We rarely get a glimpse of the inner lives of soldiers unless we know one. When Kimberly Peirce’s brother enlisted in the army her mother asked if she could talk him out of it. She tried but he had made up his mind. Peirce communicated with her brother via instant messaging nearly every night. And in her new film, Stop Loss, she set out to reflect the emblematic experience of soldiers. They fight to survive and to protect the soldier next to them.

After a screening of the film in Colorado, a soldier stood up, turned to the audience and said, “I went there for you and I’ll never be the same.” They may no longer fit into the life they left behind. And many are being forced to re-enlist and return to Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States may have an all-volunteer army, but it is sustained by a stop loss policy, a kind of revolving door draft that exacts a heavy toll on military families.

In this interview Peirce discusses the making of Stop Loss and why she’s heading to Washington to weigh in on the stop loss compensation act. The director of Boys Don’t Cry says that the protagonists in both of her films, Tina Brandon and Brandon King are “trying to follow a code that they believe in.” Stop Loss is out on DVD now. Listen to the full interview here on GRITtv.

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