Last Thursday, Betty and I, along with our friends Leland Nelson and Ben Shedd, showed Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor to some of the employees of the Boise Veterans Affairs Medical Facility. We showed it in the morning and then again in the afternoon. Over sixty people viewed the film.

Betty and I feel that Bravo! has a unique message to tell the world about Vietnam Veterans, and in a larger frame, about veterans of most any war. There are roughly one thousand employees who work at the Boise VA Medical facility and they are people who care for and about this country’s many veterans and their wide variety of medical issues.

The Boise Veterans Affairs medical personnel serve approximately twenty-five thousand veterans ranging from survivors of World War II right up to our newest veterans returning now from the wars of the Middle East.

Some of the Boise VA Medical Center personnel at the screening of Bravo!

As has generally been the case, the audience response was one of somber recognition. The voices in Bravo! spoke a language the VA personnel understood. After the movie’s ending, some tears, some nods, some silent moments, just sitting there, thinking, feeling…

Thanks to Mr. Michael Fisher, the Director of the Medical Center as well as Mr. Grant Ragsdale, the Associate Director and Mr. Josh Callihan, with Medical Center Public Affairs, for allowing us to screen Bravo! for their personnel.

These kinds of liaisons between VA Medical personnel and the film Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor are a perfect meshing of the medical practicalities that arise in combat’s aftermath with the history, art and message that Bravo! brings.

See more about the Boise VA Medical Center at http://www.boise.va.gov/.