The Unethical Practice of Hollywood War Movies

War movies used to be my favorite film genre to watch. Movies that especially portray the United States military and their wars have captivated me with various war stories and events that they reenacted into motion pictures. It was not until I served in the United States Army that my perspective towards war films changed. Many of my peers from service and I have seen how Hollywood's ideas of the war are a poor representation of us. To support my argument, I will examine how The Hurt Locker, The Green Berets, and The Deer Hunter are devoid of authenticity, distorts war, and exploits service members and those involved in these events.

United States service members and veterans agree that movies have poorly handled the portrayal of those serving in the military. This portrayal of service members would not be as harmful if those who never served in the United States military relied on entertainment to portray servicemen in an opposing viewpoint through "third-person perception" (Chapin). War movies often portray US military personnel as individuals with no regard for their own lives, glorified heroic patriots, or traumatized soldiers who react impulsively within an episode of PTSD. This misrepresentation of service members is an issue considering that many artistic liberties and depictions never happened and are exaggerated for dramatic effect. This sort of portrayal of service members at war is found in movies like The Hurt Locker (2008).

The Hurt Locker has been one of the most highly regarded war movies of all time. The film has a 97% fresh rating from over 298 film critics and remains the second-highest-rated movie based on an American war on the website. The Hurt Locker had nine Oscar nominations and won six in the 82nd Academy Awards, including Best Picture and the first female director, Kathryn Bigelow, to win Best Director. Respected film critic, David Dunby, describes the film as "... a small classic of tension, bravery, and fear, which will be studied twenty years from now when people want to understand something of what happened to the American soldiers in Iraq." The only group of people that disagrees with these praises are the Iraq veterans themselves.

John Chapin asked veterans and service members to name up to three titles of the highest inaccuracy of military portrayal. The Hurt Locker received a staggering 25 percent, and American Sniper received 35 percent above films such as Jarhead, Top Gun, A Few Good Men, and others. More surprisingly, when asked to name accurate movies, 30 percent of participants wrote in "none" or "almost none" instead of suggesting titles. Since the film's release, service members and veterans of Iraq have denounced The Hurt Locker as unrealistic.

Afghanistan war veteran and former army explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technician, Kollin Knight, states that "We had guys join the career field who come to EOD school and say, 'I saw 'The Hurt Locker' those guys are badasses, I wanna be that… and do all these crazy things and have no regard for our own life… It’s like no. We regard our own life." (Clark; Knight). When watching The Hurt Locker with military experience, there are a lot of questionable decisions made by Kathryn Bigelow.

The iconic shot of SFC James pulling six 155 mm improvised explosive devices (IED) shows this war movie is inauthentic. This famous shot of him pulling those connecting wires will detonate the bombs. Any person influenced by this film could have already died if they were to mimic this scene. Even more inauthentic, each of those shells weighs 92 lbs, and somehow he pulled six of them off the ground in a single hand. In real life, if there are that many spotted IEDs, EOD techs would send out talon robots to carry the device out to a safe location and disarm the IED instead of disarming them in the targeted area.

Another aspect of the film that Bigelow neglects is military occupation specialty (MOS). Enlistees have job responsibilities and skills related to the occupation he or she is assigned. The Hurt Locker is so fixated on focusing on a single MOS that Bigelow and the rest of her crew did not research what the EOD MOS is allowed to do. There is another infamous scene where SFC James is a spotter with another EOD named Sergeant Sanborn, who is an apparent sniper. The flaw here is that EODs in the Army are not qualified to be sniper trained (Clark) because their purpose is to disarm bombs and clear paths for the US military and their allies.

Lastly, one big eye-opening moment in the film was SFC James has been confiscating IEDs that he has disarmed in a box under his bed. The character claims to keep them because they are souvenirs representing what could have killed him. This moment of powerful symbolism turned into a glaring flaw. The issue here is that SFC James stole evidence that US government agencies can track down the bombmaker. To take evidence of finding the bombmaker is an act of treason under Article 121 for Larceny and Wrongful Appropriation.

SFC James is an example of how not to behave in service. During his Iraq deployment, he violated multiple rules and regulations and never had any repercussions seen throughout the film. SFC James has abandoned his equipment on numerous occasions, failed to obey orders, abandoned his post several times, put his team at risk, gave multiple warning shots, and assaulted the local Iraqis. The Hurt Locker treats these unlawful actions as acceptable behavior in the military. Kathryn Bigelow's seeking to make The Hurt Locker as realistic as possible is a failure in the eyes of those who served.

There are no records of Kathryn Bigelow apologizing or addressing the criticism that The Hurt Locker received from Iraq veterans. Likewise, there are no records of any military personnel or Iraq veteran on the production team that could benefit Bigelow and her crew to depict deployment in Iraq accurately. Though The Hurt Locker is fictional, film critics have been irresponsible in promoting it as a realistic war movie. Like many war movies, The Hurt Locker seeks to represent those brave enough to only put their entire focus on exaggerated action sequences and dramatic moments.

The Hurt Locker's lack of authenticity is the timing of when the film was released. At the time of the movie's release, the Iraq War was still ongoing, and very little information from the military was permitted to be disclosed to the public at the time. The lack of knowledge is why Hollywood's war films have a significant disadvantage in capturing the authenticity of warfare. Unfortunately, The Hurt Locker is not the first movie based on an ongoing war upon its release.

In the late-1960s, the Vietnam War divided public opinion, and since John Wayne was pro-Vietnam war, he sought to release The Green Berets (1968) film to change the opinions of those against the war. Despite obtaining full military cooperation and materiel from President Lyndon B. Johnson and the United States Department of Defense (Wallis), film critics and veterans alike panned The Green Berets. The film is tone-deaf about the Vietnam war by having John Wayne make the film's tone very similar to his western movies. The real issue about The Green Berets is the lack of authenticity and its arrogance to do research on Vietnam and the service members deployed there.

Filming in Fort Benning, Georgia, has caused The Green Berets to have no sense of authenticity. Those who know Vietnam's terrain can see how obvious the pine forests have departed from the tropical jungle trees throughout the film. Not many Vietnamese people lived in America in the 1960s, so the studio compromised on hiring many people with diverse ethnicities to portray as Vietnamese characters. None of them look Vietnamese. The Green Berets state that local Vietnamese welcomed the US Military in open arms, but in actuality, the US Military raided, harmed, and colonized many villagers in their way.

Many of the actors portraying as Army rangers were far too old, which lost any sense of realism. The average age for US soldiers sent to Vietnam was twenty-two, but there was not a single actor portraying a soldier around that age range. John Wayne was sixty-one years old when The Green Berets was released. Sixty is the retirement age if a soldier does not reach the general rank.

The Green Beret's purpose was for John Wayne to put the Vietnam War in a better light, thinking that the United States could win the war (Wallis). Wayne positioned the film as pro-war propaganda by beginning with news media interviewing and debating the army rangers' opposition to the war. One of the reporters, played by David Janssen, took the opportunity to see the war for himself and constantly challenged John Wayne's character's leadership in the film's first act. The film portrayed the reporter as constantly wrong, and every decision by Col. Kirby is always right. After seeing how the US Army saved bystanders from the Viet Cong in the film, Janssen's character concedes being pro-war but had no further compelling or reasonable evidence for the United States to continue with the war.

The Green Berets suffered the same disadvantage as The Hurt Locker for being based on an ongoing war before better resources and research had been available to improve it. Despite The Green Berets movie being commercially successful and Hollywood's first Vietnam war movie, the negative reception from audiences could very well be where war movies set in Vietnam changed their tone in the coming years. The Vietnam War to Hollywood became the most marketable setting to make movies.

The late 1970s and throughout the 1980s saw a plethora of films set in the Vietnam war. Though these Vietnam war movies got audiences to sympathize with these veterans, these films did more harm to the Vietnam veterans than good. Many of these filmmakers were more interested in taking artistic liberties of fictionalizing these events or exaggerated trauma set in Vietnam for dramatic and symbolic purposes. One film that exemplifies this exploit is The Deer Hunter (1978). The director, Michael Cimino's goal was to make the most fantastic anti-Vietnam war movie ever filmed. The Deer Hunter is similar to The Hurt Locker for winning the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Director but had veterans denounce the film.

The first act of The Deer Hunter lingers on the lives of friends from Pennsylvania steel mill who enlisted to join the Vietnam War. The film explores the joy and celebration they have for each other right before shifting to the brutality of the Vietnam War. Rather than informing the audience about the deployment in Vietnam, The Deer Hunter instead focuses on how war tears these friends apart. The second act began when the Viet Cong captured Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken's characters, forcing them to play Russian roulette.

The first Russian roulette scene had the two characters survive the roulette by using the gun that they used against their captors. They then escape but get separated from a failed rescue and do not see each other until the climax. The second Russian roulette scene had De Niro's character find his lost friend, who is brainwashed and numbed from surviving Russian roulette for so long. When Walken's character died in the final Russian roulette scene, the Vietnamese audience who witnessed his death was more concerned about their bet and were indifferent to the grieving friend. It was in poor taste to portray the Vietnamese in this insensitive manner. Film critic Roger Ebert defended these Russian roulette scenes arguing that "it is a brilliant symbol because, in the context of this story, it makes any ideological statement about the war superfluous." So why was the Russian roulette scene put in this film?

Michael Cimino got to direct this film because he claimed to serve as a medic for the green berets in the Vietnam War in 1962. However, Tom Buckley, a Vietnam correspondent for The New York Times, later discovered that the director had never been with a ranger unit. He was an army reserve for only six months in 1962 (Wright). The US Armed Forces did not go to Vietnam until August 1964. Furthermore, those who enlist as army reserves rarely get deployed as active duty and national guard. The scriptwriter for The Deer Hunter, Deric Washburn, has described Cimino as a pathological liar (Wright) and has committed a crime of stolen valor.

The producer, Barry Spikings, admitted that "I do not think any of us meant it to be exploitative. But I think we were ignorant. Would I make a different movie today? Hopefully. I would be more careful about the Vietnamese people. We defamed them. And I regret that." (Biskind; Spikings). Though Spikings showed regret for misrepresenting Vietnamese, there is no comment over his film creating a stigma of US soldiers who have PTSD as suicidal. Even though The Deer Hunter informed viewers of emotional trauma, the film greatly misrepresented both sides of the conflict in favor of an antiwar message.

Although anti-war filmmakers strive to convey the message that war is never the answer, their lack of research and authenticity is just as damaging to those that took part in war just as much as pro-war films. The Green Berets and The Deer Hunter are opposites in their message about Vietnam yet have similarly misrepresented the Vietnamese people and the deployed Americans. These filmmakers' misrepresentation exploited those who suffered from these events and promoted their ignorance to their audience. Perhaps there is a reasonable counterargument for war movies being inauthentic and glorified spectacles.

Hollywood's objective is to make as much money as they can. Studios have been successful at profiting their movies by entertaining the general movie-going audience. These war movies are not just for the military and victims who endured these events but also for a wider audience. War in real life is too grim and brutal for a casual audience to stomach. For Hollywood to release such a film risks traumatizing audiences and affecting the film's marketing. War films outside of Hollywood have been notorious for being so realistic that they significantly affect their viewers.

Come And See (1985), a Soviet-Russian film about WWII, is infamous for showing warfare authentically and truthfully that prompted effective responses. The film is about the German occupation of Byelorussia, and it displays the most infamous suffering that any country had in WWII. Come And See is too dangerous of a film to make, traumatizing both the audience and the actors on set. The leading actor (Kravchenko) went through a physical transformation under the trauma playing the leading role, growing wrinkles and gray hair at age fourteen during filming (Carr). Making a film as bleak and realistic like Come And See is dangerous for any actor to reenact these events.

What makes Come And See an uncomfortable viewing experience is that many characters look straight at the camera, creating an off-put feeling towards their facial expressions. In these simple, straight-on close-ups, we can see how terrified and terrifying the characters are, making it seem like they are speaking directly to the viewer. The main character witnessed horrific body counts and had survivors attempt suicide as their only way to escape. Klimov made a dangerous decision to use live ammunition to kill cows and put actors too close to fired rounds and explosions. One of Come And See's most harrowing scenes is the climax, where Nazis lock captured prisoners in a church, and all of them are burned alive. Klimov holds nothing back during this sequence juxtaposing the villagers' sheer terror with the Nazis' perverse joy. The scene is made worse considering the church burning did occur during WWII in Belarus (Carr).

Klimov stated that ambulances took distressed viewers away from screenings in Russia and Hungary (Carr; Klimov). Some may say that antiwar movies like Come And See should be censored for being too distressing to watch. However, censoring the motion picture's anti-war message is political persecution (Safran), keeping viewers from being reminded of these events. Still, films like Come And See's subject matter is risky for Hollywood to touch. Is it possible for filmmakers to portray soldiers, victims, and events in a way that is unbiased, truthful, and accessible if they pursue the war genre in cinema?

An Israeli animated documentary called Waltz With Bashir (2008) is one of those rare films that appropriately represented war and those in an event. Ari Folman made Waltz With Bashir to show his experience and other Israeli veterans during the 1982 Lebanon War. Throughout Waltz With Bashir's runtime, Folman tries to remember the events of this war by interviewing veterans who were in the Lebanon War. While the film explores veterans' stories within the Lebanon War, Folman never glorified or villainized the Israeli Defense Forces or Lebanese. Instead, Folman showed remorse as he remembered these events and humanized both sides of the conflict in a respectable manner.

Waltz With Bashir is entirely animated because there is no footage of these events that the film explores. The absence of footage of the war works in the film's favor considering that every one of the interviewees' stories is too traumatizing and psychedelic to be reenacted in live-action. The interviewees in the film told outlandish stories. Scenes like swimming with a giant naked woman, a soldier dancing with a minigun in the middle of the battlefield, and rabid dogs chasing Ari Folman are scenes that are not actual recollections but reconstructed or falsified memories (Rastegar). Folman kept these stories in the film not just out of respect for the veterans but also so that he could explore the problematic nature of memory.

The film aims to interview and illustrate the veterans, former comrades, therapists, and experts to remember Ari Folman's experience, which leads to the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Folman desires to remember these events because of the social trauma of being a veteran of the 1982 Lebanon War. Waltz With Bashir engages its audience with the stunning animation illustrating these events and how relatable it is to struggle with memory without having experienced war. Most importantly, the animated documentary successfully represented the Lebanese not just through empathy and cross-identification but by framing the restoration of memory to establish justice for the victims of Sabra and Shatila (Rastegar).

While it is unfair that Bashir is a documentary, it is rare to find an animated film that is neither a children's film nor an adult comedy. Waltz With Bashir shows the potential that animation can do in cinema by capturing the realism of war casualties without being live-action. Most importantly, the documentary aimed to bring justice to the Lebanese and allow Ari Folman to show his remorse over what he had done. Films like Waltz With Bashir illustrate how imperative it is to utilize veterans and witnesses when capturing the reality of war on screen.

Very rarely do veterans take a crucial role in the filmmaking process in a war film like Waltz With Bashir. The absence of veterans or service members' participation and guidance in production loses the credibility and authenticity of the war that filmmakers are trying to portray. Instead of fully understanding what veterans and victims went through in these events, they tell the audience how they should feel about their experiences. In doing so, filmmakers propagate misconceptions and ignorance at their expense.

Filmmakers fail to understand that such carelessness can influence their audiences irresponsibly. War is a sensitive subject, and for entertainers to treat these events as a time to be chaotic gives audiences the wrong idea that this is acceptable for anyone who signs up for war. Filmmakers have an ethical and social responsibility to accurately inform the public (Safran) of these brave individuals' sacrifices and selfless service, which unfortunately treats them as scapegoats for monetary and political gain.

Most filmmakers are interested in portraying an event in cinema but never really support veterans when they move on to the next project. This exploit contributes to how society misunderstands war, and most of them are easily manipulated by how the media portrays these service members. Because the media were anti-Vietnam war, Vietnam veterans did not get a positive welcome upon returning home like WWII veterans because they were victims of poor political decisions and were alienated in a hostile society, deeming them "baby killers" (Safran). Even though society today is not as hostile toward veterans as it once was, the stigma created by the media against them persists not only for Vietnam veterans but also for those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Due to an inability to properly prepare veterans for civilian life after serving, veteran homelessness is on the rise (Elbogen; Shinseki) as they struggle to adjust to the country for which they defended. Hollywood has long distanced itself from these damaged heroes, which results in inaccurate portrayals of war.

Due to this, this research chose The Green Berets, The Deer Hunter, and The Hurt Locker as examples of Hollywood's misunderstanding of war and how it has negatively affected veterans' reputations. The Green Berets lacked authenticity because there was no reference to the ongoing war upon its release. Many prestigious accolades were given to The Deer Hunter for being realistic, yet veterans and historians decry the film for its inaccurate depiction of the Vietnam war. Three decades later, The Hurt Locker repeats history by receiving many prestigious awards and being released during the Iraq war, but Iraq war veterans deem offensive.

Despite John Wayne having the government and military support to make The Green Berets, The Deer Hunter and The Hurt Locker have no veteran involvement that could benefit from making errors and being spurious. These Hollywood war movies have been landmarks in how the public depicts war. Despite being fictional, these three films are based on actual wars, taking the voices of those who have experienced these events and making them their own.

Films can be an effective tool for raising awareness about these veterans' struggles. While not everyone will agree with the filmmakers' ideas, those who do will become more aware of the issue and possibly create a positive outcome for those survivors who still need help. This ongoing issue inspired me to revolutionize future Hollywood war movies once I begin my filmmaking career. I hope that when I get a director's position, I will make films that accurately and respectfully portray such events and military life. Having veteran status is not enough, so I intend to strengthen the connection between filmmakers, service members, and veterans to create better projects to inform the public better.

Hollywood has currently reconstructed positive representations of diversity and other minority groups. However, service members and veterans still carry the stigma that Hollywood and the media created. The public should have the opportunity to hear service members' voices and even discover their stories unrelated to war through films. Waltz With Bashir and other movies have shown that there can be new and positive ideas with the war genre in film, and it should not end there. The last thing I want to see is another war film that exploits another horrific event and perpetuates the trend of misrepresenting those involved.

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Annotated Bibliography

Chapin, John, Marissa Mendoza-Burcham, and Mari Pierce. "Third-Force Influences: Hollywood's War Films." Parameters, vol. 47, no. 3, 2017, pp. 79-88. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/third-force-influences-hollywoods-war-films/docview/2051199336/se-2?accountid=25324.

Dr. John Chapin, a professor of communications at Penn State University, is the recipient of the Stephen Schafer National Research Award for significant contributions to crime victim rights from the National Organization for Victim Assistance and legislative citations from both Houses of Congress. Dr. John Chapin conducts interdisciplinary research in media studies and applied community-based research in violence prevention. This article taught me the role of movie images in influencing the public's perceptions of servicemembers and their response to war movies. I source this scholarly journal to show the statistics of veterans and service members' disapproval of these war films and how damaging these film stereotypes are to their profession.

Safran, Stephen P. "Movie Images of Disability and War: Framing History and Political Ideology: RASE." Remedial and Special Education, vol. 22, no. 4, 2001, pp. 223. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/movie-images-disability-war-framing-history/docview/236321582/se-2?accountid=25324.

Stephen P. Safran, Ph.D., is currently professor and coordinator of special education at Ohio University, Athens. His research interests include positive behavior supports, Asperger syndrome, and disability portrayal in motion pictures. This article exposes Hollywood’s misrepresentation of veterans & service members facing PTSD, disability, and other combat-related injuries through film. I use this scholarly journal to show evidence of Hollywood’s ignorance of dramatizing veterans to create a dramatic effect, causing more harm than good in creating awareness of those who suffered from combat.

Clark, James. "Here’s Why ‘The Hurt Locker’ Is The Worst War Movie Of All Time." Task & Purpose, Task & Purpose, 2 July 2016, https://taskandpurpose.com/entertainment/heres-hurt-locker-worst-war-movie-time/.

James Clark is the Deputy Editor of Task & Purpose and a Marine veteran. He oversees daily editorial operations, edits articles, and supports reporters to write the impactful stories that matter to his audience. James provides a mix of pop culture commentary and in-depth analysis of issues facing the military and veterans community. This article showed me how The Hurt Locker’s unrealistic portrayal of Iraq deployment and how damaging the movie portrayed the EOD technicians. I source this article to show how The Hurt Locker got military experience wrong and quote the interviewee Kollin Knight, who debunks Katheryn Bigelow's inaccuracies in portraying EDO technicians.

Wallis, Rodney. "John Wayne's World: Israel as Vietnam in 0RW1S34RfeSDcfkexd09rT2Cast a Giant Shadow1RW1S34RfeSDcfkexd09rT2 (1966)." Journal of American Studies, vol. 53, no. 3, 2019, pp. 725-743. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/john-waynes-world-israel-as-vietnam-i-cast-giant/docview/2315572992/se-2?accountid=25324.

Rodney Wallis is a Ph.D. graduate from the University of New South Wales, Australia. His thesis examined the various ways in which Hollywood has mobilized the image of contemporaneous conceptions of American national identity. This scholarly article examines how actor John Wayne made The Green Berets film too soon and how his blind support for Vietnam affected the lack of authenticity of the pro-Vietnam war movie. I cite this source to show that this is the last pro-war film of its kind and how inauthentic the film was for the lack of research based on an ongoing war upon its release.

Wright, James. "A GENERATION GOES TO WAR." Vietnam, vol. 30, no. 4, 12, 2017, pp. 44-49. https://www.proquest.com/magazines/generation-goes-war/docview/2047354894/se-2?accountid=25324.

James Wright is president emeritus and the Eleazar Wheelock professor of history emeritus at Dartmouth College. This article examines how the Vietnam War affected the political landscape and culture of the world. Wright also examines how difficult it was for Vietnam veterans to endure mistreatment from anti-war America and how their situation became hopeless. I source this article to examine how tragic it was for these war heroes not to get the same respect as WWII heroes to set the tone before examining Vietnam war movies after the war ended.

Biskind, P. (2008, February 19). The Vietnam Oscars. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/03/warmovies200803.

Peter Biskind is an American cultural critic, film historian, journalist, and former executive editor of Premiere magazine from 1986 to 1996. He wrote several books depicting life in Hollywood, including Seeing Is Believing, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Down and Dirty Pictures, and Gods and Monsters, some of which were bestsellers. This article examines how Hollywood exploited the Vietnam War into film. He has a quote from producer Barry Spikings who regrets defaming Vietnam people to make his anti-war message in the Deer Hunter. I use this article to show that the infamous Russian roulette scene of the same film is mishandled as it never happened to any soldier or Vietnamese.

Carr, Jeremy. “Casualties of War: Elem Klimov's ‘Come and See.’” MUBI, 20 Feb. 2020, https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/casualties-of-war-elem-klimov-s-come-and-see.

Jeremy Carr teaches film studies at Arizona State University and writes for Film International, Cineaste, Senses of Cinema, MUBI/Notebook, Cinema Retro, Vague Visages, The Retro Set, The Moving Image, Diabolique Magazine, and Fandor. He wrote this article to observe the meaning behind the film "Come And See" (1985) and the Soviet and Hungarian audience's responses upon the film's release. This article quotes the director, Elem Klimov, intentions to reenact his childhood experiences of Germany's occupation of Belarus. I use this source to quote facts of Klimov's directorial decisions in making Come and See achieve authenticity in a harmful way.

Rastegar, Kamran. "SAWWARU WAYNKUM?" HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL TRAUMA IN WALTZ WITH BASHIR." College Literature, vol. 40, no. 3, 2013, pp. 60-80. eLibrary, https://explore-proquest-com.proxyserver.otis.edu/elibrary/document/1444999937?accountid=25324.

Kamran Rastegar is a lecturer in Arabic and Persian at the University of Edinburgh. He researches cultural history, postcolonial studies, and the cinemas of Iran and the Arab world. This scholarly journal examines the social trauma and guilt of Ari Folman, who wrote and directed Waltz with Bashir. I use this source as an example of war films being capable of being authentic and accurate. I will quote this source when I’m adding facts that I never knew before of the film and the psychological aspects of Waltz with Bashir’s approach towards the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Elbogen, Eric B., PhD., et al. "Homelessness and Money Mismanagement in Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans." American Journal of Public Health, vol. 103, no. 2, 2013, pp. S248-S254. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/homelessness-money-mismanagement-iraq-afghanistan/docview/1468675923/se-2.

Dr. Elbogen is board-certified in forensic psychology, conducting clinical work and empirical research at the intersection of law and mental health services, specifically focusing on military veterans. He is currently a Core Investigator at the VA National Center on Homelessness and provides forensic and neuropsychological assessments at Central Regional Hospital in Butner, NC. This scholarly journal examines the link between money mismanagement and subsequent homelessness among veterans. I will quote this source when I discuss the helplessness that homeless veterans are dealing with and share evidence of the homeless population mainly being veterans.