Quote of the day from Brian Turner's op-ed in the New York Times on the Hurt Locker, wars, soldiers, and the impossible return back to America:
The last image of “The Hurt Locker” expresses a theme I’ve often tried to articulate. In the film, the main character cannot completely return to America, to the norm of a life back home. In a sense, he’s in Iraq whether he’s physically in a supermarket in the States, or in a bomb suit walking into the hurt locker.
That image rings true to me, but I’d take it a step further: I’d say that we, as a nation, now contain this explosive ordnance within us. Within our national psyche. We have generations of combat veterans and military family members woven throughout the fabric of our entire culture. Some of us have to walk down those dusty streets. We have to approach that which might tear us apart. We have to try to defuse what is explosive within.
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