Leave No Soldier is a very personal project for Director Donna Bassin, Ph.D., an artist and clinical psychologist. Her journey began when she volunteered to help families in New York City accept and mourn the tragic events of 9/11. She met veterans, at that time, in a professional quest to understand mourning after collective trauma, and quickly became impressed with their ability to transform anger and revenge into social activism and community care. A child of the baby boom generation that failed to distinguish war from veterans, Bassin soon realized that the complex emotions and struggles of veterans returning home were completely different from war itself. She decided to explore the roots of their experiential wisdom, and her persistence and sensitivity to the issues surrounding veterans allowed her to befriend their close-knit community. Since then, she has worked hard to bring those issues to light.

 

THE FILM