Behind every warrior, a family
Midway through “Home Front,” the mother of blinded and brain-damaged soldier Jeremy Feldbusch explains how the family has coped with Jeremy’s injuries, incurred in the first days of the war in Iraq.
“We tried to get back to as normal as possible,” says Charlene Feldbusch. “It’s never going to be what it was. But we have our son: We’re one of the lucky families.”
It is the stoic courage of Charlene, Jeremy and the rest of the family that makes “Home Front” an exceptional and compelling look at the costs of war.
If “Home Front,” set for broadcast on Showtime, has a moral, it’s that war can require as much bravery at home as on the battlefield. And yet, there are no medals for stouthearted families.
Jeremy Feldbusch was an Army Ranger gravely wounded by shrapnel in a mortar attack. He spent five weeks in a coma in an Army hospital in Texas, and then his family brought him home to heal to the coal country of western Pennsylvania.
Most of the effort is from Charlene, but Jeremy’s father, Brace, and brothers Shaun and Brian are also involved. Jeremy was a star wrestler in high school and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh; he enlisted to get money for medical school.
Director-producer Richard Hankin -- a veteran documentarian and co-producer of the Oscar-nominated “Capturing the Friedmans” -- follows the family over the course of a year, as the seasons change and Jeremy is alternately happy, depressed, defiant and confident. Whatever his mood or need, his family is there.
His blindness is obvious; more subtle and threatening is the brain injury. He throws himself into the Wounded Warrior advocacy project and lobbies Washington for better benefits for the wounded.
“Home Front,” which has no narrator, is best when it helps us know the Feldbusch family. But a bit more reporting would also have been helpful.
Exactly what medical, psychological and occupational services are available through the government for the war wounded? What kinds of disability pensions and follow-up therapy are available? “Home Front” doesn’t tell us.
No one will mistake “Home Front” as a tract supporting the war in Iraq. But Hankin does his best to avoid politics. The Feldbusches, it seems, rarely talk in those terms, but when the subject comes up, Jeremy, now 26, does not flinch.
Father and son were walking in a park when they met a man by a lake. Brace explains that his son was blinded in Iraq.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the man says.
“That’s OK,” Jeremy says. “You don’t have to be sorry. We were trying to do a good thing over there. Unfortunately I got hurt, or I’d still be there.”
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‘Home Front’
Where: Showtime
When: 7:30 tonight, 7:55 p.m. Monday, 5:20 p.m. Tuesday
Rating: TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children, with an advisory for coarse language).
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