Men's Journal

Woody Harrelson stars in Oren Moverman’s powerful new film Photo credit: Ken Woroner/Fox Searchlight Pictures

A new film looks at the men whose job is to notify families that their loved ones aren’t coming home.

Interviewed by Nate Storey

Ltc. Paul Sinor was technical adviser on G.I. Joe, but the former chief of the army’s Killed in Action branch has never had a movie draw from his life like The Messenger, which won this year’s Deauville American film fest. Oren Moverman’s movie follows two men (Woody Harrelson and Six Feet Under’s Ben Foster) who bond while delivering grief.
-
-
-
-

MJ: How do you tell the families?

Sinor: We do it right, but we also do it quickly: We break the bad news, give them condolences, tell them someone else is coming out to help them, and then get out of Dodge.

What’s the toughest part of the job?

Depends on the individual. When a person starts to cry, some want to console and hug them, but you can’t. You have to stand there and watch them fall apart. It’s a vulnerable time, and you can’t get in that space. You can only touch them if they’re fainting.

Has modern technology changed the process?

Unlike previous wars, guys now have cell phones. So we do a communication lockdown for the next 18 hours when there’s a death in a unit. Even that has a ripple effect — my son is in Iraq and he talks to my daughter every day, and when he doesn’t talk to her she calls me and says, “Dad, have you heard anything?”

How was it being the man in charge?

I’d get the news generally within four hours of each death. For the next 15 to 18 hours I know this soldier’s dead; I know that his mother is going to be given the news. I always wanted to do something, to call and say, In a couple of hours you’re going to get the worst news you’ve ever had. It’s never going to be all right, but it’s going to get better. But I couldn’t. I had to sit on it. Sometimes I was holding 10, 15 deaths a day. It was tough.

How accurate are the scenarios in the movie?

One hundred percent. They were filming a scene where Steve Buscemi goes after Foster and pushes him from behind, and I pulled Woody to the side and said, “If that happened, you would step in.” And Steve played off of it. But you can’t imagine the scenarios. The biggest thing is people fainting. Or denial — people won’t let you in. Or they see you and start backing up, saying, “No, no, no, don’t come in.” People have gone into cardiac arrest. We’ve had people physically attacked, abused, and shot at. A marine had his car firebombed. That’s the reality of the job.

Watch the trailer for The Messenger:

—

This article originally appeared in the November 2009 issue of Men’s Journal.

Print this article