Through testimonials, stylized visualizations and on-going narratives
following our soldiers and their service dogs,
our film offers a meditation on wartime behaviors that have illuminated
the bleakest aspects of we humans for millennia. And it repeatedly asks: What is the cost?
TO BE OF SERVICE is a feature-length documentary film about war veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ( PTSD) who are paired with a service dog to help them regain their lives. These vets' experience of returning home is often wrought with depression and a wrenching disconnect from the world they once inhabited. Family, old friends and jobs seem foreign and the newly returned men and women struggle to function and return to a civilian normal.
Since Viet Nam, the VA has worked to develop treatment programs for vets suffering from PTSD including therapy and medications, but as yet there is no universally effective protocol. The VA has engaged in a multi-year study into the use of service dogs for PTSD but they have not announced their conclusions and continue to deny funding them as a treatment for PTSD. It’s only through extraordinary personal effort and scholarship programs, that thousands of vets have been paired with trained service dogs and the outcomes have been life changing.
We hope that viewers will join in supporting legislation to require the Veterans Administration to pay for service dogs for military veterans who suffer from PTSD.
Since Viet Nam, the VA has worked to develop treatment programs for vets suffering from PTSD including therapy and medications, but as yet there is no universally effective protocol. The VA has engaged in a multi-year study into the use of service dogs for PTSD but they have not announced their conclusions and continue to deny funding them as a treatment for PTSD. It’s only through extraordinary personal effort and scholarship programs, that thousands of vets have been paired with trained service dogs and the outcomes have been life changing.
We hope that viewers will join in supporting legislation to require the Veterans Administration to pay for service dogs for military veterans who suffer from PTSD.
It is not our intention in TO BE OF SERVICE to analyze
why human beings have always waged war,
or will we try to proselytize on ways to stop it.
Rather, our film provides an unvarnished look at what happens to people
who are forced to endure the traumatizing violence of war
and how service dogs can aid them in their struggle to come home.
why human beings have always waged war,
or will we try to proselytize on ways to stop it.
Rather, our film provides an unvarnished look at what happens to people
who are forced to endure the traumatizing violence of war
and how service dogs can aid them in their struggle to come home.
TO BE OF SERVICE explores the remarkable life enhancements resulting from the introduction of trained service dogs into the lives of veterans with PTSD. A service dog helps them navigate their days more comfortably and independently, helps them sleep without night terrors and, over time, restores their ability to feel safe, to trust and to love. The unconditional love and support offered by these dogs become the bedrock for veterans to re-engage with the outside world and to learn to feel again.
In TO BE OF SERVICE, we cross the country to meet veterans just before they are paired with their service dog and learn how difficult their quiet lives are. We follow the vets as they are paired with their dog and will follow these new buddies over the months to see how this deeply bonded friendship brings a return to independence and love for the men and women who were so traumatized by the maw of war.
In TO BE OF SERVICE, we cross the country to meet veterans just before they are paired with their service dog and learn how difficult their quiet lives are. We follow the vets as they are paired with their dog and will follow these new buddies over the months to see how this deeply bonded friendship brings a return to independence and love for the men and women who were so traumatized by the maw of war.