The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are distant realities for most of us, but war is all too real for the men and women who fight it.

“The Ground Truth,” directed by Patricia Foulkrod, was released in theaters Sept. 15. The film is an emotionally potent glimpse into the unimaginable horrors of soldiers’ lives on the frontlines, and what is an equally challenging part of war – adjusting to civilian life back home.

The intensely gripping film opens with grainy archival footage from various battlefields of U.S. wars, showing fallen soldiers and civilians from Europe, Korea and Vietnam, to Iraq. The screen then reads, “Returning from the killing fields is a slow ascent from hell.” The filmmakers then lucidly detail how painfully glacial the journey can be.

An Iraq war veteran then ponders his perceived objective in Iraq. He said nowhere in the military’s recruitment literature has the word “kill” appeared.

“In basic training you quickly learn your purpose is to kill, to take life,” he said.

Various soldiers recount the drill calls and chants from basic training in disturbing cadence. “Kill the rag-heads, kill Osama, kill the hajjis, bomb the village, and the people.”

Kelly Dougherty, a U.S. Army National Guard medic and policewoman shyly remembers singing songs about killing Iraqi babies. She admits she couldn’t believe she sang along, but that after a while, it simply became routine.

“Your aggression becomes focused on all the people because you don’t know who the enemy is. We’ve killed a lot of innocent civilians,” another soldier said.

As the film gains momentum your senses are overwhelmed and confused by the precarious accounts of a grunt’s life.

A seasoned veteran describes a split-second that he decided to shoot an Iraqi woman. He watched her approach his buddies as they shout at her to stop, they were told that she could have had a bomb. Just after they killed her he saw that she was merely holding a white scarf, a sign of surrender.

He winces in the face of the camera. His raw emotion serves as a catalyst of simultaneous sympathy and disgust.

“I cannot bring that woman back,” he said.

The film gives soldiers a platform to describe suicidal thoughts, loneliness, and having a “loss of humanity,” while psychological experts help build a convincing case that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is wreaking havoc on soldiers who return home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

A psychologist describes PTSD as a constant re-living of past traumatic events that include intrusive thoughts and images that torment the soldiers.

“Nobody from the military calls to check up on them once they are discharged,” he said.

Many of the film’s subjects report that once they were back home in the United States, they were uncontrollably paranoid, carried their guns at all times, and broke into fits of rage with strangers and their loved ones.

One soldier expresses his disgust with the military after he is refused PTSD treatment because he is now considered a conscientious objector with a personality disorder. He spent 12 years serving his country.

Another soldier said he felt like he went from being a hero in Iraq to feeling like a monster once he returned.

“A veteran might be that quiet guy in the back of a college class,” he said. “The worst thing is you don’t fit in society except by yourself. I was a mess when I came back.”

The film is a rousing call for activism and understanding of what soldiers face missing in daily coverage on the War on Terrorism.