"When I was just a baby, my mama told me, 'son, always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns'...but I'm stuck in Folsom Prison, and time keeps draggin' on..." - Johnny Cash, military veteran - US Air Force

Whatever your musical tastes may be, one thing's for sure:

The "Man in Black" knew what it was like to be a man in uniform.

Military, civilian, and those audience members who are someone in-between agree that K. Lorrel Manning's Happy New Year (2011) will make you want to sing Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" at the top of your lungs.

Last night's thought-provoking film effectively uses the famous outlaw anthem as a revisionist protest song.  Like the “Ain't Too Proud To Beg” kitchen dance scene from The Big Chill (1983), and the “Tiny Dancer” bus ride sing-a-long from Almost Famous (2000), Happy New Year uses the Cash classic to introduce a bombastic plot point in the film. It plants the rebel rousing seed in the ears and minds of the audience. From this moment onward, the audience's distance from the characters dissolves into the pea green brick walls that imprison the on-screen choir of VA patients.

What better way to poetically reject the bureaucratic and psychological neglect experienced by our nation's veterans and current military servicemen?

Like the song, the film stands alone, at once welcoming and prickly. Presented as a desaturated, vet-as-VA outlaw chamber piece, it uses the narrative conventions of multiple story lines, character sketches, and poetic justice to address the bureaucratic and psychological horrors that greet vets returning home from war. Unfortunately,  in reality, such tragedies occur more frequently and are, at times, stranger than fiction.

The fim's post-screening panel was the perfect way for the message of the evening to come full circle. In addition to the filmmakers, actors, and military advisers, two members of the outreach and reform sector shared their passion for the cause.

Anna Bigham, founder of Hidden Wounds, a non-profit organization based in Columbia, SC, shared the mission of the organization, and invaluable information about in-state veteran services:

Mission: To provide peace of mind and comfort for military personnel suffering from combat stress injuries.

Since 2010, they have offered counseling to 3600 veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), brain injuries, and various afflictions. They encourage vet-to-vet peer counseling, as most vets prefer to talk with

someone who has "worn the same helmet and boots."

Josh Lindsey, Iraq veteran and board member for The Independence Fund, shared his own frustrating perspective on the war against health care and military bureaucracy, as well as the organization's mission pillars and goals:

Pillar One: To provide the necessary tools and therapies that are otherwise not being provided.

Pillar Two: To fund and promote physical and leisure/athletic activities that enhance the veteran’s physical and emotional well-being.

Pillar Three: Advocacy/Case Management, focused on monitoring the disparity in levels of comprehensive care from facility to facility; they help veterans navigate the benefits c/o the Department of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Administration (VA) Healthcare systems, and other nonprofit systems; they also look options and handling in various facilities.  Their mission is to use their own experiences in this situation to help newer vets navigate "the labyrinth of bureaucracy associated with piecing damaged lives back together." (independencefund.org/)

The filmmakers and advocates for veterans also shared the names of other programs out there with similar missions and goals, such as: Blue Star Families, The Jericho Project, and The Wounded Warrior Project.

While no one associated with the film or the reform movement aims to discredit the work by the civilian counselors, they do agree with current movements in health care and benefits reform that the military and the medical community need to work together.

Passionately peaceful viewpoints from the audience and those on stage filled the theater:

There is a need for proper advocacy. Many suggest it should start with the Health Departments. Those persons in need of help, or know others who are too "proud" to seek help, must stop "running away from humanity. Civilians must adopt the art of listening. Vets who know other vets who need help should learn not to judge. Vets in need of help must proactively strive to overcome the stigma of seeking help.

Every citizen, including vets, has a right to:

"the Freedom to Fail."

The personal and the political are one. We all must fight the good fight to help our veterans, but the veterans themselves must learn to EVOLVE, to disassociate seeking help with failure.

As our troops come home in droves, and commence mass reintegration into civilian life, it is clear we as a society, and as a nation, will need to provide help to our veterans for years to come.

One questions remains for the civilian community:

Do you have the guts to help your servicemen?

Better yet, one question remains for our veterans:

Do you have the guts to get help?

So join me, America. Let's do what's good for us all, and especially for our military and their families.

Let's make it our mission help our veterans escape those "Folsom Prison Blues."

Or else.

~ Ms. Duncan Pittman, civilian big sister to a young Navy grunt