City Slang: High Strung bassist writes documentary score

Chad Stocker, bassist with the High Strung, has written the music for a documentary that airs at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor this Saturday.

The film, Where Soldiers Come From, is from the mind of Heather Courtney. According to the press release, the story is as follows. “Enticed by a $20,000 signing bonus and college tuition support, best friends Dominic and Cole join the National Guard after graduating from their rural high school. After persuading several of their friends to join them, the young men are sent to Afghanistan, where they spend their days sweeping for roadside bombs. Courtney goes with them. By the time their deployment ends, they are no longer the carefree group of friends they were before enlisting; repeated bombs blowing up around their convoys have led to the new silent signature wound of the Afghan war, Traumatic Brain Injury, and they have all become increasingly disillusioned about their mission.

”The challenges really begin to surface when they return to their families and communities in Michigan and try to fit back into their daily routines. WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM looks beyond the guns and policies of an ongoing war to examine the war’s effect on parents, loved ones and the whole community when young people go off to fight.”

Courtney issued a statement to say that, “In any film where going to war is a major plot point, it would be easy to make a political statement. But in WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM, I am more interested in focusing on the emotional and human aspects of the story. Many Americans, whatever their politics or feelings about war, are very far removed from the Iraq/Afghanistan wars because they don't know anyone personally who has gone there as a soldier. I hope that my film will help viewers get to know these young men and their families, feel compassion for them, and see a bit of themselves in the people on the screen.”

Stocker is a talented musician, so this should be a film worth seeing AND hearing.