'Fighting for Life'

Terry Sanders has been making short films - both fictional and documentaries - since the 1950s.

With Fighting for Life, the two-time Oscar-winning producer takes us to the firefights of Iraq and back. The soldiers this time are the brave military medical personnel who lift the wounded from the battlefields and begin a startling medical process of lifesaving, healing, body reconstruction and counseling that repairs (as much as possible) the damage that war inflicts.

I don't usually mention movie tag lines, but Fighting for Life has a memorable, meaningful one:

"When the battle ends, their fight begins."

In the director's chair for his latest documentary, Sanders fills his screen with damaged bodies and more gore than we find in some horror films.

In many ways, this is a horror film. Certainly, the ravages of war told on such a personal level made my stomach turn more than once.

In this case, that's a good thing. Sanders and his crew, given total access, focus on 21-year-old Army Spec. Crystal Davis from Camden, S.C. Davis was behind the wheel of a truck in Ramadi, Iraq, when an IED blew up, severing her right leg and severely damaging the left.

The no-frills yet deeply gripping manner this film uses to document this brave soldier's struggle for survival, then in rehab, should draw a salute from military personnel and civilians as well.