Rev. Danny Fisher

Matthew O’Neill and 12-time Emmy Award-winner Jon Alpert’s new documentary Baghdad E.R. debuted on H.B.O. this evening. It is a fly-on-the-wall chronicle of two months at the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq’s “Green Zone” during the summer of 2005.

It contains pervasive strong language and some grisly, real-life E.R. images, but I daresay it is one of the most affecting hours of television you will ever see. H.B.O. will rerun the program on Memorial Day, and I cannot recommend it enough.

I was especially struck by the attention Baghdad E.R. gives to spiritual care: the 86th C.S.H.’s chaplain is featured as prominently in the film as any of the doctors, nurses, and other members of the care team. Chaplains and spiritual caregivers should find O’Neill and Alpert’s documentary especially valuable for its generous consideration of the chaplain’s role in a combat support hospital. We see the chaplain attending to traumatized patients, performing liturgy and ritual, and simply offering his compassionate presence to a bustling emergency room.

Certainly, though, the most striking aspect of the film is the perspective that the 86th Combat Support Hospital offers us on the war in Iraq. It is horrific to be sure, and the images presented in Baghdad E.R. have stirred no small amount of controversy. And yet, as Brian Lowry suggests, we do well not to turn away from the suffering of the 86th C.S.H.:

To paraphrase former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn theory, in breaking Iraq, the U.S. government has bought it. At the very least, advocates of the purchase should be willing to look at the shattered pieces and the impact on those left with the thankless, soul-numbing task of cleaning up the mess.