Friday, February 7, 2014

Film company hopes to help PTSD sufferers

Film company hopes to help PTSD sufferers
Calaveras Enterprise
By Stephen Crane
February 7, 2014

Murphys resident becomes film producer

Peter Murnik

Peter Murnik

Peter Murnik is scheduled to star as Master Sgt. Lance Harrison, 
one of two returning veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder 
in “The Burden of Freedom.”

The United States Military is made up of men and women willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the country and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan underscore that fact. As part of their service, many military personnel risk death. Many risk injury. And all relinquish many of the freedoms they help to defend. But sometimes, the sacrifices they make and the injuries they sustain don’t surface until they are back home trying to reconcile life as civilians, yet are still haunted by the traumas of war.

To highlight that burden and to ease the weight they carry, Murphys resident Rae Davis decided to become a partner in a film production company that is working on its first film project, “The Burden of Freedom,” which highlights the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder in the lives of two men. “(The movie) attracted me because I’ve known people throughout the years who have suffered from PTSD,” said Davis, who has lived in Calaveras for much of her life, beginning in Rail Road Flat. “I lost a friend to suicide at one point in my life. But I’ve known other people who have struggled and struggled in silence.”

Davis was approached by friend Ken Ramoz, who wrote the script for the movie. “I’ve been long-time friends with (Ramoz),” Davis said. “I offered to help him promote (the movie).” She is now the executive producer and a partner in the production company. Davis and Ramoz met back in 1990, when the two used to do Civil War reenactments. Davis focused on the medical components of the war.

“I would talk to people about the medical practice of the Civil War,” she said. That’s when she first became aware of the magnitude of PTSD’s effect on war veterans, even going back to the Civil War.

“PTSD existed but there was not a name for it,” Davis said. “When soldiers returned home after four years of Civil War and they weren’t right, people cast them off. They were put in insane asylums and many got hooked on morphine.”
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