(Silent) [BILL PULLMAN] Losses unlike anything we'd ever experienced before as a country were not uncommon during the Civil War.

(Somber harp music) From every county, in every state, they would summon the men from that area and they'd form companies of men who knew each other intimately.

(Paper rustles) Before battle, each company would form a line and you'd be standing next to your cousin, and your uncle, and then three men down from that is your neighbor, and just beyond him is your father.

You all faced this withering fire and yet you knew that you couldn't...drop down and burrow in.

You couldn't retreat.

You were surrounded by men who assumed you wouldn't; and if you did, you could never go home again.

So, that line would move forward and that line never wavered.

The Army doesn't form regiments that way anymore and I'll tell you why.

♪ ♪ The men of the first Minnesota regiment on the 2nd of July in 1862... in 15 minutes of that battle, most of the men of every generation from that part of the state got wiped out.

They lost all their men, and... (Paper rustles again) that's why they don't form regiments that way anymore.

(Somber harp music fades out) (Sound of elevator chime) (Bill knocks on door) (Noise of cell phone) (Hotel door opens) [JOSHUA BLEILL] Hey!

Mr. Pullman, how are ya?

[BILL] Very good... [JOSHUA] Good.

Come on in.

[BILL] Very good.

Man, well... [JOSHUA] Yeah?

[BILL] ...a long day... (Door closes) (Rustling and laughing in the background) Oh my gosh, so you're already queued in now... [JOSHUA] Yeah.

[BILL] We've been working on this for a long time, but, kind, uh, of amazing how Liz, uh... [BILL] ...grabs us raw.

[JOSHUA] Yeah, yeah.

[BILL] Non-dancer material... (All laugh) [JOSHUA] She can draw it out, can't she?

She's pretty amazing.

[BILL] (Laughs) Yeah, yeah, you're doing things before you know, you know, really, to be nervous or to be awkward, or...so if it is awkward, no one seems to... [LIZ LERMAN] Or if it's awkward, we like it.

[BILL] Point it out...Yeah, yeah, then it's great.

[JOSHUA] Yeah.

[BILL] [Laughing] What was that?

Some... LIZ: Me being awkward (laughs).

[BILL] Oh, yeah... [LIZ] [Laughing] I was just showing you how... that it's possible.

[BILL] Yeah, yeah.

[LIZ] Yeah, so, I'm really looking forward to having us all in...ah well, dinner tonight, just to sort of chat... [JOSHUA] Yes.

[LIZ] And then rehearse tomorrow.

[JOSHUA] Okay.

[LIZ] What time should we do dinner?

[BILL] I'm hungry.

[LIZ] Let's say six?

[BILL] [overlapping] Then six.

[JOSHUA] Six.

[LIZ] Six o'clock downstairs.

[BILL] [overlapping] If that's alright with you?

[JOSHUA] Absolutely.

[LIZ] Let's organize that.

(Mix of different conversations, people speaking) [LIZ] Alright, that's good.

[BILL] Yeah, I think I'm over... [TAMARA HURWITZ PULLMAN] This looks nice.

[JOSHUA] Very nice.

[ALL] Alright, so...yeah.

[LIZ] So wow, everybody to a great three days, beautiful work together.

[ALL] (overlapping) Cheers!

[TAMARA] Yeah.

Finally.... [KEITH THOMPSON] Ahhh.

(smacks lips) [LIZ] Mmm, that's good.

Good.

[LIZ] I find working on this piece, um...one part that's kind of fulfilling about it, is the opportunity to kind of live with my dad...and to just reflect back over the, the stories in the military or even my grandfather who [clears throat] um, the story goes that he left Russia because he didn't want to be conscripted.

[TAMARA] Mm-hmmm.

[LIZ] Well, who has, who has military in their family background, I mean, I think we all do, don't we?

Tamara, tell me, you know, talk about, talk about yours.

[TAMARA] Well, um, my father and all three of his brothers served.

So, his mother had four boys in four different branches of the service.

They did do that.

They gave...they did give her that.

So there was one in, in each, so that not, they wouldn't all, be, you know, in the same battle.

[JOSHUA] Yeah, my grandfather had four brothers there all deployed.

So, all five of them were gone at the same time.

Three of them were shot, they all survived.

[KEITH] Well, my father served in the Korean War.

[KEITH] He was in the Air Force.

Um, he was in the Air Force for 25 years.

[JOSHUA] Wow.

[LIZ] Mm-hmmm.

[KEITH] (Clears throat) He...all he would say is that he served in the Korean War, and it was, uh, really important, uh, to him, and uh, but he wouldn't...we have no more information than that.

He didn't care to share anything else about it.

Um, he...Yeah, he just, we...yeah, he just wouldn't share anything else about it.

But, um...so that's all I know, uh, really about... [LIZ] Did you move around a lot, because of the bases?

[KEITH] Yeah, we were in the Air Force, uh, yeah we moved around quite a bit.

Uh, both my brothers, I'm the youngest of three, and both my older brothers have, went into the military right after high school (licks finger).

[LIZ] Hmmm...What about you, Josh?

Tell me a little bit about... [JOSHUA] Um, my father was an F4 pilot, and then my grandfather served in Northern Africa in World War II, in the Army.

Uh, so it was in my blood, and I believed it, I just never thought as a kid, I would do it.

Like, I never thought of that route.

My father had always told me he did it, so I wouldn't have to, um.... [LIZ] Hmmm.

[JOSHUA] But I just, so I always respected that, but then I decided that I wanted the same for my children.

That I would do it, so they wouldn't feel they'd have to serve.

Um, so I joined the Marine Corps later in life, I was 27.

So, I was old.

Considered old by many, many men that I served next to, uh, who told me I was old (laughs).

[JOSHUA] You know...I knew, I knew, I wanted to be a Reservist, I knew...I wanted to be in the infantry.

Like I, just went in there and said, this is what I want to do.

This is, you know, sign me up, I know...I want to go.

And they did.

And I, unfortunately, you know, I did that and then told my parents like two weeks later [laughs].

It was a hard conversation.

[ALL] (Laughing) [BILL] And then, how did you guys... How did that come about... [JOSHUA] My sister, uh, has been in this world her whole life.

Um, my sister was, um, you know, to...

I sat at many a dance recital, and many a, in the back of some, you know, place where they were doing dance and the other half of this apartment.

You know, just the dance world... [JOSHUA] ...my whole life.

[ALL] Yeah.

Wow.

[LIZ] And when I called her, we were discussing a residency for "Healing Wars" and I told her what it was about and then she mentioned Josh.

[LIZ] And at that time, I felt like the piece was cast and finished and....not finished, but like a...I had a, you know, but I reopened it up to... [TAMARA] I remember that.

[KEITH] Yes.

[LIZ] ...get on the phone first with Josh.

And, uh, we, (laughs), it was a very interesting first conversation.

[JOSHUA] [overlapping] It was!

It went in a million different directions... [LIZ] It was really interesting, yep...yes... [KEITH] Wow.

[LIZ] Okay, I'm gonna deliver you... [KEITH] There's a folder... [LIZ] I'm delivering you a few things.

[LIZ] One is, the first thing is...

This is the sequence.

[TAMARA] Good old fashioned paper, I like that.

[LIZ] The sequence...and there's one... (Inaudible chattering among group) [LIZ] Now, Josh, this is going to be meaningless to you.

But the rest of you, you will be familiar... [KEITH] (Laughing) [LIZ] ...with this because we've had versions of it.

[TAMARA] Okay.

[LIZ] I tried writing up about everybody's...characters, kind of, a little bit about them.

[TAMARA] Mmmm.

[LIZ] It says, Josh...is Josh (laughs).

[ALL] (Laughing) [JOSHUA] Yes!

So easy to capture.

[LIZ] He is, he is straightforward, brave, and funny (chuckles).

So, uh, he is Bill's amiable sidekick (laughs).

(Liz's voice continues in background) [BILL] It's a very curious authorship in Liz's work.

She has an ability to not fear inviting people to bring in material.

I mean, that basically is, uh, the raw material that she uses to build from.

So, she expects it, and she selects people who are not just interested in being dancers...being, waiting to be told what to do, you know?

They are all people who want to, uh, contribute some ideas and thoughts, and Liz's, uh, nature, you know, is that, to, to accept that and work it in.

(Folksy violin music) [TAMARA] The preparation is something that comes from a lot of different directions and picking, and choosing what I think is important to me.

And therefore, if it's important to me, then I think it will read with the rest of the piece.

[KEITH] I might take an essence of what I've read about, um, certain aspects of how they've lived or, what they went through, to sort of play with in my mind a little bit and actually let it physically transform my body.

So, I guess I'm playing more with essence than with character.

(Folky violin music ends) [LIZ] Oh wow... [KEITH] Wow [laughs].

[LIZ] Wow!

[TAMARA] We did some better versions of it.. [KEITH] That wasn't the best version... [LIZ] But it leads to something really... Yeah, I think that can work.

Good.

[LIZ] The...it's a challenging idea, to think for a minute that all wars are a theme in variation.

I do happen to believe that.

I do happen to think they will always exist, I don't, and each generation comes upon them, and finds one's place in relationship to it.

Uh, it's a little hard to do that with the American Civil War.

[LIZ] You want to make the American Civil War special.

You want to say, no, no, it's, it's not like anything else, ever.

And this piece is a challenge to that idea.

It's not saying that that's not true, but it's saying, by the way, the way people function within war...well, those functions may actually be similar.

[KEITH] Alright, so start on the right foot.

[JOSHUA] (Laughs) KEITH: And, one, two, three, four... (continues counting dance steps) [KEITH] Extra one, two... [BILL] There's a lot of ways, in which, we get knowledge in the world.

And, uh, a lot of it is from parables.

Stories get told, you know, and when you hear stories that get passed down from people you know, that has resonance to them, and then it, you learn the parable, and then, it has resonance for you that's different.

(Keith stops counting) [TAMARA] Getting clearer.

[KEITH] Getting there.

[ALL] Mmm-hmmm.

Yeah, yeah.

[KEITH] Let's just do it again.

[BILL] Good.

Go ahead.

[KEITH] You cool, JB?

[JOSHUA] I'm good.

[KEITH] Alright.

[JOSHUA] Thank you.

(Melancholy piano music) [JOSHUA] So, we'd gotten up pretty early that morning.

We're probably setting out in the ways before, you know, the sun even rose.

And I remember stopping vehicles, surrounding them, getting them out, going through their stuff.

And we had gone to the market that day.

And then, we needed to turn around to go meet up with the rest of our guys.

Uh, and I remember where we were on the road.

And then, getting ready to turn around over the median... [JOSHUA] And then, nothing, nothing.

I don't remember a thing.

♪ ♪ [JOSHUA] They had placed a roadside bomb.

The blast flipped the vehicle.

It killed my sergeant and my radio operator.

Uh, the power of the impact shattered my jaw.

[JOSHUA] Twenty-seven pins to the hip.

I broke my acetabular, so they rebuilt my hip.

Uh, broke my pelvis in half, so they put a six inch screw in that.

Uh, a lot of internal injuries, from, you know, a lot of bruising and swelling.

Uh, amputation of both the legs above the knee.

Severe traumatic brain injury, um, from being in a coma.

PTSD, and uh, jaw shattered.

My nose was broke.

Both my wrists, uh, had breaks in it and four fingers were broken and put pins and screws in my fingers.

Uh, and so, it was uh, and then there's a trach in my throat too, which was an obstacle all by itself.

Not just, you know, getting past the broken jaw, but dealing with the breathing and talking, and that aspect of the whole thing.

(Sound of pressurized air being released) [BILL] The button that releases this... [JOSHUA] Yep, just lets air back in, and then... [BILL] And then that, I don't know why, you know, before I came here I was thinking about your legs.

[JOSHUA] It's pretty amazing, I've been very happy... and blessed with the technology that they've come along with.

[BILL] Mmmm.

Mmmm.

[BILL] And, and these cups that are here... are just there for the... [JOSHUA] This suction to add to the suction.

[BILL] Ahhhh.

[JOSHUA] So, when my leg fits in, it doesn't hit the bottom, all the weights surrounding here and not on the end of my socket.

[BILL] Does the fatigue mostly happen in, in your legs or?

[JOSHUA] Yeah, it's not, it's not even, it's just like, you know, you, it's just like...

I, I explain, it to, if you've been standing, the soreness in your feet.

[BILL] Oh, yeah.

[JOSHUA] Like, just when you take your shoes off.

And it just feels good and just, they ache.

That's how my legs feel when I take these off.

[BILL] Ahhh.

[JOSHUA] They ache, but there's not a lot of pain, they're just tired.

[LIZ] Um, let's, let's see, if there's, if there are ways that we can make some of these connections.

I don't know if you're up for this.

Um.. [JOSHUA] You tell me.

[LIZ] Uh, um, Josh, but there was a point where you had your leg and you were going like this with the leg.

[JOSHUA] Mmm-hmmm.

[LIZ] And it made me think, if you're willing to let Bill have one of your legs.

[LIZ] So like... [LIZ] For just a minute.

If you take a leg and then, here Bill you take a leg.

Let's say we have a three minute conversation.

And if...you know... [JOSHUA & BILL] [Inaudible conversation] [JOSHUA] [overlapping] This, this... [LIZ] That kind of a move, that kind of a move.

Uh, I think if you bring it up and over kind of move, you know.

It just, like, yeah.

And just, just arbitrarily if you each find six.

[JOSHUA] Okay.

[LIZ] And then we'll just... [JOSHUA] ...go from there LIZ: ...put them, you know, we'll worry later that they are, but um... [BILL] So the yeah, then the one thing you can't do, is, uh, like a can-can thing.

[JOSHUA] Oh yeah, yeah.

[BILL] Yeah, and then maybe we could do a little, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee [Bill plays with moving the legs].

(Bill and Josh laugh) [LIZ] My larger idea is, that...we spend an enormous amount of energy not thinking about these things.

What happens to the bodies, you know, the actual physical body, and where does it go or who cares about it.

Um, and then that is both true and in life and in death.

Who's caring about that body.

Who's absorbing the damages that war make.

What happens afterwards.

[JOSHUA] And then, back up.

And then, I liked when you, you stuck it out and did the kneeling.

[BILL] Yeah.

[LIZ] So um, Bill, why don't we...hear... Can you do the part right after the...uh, the amputation scene with George?

[BILL] [Bill moves his hands acting out a scene] Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[BILL] And then, music starts.

And then... [BILL] [Bill acting out scene again] The wonderful dream that pain has been taken away from us, has become a reality.

Pain!

(Sound of bench rolling in) [BILL] [Continues acting out scene] The highest consciousness of our earthly existence.

Pain!

The most distinct sensation of the imperfection of the human body.

Pain!

Must now bow before the power of the human mind.

Before the power of ether vapor.

[JOSHUA] [Acts out scene] Wait, wait... What a beautiful thought.

No more pain?

Oh, picture the world as we travel, no matter what we will encounter, there will be no more pain, ever.

Never.

Never suffering.

Never enduring.

But that's not the world, we live in.

(Lonesome harp music) JOSHUA: Physical pain is so great.

That just pure: I hurt, I hurt, I hurt.

But you also know that there's steps...

There's steps that it gets better.

Physical pain, you know, we do surgeries, or we give you this medication, and it goes away or it, it subsides, or it gets better.

But, with the mental anguish and the guilt.

[JOSHUA] There's a lot of pain associated where there's not a step by step process to get better, it just...becomes overwhelming.

The mental pain, and just the spiritual pain is a big process of getting through that.

No matter how healthy you get again, how much you get your physical life back, that will always be a battle.

♪ ♪ [BILL] My own father was a physician who was in the Navy in World War II.

He had a lot of difficulties with his demons.

He came from a generation who didn't talk about the war and I think that there were things that happened to him that he never processed fully.

There had been a submarine that torpedoed a Japanese battleship.

[BILL] And it was sinking and the Commander of the ship, ordered all officers on deck and everyone with ammunition, and ordered them to shoot the Japanese soldiers in the water.

And I think that...you know, was something that was a great dissonance for a medical person, you know, to be a healer, and then to be asked to shoot an unarmed person in the water.

And these horrible things that war has, that, these are stories that they didn't want to talk about.

(Rehearsal piano music starts) [BILL] So in some ways, you know, I feel like I can process some of that stuff, you know, with my own participation in this piece.

[BILL] [Acting out on stage] It's an honor to be a guest speaker at today's Dine for the Troops fundraiser for the Independence Fund.

Thank you for the opportunity.

I'm a U.S. Navy doctor.

And I've treated wounded Marines in and around of Fallujah in 2003-2004.

There's a lot of stories I could tell, about how our troops are doing over there.

But there's one story in particular that I'm thinking of today.

Lance Corporal... [BILL] [Voice changes as Bill sits in a recording studio, reading from script] DeMarcus Brown.

He had come into us with a split lip that had been cut by shrapnel, and I stitched him up, uh, it's the kind of thing that we like to do, it's pretty easy and nobody's going home to a life of rehab or something.

And he was 19 and during the whole time he was pretty funny, uh, and he told this one joke that, uh, I really can't tell right now, but you'll have to take my word for it, it was pretty funny.

And, uh, in the middle of all this insanity... [BILL] [Continues to read from script] I found myself really, um, surprised at how, how much humor he had in him.

And I stitched him up and he went back, keep doing his job.

Two days later, I heard traffic over the radio that he and two others had breached a house in Fallujah with an insurgent with an AK-47 and fragmentation grenades.

I wished he hadn't gone in there.

I wished that I wasn't the medic in charge, but I was.

And that's, what I had been trained to do.

By the time they got to the forward eight station, he had lost a lot of blood.

And we went into a pretty extreme mode.

Just trying to save him.

Uh, stabilize him.

[BILL] There's a lot of fear in Iraq.

Fear of dying, fear of the unknown.

Fear of getting shot.

The budding inside you wiles up this other fear, this other fear of failing.

It's failing yourself, failing your team.

Failing this young man who is looking up at you, so expectantly... And then suddenly, he lost blood pressure, uh, one lung collapsed and then the other.

And we lost him.

Lance Corporal DeMarcus Brown died that day on the table.

[BILL] [Voice breaks and Bill softly cries in character] I'm sorry, I've told this story so many times I...it was a few years ago, but I, um, I don't know.

(Reflective harp music slowly fades in) ♪ ♪ [FEMALE DANCER] I play a Shaman-like character, an ethereal being, that ushers' people through transition from death into the afterlife.

[KEITH] I play a slave that has been freed in the time of the Civil War who searches for his family, and trying to find himself.

♪ ♪ [KEITH] My family dynamic was really important, and actually more important in my life than I realize, especially coming to understand this play and understand my, my roles in the play.

I'm the person who everyone comes to for support, for sustainability.

(Music builds intensity with string instruments) ♪ ♪ [KEITH] Even with the spirit character, I'm, in a way, a spirit to her.

I don't let her give up.

♪ ♪ [KEITH] I'm the caregiver.

I guess that's just in me.

It's just, it's in my nature.

♪ ♪ [TAMARA] [Speaks on stage in character] Dear Mr. Blackburn, your brother is buried five miles east of Vicksburg in an orchard near the railroad.

His grave is under and to the left of the fourth apple tree in the third row of trees.

(Somber harp music) [BILL] I am sitting in a hotel in Blacksburg, Virginia, and um, DeMarcus Brown, the 22-year old soldier lost on the battlefield was buried 40 miles away from where I was.

I had that full body flush of like, I need to go to the gravesite.

[BILL] What will come, what do you learn at a grave site?

We learn an awful lot...about that soldier, what he meant to people.

He was kind of an extraordinary guy.

[BILL] You know, he was the kind of kid who made a gray day bright.

You know, and, uh...there's all that kind of resonance that happens from a life, that's still there.

(Music slowly fades out) [LIZ] Hmm, yeah, hmmm.

(Sound of Liz getting up and sitting down on seat) [JOSHUA] Emotionally, I don't know.

[LIZ] I don't know, what do you think?

You think...If you were...why don't you....what...if you were emotionally struggling what would you do, do you think?

[JOSHUA] I think there'd be a little bit, I'd try to disconnect... [LIZ] Try that.

JOSHUA: ...from her.

[LIZ] Try that.

[LIZ] [Inaudible conversation].

Okay, when she finishes, yeah.

Okay.

[TAMARA] (Speaking in character) So I, I started getting so many letters from men from all over and... You know, even Clara Barton was getting letters from guys about this.

And I've been doing some research and I found some that I think you would be interested in what, what they were writing to her.

Some comrade, who unlike me, was not permitted to return home to his family, but his body lay moldering in some cemetery in the south or his bones lay bleaching on some battlefield far from home and friends.

Despite his best efforts these thoughts would come repeatedly into his mind during the day.

Unbidden, as he put it and in spite of himself.

But he also noted remarkably that quote, I felt glad in entertaining them on such occasions...

I had no desire to separate myself permanently from them.

(Melancholy piano music intensifies as two men dance) ♪ ♪ (Music ends) [KEITH] Then, you would say something... JOSHUA: Oh... (Sound of people speaking on stage) (Sound of Josh putting on his prosthetic legs) [JOSHUA] (laughing) I just liked it.

(Conversations of stage crew continues) ♪ ♪