SCRIPT:
02.08-02.11 - quote Jeans Cruz
When I get depressed and stressful, I need to feel pain. It’s either hurt someone else or hurt myself.
02.14-02.32 - quote Jeans Cruz
Cuts, burns, sometimes I would stab with a knife, cut open and burn on top. Cigarette burns, screwdrivers, knives.. heat them up while you cut yourself, you burn yourself. I got both arms ... I slit my wristbefore.
02.33-02.37 - quote Paul Bremmer
Ladies and gentleman we got him!
02.46-03.00 – voice over
This is Jeans Cruz, the soldier who captured the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. We meet him in his small apartment in the Bronx, New York. The shiny medals mark the day he became a hero. But reality is harsh.
03.00-03.11- quote Jeans Cruz
Yeah, great! We caught someone on top of the line. Now did we victoriously get something for it? .. Making my life more difficult.
03.14-03.26 - quote Jeans Cruz
That night we were ordered to go and search the field, search the house, you know: a complete raid at full script. Because this was according to the‘Intell’ was THE one.
03.30-04.04 - quote Jeans Cruz
We came upon the orchard by the house. There was a stream that had some PVC pipes sticking out. We found a concrete block with some ropes sticking out of the ground. Like twelve inches by twelve inches. The commander was like: “pull it open…”. I threw the flash grenade in. I jumped down first, the other guy jumped right behind me. We got down there and the smoke start clearing out and there is this guy armed by his bunk with an AK47 in his hand. Dazed out, stunk like hell. He was like pure crap.
04.04-04.23 - Saddam Hussein being physically examined
04.09-04.23 - quote Jeans Cruz
He did not really look like Saddam Hussein. He looked like a really bombed-out guy that was dehydrated, skinny and apparently he did not have a shower in months.
04.23-04.34 –quote President George W. Bush
This afternoon I have a message for the Iraqi people: You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again!
04.39-04.46 - quote President George W. Bush
The success of yesterday’s mission is a tribute to the men and women now serving in Iraq.
04.55-05.06 - quote Jeans Cruz
My oldest one has seen me go through my ups and downs. Flip out, break down, cut myself, burn myself, fight.
05.07-05.16 - voice-over:
This is the one of the few reasons that Jeans leaves his house: to take his son to school. The rest of the day he stays home: panic attacks, depression and chaos dominate his life.
05.17-05.34 - quote Jeans Cruz
Everybody sees these eh.. they are pretty shiny... but I am still in poverty. I still try to survive of a bare minimum. I got kids that need health insurance but I can not afford it.
05.36-05.56 - voice-over
Jeans has been living here all his life: one of the poorest neighbourhoods of New York, the Bronx. To escape from there, he enlisted in the army. But now, six years later, he is hardly able to support his family. He gets no benefits at all. Jeans now fights the army, that once labeled him a hero.
05.59-06.05 - quote Joshua Kors (research journalist of ‘The Nation’)
I look at it and thought: this can’t possibly be happening. This is so obvious, it’s so bizarre.
06.03-06.16 - voice-over:
Research journalist Joshua Kors. By coincidence he ran into stories of soldiers, who just returned from war, cases similar to Jeans Cruz. At that point Kors does not realize he is uncovering a big story.
06.16-06.39 - quote Joshua Kors (research journalist of ‘The Nation’)
This is the story of soldiers who have been purposely misdiagnosed by army doctors, who are being pressured to label them mentally ill. A pre-existing personality disorder. So that after they leave the army they never have to pay them disability pay or medical care for the rest of their life.
06.40-06.53 - quote Jeans Cruz:
I would curse up a storm, I was pissed off, yelling everything! Because after so much time in service, you come back and have to be dealing with all this crap all over again. They treat you like a piece of gum under your shoe.
06.59-07.04 - voice-over
His story starts with the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Jeans is then 20 years old.
07.04-07.14 Saddam Hussein -statue taken down
07.14-07.24 voice -over
As a soldier of a special unit he has but one mission: to find and capture members of the Iraqi regime. Including dictator Saddam Hussein.
07.30-08.06 - quote Jeans Cruz
We would spend days or weeks out just overviewing areas. We would sit out on top of a mud hut. What our mission consisted of was getting information of where he would be hiding or had hide-outs. Go to that location and spend 3 to7 days watching this location. You’re literally laying out there, hiding for that amount of time. Watching who comes in and who comes out. .expensive cars, what hand they wash with. What they ate, everything… ‘till we actually got the correct guy.
08.15-08.24 - quote Jeans Cruz
During the raids we would capture other guys that looked like Saddam Hussein. I mean drop dead lookalike.
08.25-08.32 - voice-over
Week after week he has to survive secretly in constant danger of being discovered. It forces him to do things he never wanted to.
08.34-09.28 - quote Jeans Cruz
My main thing was that if you’ve been seen either by a kid or a dog you have to take them out quietly before making anymore fuss. Because one kid comes out and sees you from ten feet away and tells one person in the village. Before you know you are surrounded quietly because the villagers won’t make noise. They just go from one area to one area and then you’re surrounded. We don’t work in groups of 5, 6, 7 or 8… it is only three guys. And three different positions in a neighbourhood with 200/300 people. So literally you had to kill children that see you... or take them down, knock them out till you’re done with your mission.. it kills you emotionally you have to do things to these children to make them stop, you have to physically hurt them. That’s what you are ordered to do.
09.30-09.41 voice-over
On 13 December his mission is accomplished. Six months later Jeans comes home: suicidal.
09.42-10.01 - quote Joshua Kors (research journalist of ‘The Nation’)
For someone who played such a key role in the War on Terror, uncovering Saddam Hussein, you think he would be an honoured soldier one who they would serve with all of the medical care and benefits that the American army can provide. And that’s just not happening.
10’01-10’26 - voice-over
After his return home, Jeans takes 24 pills a day, to either get to sleep or wake up and to keep his depressions under control. Everything changed since he got home. They honoured him with plaques and parades. But, when home alone, he mutilates himself. Jeans has a post-traumatic-stress-disorder. He’s not able to return to Iraq. But instead of providing treatment, the army decides to give him an honourable discharge.
10.29-11.00 - quote Jeans Cruz
At the time I even did not know what the discharge was. They… according everything I was going through..I was going for PTSD. So I was guessing it was for a post-traumatic-stress-disorder.. They start rushing my paperwork so fast that it got lost in transaction. I did not know towards the end that they gave me a 513 which is a personality disorder. Which is, according to them, is having more than one personality and have the personality previous of being in the service.
11.00-11.15 voice-over
What this exactly means, Jeans didn’t know at that point. Neither did Joshua Kors. He falls into the case of the just returned soldier Jon Town. Honoured with a Purple Heart for his war wounds.
11.15-11.57 - quote Joshua Kors (research journalist of ‘The Nation’)
He said to me I was struck by a rocket so they diagnosed me with a personality disorder. And I thought: what? On journalism school they teach you when something does not make sense, that’s where you dig. And as I got into this topic found out that this diagnosis not only that it did not fit, but that they purposely misdiagnosed 22.500 soldiers in the last six years and that cheating those veterans out of their benefits was saving the military 12.5 billion dollars.
11.59-12.15 - voice-over
Jeans was told that his mental wounds are not caused by his experiences in the war, but that they were caused by a pre-existing personality disorder, something he supposedly has always suffered from. And so, they say, they are not obligated to provide him benefits of any kind.
12.16-13.03 - quote Jeans Cruz
Q: What did you think when you found out?
A: I was pissed of as hell. What I did not understand is… All this time three years straight, a year and a half in Iraq, no problem whatsoever. I come back and I’m having these problems now. You kick me out of the service… and onceI re-enlisted. And now you telling me this is something I had before? Why not from the start? Basic training even... a cavalry scout basic training is one of the hardest basic trainings there is. Everything is combined for almost seven months long. If I did not show symptoms to my basic training under extreme pressure, how come after all this you are telling me that I have that. They could not explain, they did not want to explain.
13.01-
13’01-13’18 prosecution of Saddam Hoessein:
13.03-13.25 - Saddam Hussein in court - quotes
13.01-13.18 ‘Saddam Hoessein al-Maijd will be sentenced to death (by hanging) because of crimes against humanity… (Saddam: long live Iraq, get rid of the betraitors!) – Based on article…(Saddam: get rid of the betraitors!).
13.18-13.25 - voice-over
While Saddam Hussein stands for trial, Jeans’ situation worsens. They now also deny his physical wounds.
13.26 -13.50 - quote Joshua Kors (research journalist of ‘The Nation’)
Degenerative joint disease, upper respiratory infection, finger dislocation, tinnitus, degenerative joint disease on the right knee. All of these conditions, every single one of them are all battle related. I think it’is absurd. I think it shows the absurdity of this scandal.
13.50-14.28 - quote Jeans Cruz
I’m constantly getting denied. And the only reason I’ getting denied was because in their records it did not show proof that I was in combat. I did not receive some kind of combat recommendation, stating to them that I did see combat.
Q: But you have all those medals?
A: Exactly these pictures do not matter to them unless somebody else has to put their foot up the rear end to say: ‘ hey are you not looking? Are your eyes shut or something? He has proof right there’. Oh we must have missed it. How can you miss it?
14.28-14.44 - voice-over
Every day Joshua Kors receives mails from desperate veterans. He has won several prestigious awards with his published articles and has been a witness in congressional hearings. The question is: how is it possible that this is still happening?
14.44-15.30 - quote Joshua Kors (research journalist of ‘The Nation’)
A stack of cases were delivered to the surgeon general’s office and her office reviewed these cases decided that all of the cases were properly diagnosed. But I did a touch more reporting and found out that in the six months they did what they called: ‘ a thoughtful and thorough review’, they did not interviewed a single soldier. Not even the soldiers whose cases they were reviewing.. All they did do was go back to one of the doctors who was in charge of making these fraudulent diagnoses and said: hey, did you get it right the first time? The doctor said:’ yes we did’. And they shut down the review at that point.
15’30-15’48 -voice-over
After five years of bureaucratic battle Jeans now has a small disability benefit. And just because a senator took his story seriously. In two weeks the benefit was arranged.
15.48-16.15 - Execution of Saddam Hussein - quote
15’48-16’02 ‘God bless Mohammed and the family of Mohammed’
16.07-16.15 - quote Jeans Cruz
I did not watch it. Just did not care about it.
16.19-16.47 - quote Jeans Cruz
Those main memories right there of hurting children are always gonna be there. There are times that you close your eyes and all you see is that child. Because you know what… sometimes I am sitting watching a movie with my son… and you look over and your son is no longer your son’s face, its that child’s face that you’ve seen killed, or that you’ve injured or that you’ve killed. That’s gonna live with you and that’s the worst.
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