actors, nary a word. Others shared, like a veteran in Orlando, paralyzed and in a wheelchair, who confessed she, too, felt like the character Vic and had toyed with the idea of suicide.
Montgomery resident Angela Sweet who plays Michelle, Vic’s wife and secondary victim of his PTSD, recalls a red carpet affair in The Villages, Fla. A Vietnam veteran stood scowling at the actors before the movie’s start, as if the film was going to be a waste of time.
“But after the movie he came out with his wife and she was in tears. He fell into my arms and said ‘I had no idea that’s what I was going through. We called it shell shock, and I’ve just never dealt with it.’”
The man started to walk off and Sweet called him back. “I said ‘Sir, you know it’s not too late and God is relentless in his pursuit to heal his children. That includes you.” She then prayed with him. “And he got tied into a recovery program for veterans. That’s what it’s all about.”