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Life & Times Transcript

4/19/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

What do wounded soldiers come home to when they return from Iraq?

Tonia Sargent>> Well, I just remember telling him, "Gunny, we can build on this." Because my biggest fear was that he may not be able to see me, hear me, speak to me, may never remember me.

Val Zavala>> And then, a star turn for a gifted actor, but will it keep the "Fracture" from falling apart?

Those stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Her husband came back from Iraq, shot in the eye, virtually blind, part of his brain removed. But what really made Tonia Sargent angry was the way her husband was treated. She had to step in and take over physical therapy and then she went on a campaign for other military wives. As Hena Cuevas tells us, this woman is a force to be reckoned with.

Hena Cuevas>> Every morning, Tonia Sargent and her husband, Kenny, take a walk on the beach. Each step is part of Kenny's difficult road to recovery. Two years ago, he was wounded in Iraq.

Kenny Sargent>> You see the scar that goes all the way down my neck. The biggest thing is, I lost so much blood when I got injured that I almost died because of that.

Hena Cuevas>> Kenny and Tonia are celebrating twenty years of marriage. They have two daughters. They're fully aware of the toll injuries take on marriages. The divorce rate among injured military couples is a stunning ninety percent.

Tonia Sargent>> That was his biggest concern from the beginning. It was "you're going to leave me". I said, "I'm never going to leave you. I will always be here to take care of you."

Hena Cuevas>> It was August 2005 and Kenny, then thirty-six years old, was a Master Sergeant with the Marines. He'd been in the first Gulf war and was back for his second tour. He'd only been in Iraq for four months when his convoy was ambushed. Tonia was back in Camp Pendleton. The afternoon of August 5, the phone rang. It was an officer from her husband's unit.

Tonia Sargent>> And then those words come across the line, you know, "Has anyone been to the house?", which to a military spouse is not what you want to hear. I said no one has been to the house and he asked, "Are you sure?" I said, "Is he dead?" He said, "No, but it doesn't look good."

Kenny Sargent>> Fortunately, one of the rounds ricocheted off the door latch. It went in my right eye, went through and came out the left side of my head. It put a hole in my head about the size of your hand.

Tonia Sargent>> They talked about the eyes, the ears, loss of brain, not stable.

Hena Cuevas>> What goes through your mind at that time?

Tonia Sargent>> Everything. You know, your whole life, your future.

Hena Cuevas>> The first glimpse she got of her injured husband was this photograph in the New York Times.

Tonia Sargent>> It was not an intimate photograph. I mean, you know, a bandage, but you could see that he was able to interact.

Hena Cuevas>> Eventually, she was able to fly to the Navy hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.

Tonia Sargent>> So before I walked in, I just took that deep breath and put that smile on and walked over to a man that I did not recognize. Swollen head, staples all around, dried blood, bruises, tears. So I approached the bed and reached down and kissed him on the forehead and held his hand and I said, "I know that you can't speak, but just squeeze my hand if you know who I am." He did.

Hena Cuevas>> Kenny, nicknamed Gunny, had lost a fourth of his skull and two inches of his brain. His jaw was shattered and half of his face was paralyzed. He also couldn't speak. He was blind in one eye with only partial vision in the other.

Tonia Sargent>> I just remember telling him, "Gunny, we can build on this." Because my biggest fear was that he may not be able to see me, hear me, speak to me, may never remember me. He was my best friend and still is and to have someone not remember you after eighteen years, how do you rebuild memories?

Hena Cuevas>> He stayed in the hospital for a month with Tonia by his side day and night. It was during this time that she began feeling abandoned by the system. She had no money, her daughters were at home alone. She needed support, financial and otherwise, but it wasn't there.

Tonia Sargent>> I should have been taken to Navy Relief, had money in my pocket. My children had to stay here. There was no one checking on my children, no Chaplain Services, no Counseling Services, no Family Services, no one. To leave a fifteen and a seventeen year old here with no one.

Hena Cuevas>> After Maryland, Kenny got transferred to the Veterans Hospital in northern California, but Tonia says that she didn't quite have the same level of support there, plus she felt she couldn't take care of him the same way that she had in the past. So after only a few months, she decided to move back to Camp Pendleton and take care of Kenny at home.

Tonia Sargent>> "Look, look, look, then come down."

Kenny Sargent>> "Yeah, it feels much stronger on this side."

Tonia Sargent>> "Yeah, I know."

Hena Cuevas>> Tonia was an aerobics instructor. She decided to step in and give Kenny the long-term physical therapy he needed. Every day, she works with him in the makeshift gym in their garage. He's come a long way in two years.

Tonia Sargent>> "And then lift this arm up. This arm, right? I want you to bring it up so that this touches the ear. No (laughter), cheater."

Hena Cuevas>> To engage his brain, Tonia has him working on wood furniture among other things.

Tonia Sargent>> Because the things they would give him in therapy would be like play with Legos and he didn't want to play with Legos. He's a Marine. So I would give him things -- you know, he's a mechanic by trade. I would give him things to tinker with. Well, here the lawnmower's broken. Well, I had every intention of buying a new lawnmower, but I can let him tear it apart, replace the spark plugs and just invest in his thought process and problem-solving. "You want to drive or shall I drive (laughter)?"

Hena Cuevas>> She also made sure he went out in public.

Tonia Sargent>> My daughters would often say, "Mom, people are staring at us" because my husband would remove his helmet and he had no skull. I would sit up nice and tall and I would tell them, "I want people to look at us. I want them to see your father and I want them to see our family because we're casualties of this war. If we're too ugly to look at, then they should look away. But if we're not, they should question and, hopefully, they will come and thank him." Nine times out of ten, they would come and thank him.

Hena Cuevas>> His eyelashes have to be plucked, as well as fluid applied to his injured eye.

Tonia Sargent>> His nervous system and the brain were traumatized, so there are secondary things with bladder, stomach, possible seizures. And my biggest fear is that I've nurtured him back to this loving, functional man and I don't want to see him deteriorate slowly and be taken from me.

Hena Cuevas>> He tires easily, so every afternoon he takes a nap. These two hours give Tonia a much-needed break.

Tonia Sargent>> To leave him alone for more than two hours at a time, which two hours is way too long, is major anxiety. He's afraid something will happen to me and he's left alone. I'm afraid something will happen to me, so I have to not only plan for life, but I have to plan for death.

Hena Cuevas>> What kind of toll has it taken on you to bring him back to the level that he is today?

Tonia Sargent>> I have given a hundred percent of me to recover him, which leaves nothing for me. But I try to take the negative and recycle it to empower me and to encourage me.

Hena Cuevas>> Are there any moments that you ever say, "I'm just going to give up and I'm getting out of here."?

Tonia Sargent>> Every day, every day.

Hena Cuevas>> But she hasn't. In fact, she's found the energy to help other military families through work with nonprofit groups like Soldier Fund and Operation Homefront and she's sharing her story with anyone who will listen. She's gotten extensive media coverage and she's been the keynote speaker at events for military families. But she wants to do even more. She wants to set up a foundation to make sure others get the support she hasn't.

Kenny Sargent>> I'm fortunate that my wife is here by my side because, even though she doesn't realize it, she does a lot for me, more than anybody's ever done before.

Hena Cuevas>> The Sargents are living in military housing waiting for his veterans benefits to kick in. As for a regular job with a steady paycheck for Tonia, that's out of the question. For now, this is her full-time job.

Tonia Sargent>> I have to understand how he feels on the inside so that I can nurture that and complement that because my job -- I use this analogy. He's the flag, I'm the pole. As a spouse, I complement my warrior.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> You can see this and other stories about how the war has impacted local families on the Life and Times blog. Just go to kcet.org and click on the Life and Times Blog.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> They're disappearing at an astounding rate: steelhead trout in southern California rivers. There used to be about seventy-five thousand trout. Now there's only about a thousand, and the main culprit? Dams. That's why environmentalists want one dam in Malibu Creek demolished. But as Hena Cuevas tells us, it's an historic structure. So which do we choose? The fish or our history?

Hena Cuevas>> It's hard to believe that Malibu, with one of the priciest real estate prices in the state, used to be farm country. Back in 1892, these thirteen thousand acres were called the Malibu Ranch, owned by the Frederick Rindge family. In the 1930's, they slowly started selling portions of the property, paving the way for modern-day Malibu.

Glen Howell>> The name Rindge is so important to Malibu. It's almost like you can't say Malibu without saying Rindge.

Hena Cuevas>> Glen Howell is a docent at the Malibu Lagoon Museum. He says the history of the area and the Rindge family are closely inter-connected. Unfortunately, he says nothing in Malibu has the Rindge family name on it except this dam which they built in 1924 to irrigate their crops and provide water to the area.

Glen Howell>> It's probably the best built dam in America and it's a unique structure. There's no dam quite built like that dam.

Hena Cuevas>> The Rindge Dam is one hundred feet high with a concrete arch structure and a spillway next to it. Just off of Malibu Canyon Road, very few people have heard of it or even know where it is.

Glen Howell>> Its location is very remote. It's very difficult to get to it. It's way up the canyon and there's no trail.

Hena Cuevas>> But they're slowly hearing about it because now this eighty year old structure is at the center of an environmental controversy.

Jim Edmondson>> The Rindge Dam has been a public nuisance since 1953 when it stopped storing water and providing that resource for the community of Malibu.

Hena Cuevas>> Jim Edmondson is a member of California Trout, one of the organizations that wants the dam to go.

Jim Edmondson>> It's causing the erosion of the beaches and hurting the local economy and it's also preventing a very important fish from migrating upstream to its headwaters and it is now an endangered species in a big part because of this dam.

Hena Cuevas>> The fish is the steelhead trout, a federally endangered species. They can be found in most of the streams flowing into the ocean from San Luis Obispo County north. Like salmon, they're born in fresh water and travel to the ocean to complete their growth. They then return to their native fresh water, but unlike salmon, they don't die after spawning and can reproduce again. According to Edmondson, steelhead trout used to number in the hundreds in these waters.

Jim Edmondson>> Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy didn't have to go to Alaska. They came to Malibu Creek.

Hena Cuevas>> That is, until the construction of the Rindge Dam which, he argues, is keeping the trout from going upstream.

Jim Edmondson>> It's prevented the fish from using over ninety-five percent of the stream. They're trapped now here in the lower two miles of Malibu Creek. It's a hundred ten square mile watershed and they're only using just a small fraction of it.

Suzanne Goode>> Well, this is a great spot because we're looking directly down into Malibu Canyon and you can see the water coming over the spillway of the dam.

Hena Cuevas>> Suzanne Goode is an ecologist with California State Parks. She fears there might only be about fifty steelhead left.

Suzanne Goode>> Eventually they make their way all the way back down to the lagoon again and spend a few months in the lagoon getting used to the brackish waters there before they venture out into the ocean.

Hena Cuevas>> But even that number of fish isn't enough to help the population that's currently living there?

Suzanne Goode>> It really isn't. I believe they're probably on the decline because they really aren't able to produce enough offspring because they don't have enough area in which to reproduce.

Hena Cuevas>> But getting rid of the dam hasn't been easy. Descendants of the Rindge family are fighting to preserve it even though they no longer own the property. Some like Howell argue that the dam is important because of what it did for the area.

Glen Howell>> It has a significant historical role in the development of Malibu and this unique family that owned Malibu until through the 1930's. So from that standpoint, there are those that think it should be on the National Register of Historic Places, like this house.

Hena Cuevas>> The house he's referring to is the Adamson Museum. It was the beach home built in 1930 by Frederick Rindge's daughter, Rhoda Rindge, and her husband, Merritt Adamson. The Rindge Dam provided water to the house.

Glen Howell>> And it has a little tag on it that says "Dam Water".

Hena Cuevas>> But has the family been able to make a connection that, because the house is an historical monument and is connected via the valve there, the dam should also be considered part of it?

Glen Howell>> They are certainly making a case for that.

Hena Cuevas>> And destroying the dam is not a simple proposition. It may have some unintended consequences. One of the side effects of building the dam is that it kept a lot of the sediment from the creek from making it to the ocean and, throughout the decades, it limited the size of the beaches all along Malibu. If the dam were to be removed, all of the sediment could make it back to the ocean.

The giant reservoir is about ninety percent full of silt and rock and, according to recent tests, forty percent is considered contaminated by the runoff from urban development upstream. There is also concern about the consequences of releasing all of that pent-up material.

Suzanne Goode>> One of the ways that we considered that we might remove the dam is to let the stream do the work of removing the sediment. But if the stream should happen to drop a lot of sediment adjacent to someone's home, then that could cause flooding and that's something that we cannot allow to happen.

Hena Cuevas>> It's estimated that demolishing the dam would take about five years and cost forty million dollars and, according to Edmondson, it would result in more steelhead trout.

Jim Edmondson>> Studies indicate that we can increase the population by at least one hundred fifty percent by removing this dam.

Hena Cuevas>> That sounds like a lot, but if there are only an estimated fifty trout to begin with, their numbers would increase to only one hundred twenty-five. For Howell, that's just too much money for too few fish.

Glen Howell>> Why spend all the money that it would take to tear it down? So that's one very clear issue. So I'd say that's probably, in my mind, economics. It just doesn't make sense to spend that much money.

Suzanne Goode>> Well, if it is decided that the dam should come down and that it's feasible, I don't think you can really put a price tag on that. What is it worth to have the grizzly bear, for instance? What is it worth to have the trout? It's really priceless.

Jim Edmondson>> They are on the brink of extinction. It's time for us to decide. Do we save them for our children or do we wave goodbye?

Hena Cuevas>> For Goode, this is an example of the modern dilemma. Do you preserve history or help save an endangered species?

Suzanne Goode>> Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions and perhaps sacrifice one a little bit for the sake of the other.

Glen Howell>> If this dam was to be torn down and people were to know the significance of what's being torn down, I don't think it would end there.

Jim Edmondson>> We just have different views and we're trying to work through a common solution and a compromise.

Hena Cuevas>> But in this case, finding a compromise may be harder than swimming upstream. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> Recently, the National Marine Fisheries Service held a workshop on how to restore the habitat for the steelhead trout. Environmentalists who are pressing for accommodations, they say that ninety percent of the habitat of the trout is cut off by dams.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is the thriller, "Fracture". It stars Anthony Hopkins as an engineer who's accused of murdering his wife, but he's acquitted of the charges. Nevertheless, that doesn't end the cat-and-mouse game between the Hopkins character and the District Attorney played by Ryan Gosling.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Jean Oppenheimer of Village Voice Media and, from Variety, Lael Loewenstein. Jean, what did you think of "Fracture"?

Jean Oppenheimer>> Oh, this movie gets really high marks for both creativity and execution. I mean, it starts out as a fairly standard, you know, genre picture, but then it goes off in completely unexpected directions again and again. It has a really clever plot. It's superbly crafted. The acting is wonderful and almost everything that happens derives from character.

For instance, in the case of Ryan Gosling, he's this hot-shot lawyer, very arrogant, very cocky and, because he's that way, it allows Anthony Hopkins to manipulate him and the court. The sign of any good movie to me really is having things come out of character.

Also, there's wonderful cinematography. This is a real example of how cinematography can contribute to creating a tone and a mood in a film. The cinematographer is Kramer Morgenthau and it's wonderful to look at.

Larry Mantle>> Do you agree, Lael?

Lael Loewenstein>> Yes, I do. I didn't like it quite as much as Jean, but I did enjoy this. For the most part, it's a very successful, very engrossing legal thriller. I do agree with her that what's so good about this film comes out of the character and the performances.

You have Gosling and Hopkins who are really just both at the top of their games. Gosling is so much younger, but he's just a very fine, fine, very compelling actor and he's really matching wits with Hopkins here as the bad guy.

We should mention that this is done by the director who did "Primal Fear" and it's a little bit reminiscent of that film in that you don't quite see it coming. You can keep guessing, but you don't know what the final twist is going to be.

Larry Mantle>> A couple of years ago, a British team of writers and directors put together a spoof of zombie movies called "Shaun of the Dead". Well, those creators are back with a spoof of British law enforcement. The movie is called "Hot Fuzz" and it stars Simon Pegg as a cop who's so good at his job that his jealous colleagues get him reassigned to a very small town.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Lael, what did you think of the comedy, "Hot Fuzz"?

Lael Loewenstein>> I really actually enjoyed "Hot Fuzz". This comes from the guys who, a few years ago, made a film called "Shaun of the Dead" which was an unexpectedly pretty decent size hit in the United States. It was a comic twist on the zombie films. And this is a comic twist or a riff on the cop movie with some action genre elements and some buddy movie stuff thrown in and it's really very, very funny, very engaging.

The reason it works so well, I think, is because of this British humor which comes from the juxtaposition of what you see and what you expect and the surprises that come on. There's abundant irony throughout --

Larry Mantle>> -- a drier tone?

Lael Loewenstein>> Yes, very, very dry. You know, to have these guys who are just so somber and serious being faced with all these unexpected catastrophes in this tiny little sleepy hamlet in England is really quite hilarious.

Great performance from Simon Pegg as the over-achieving cop who's paired up with Nicholas Frost as Danny Butterman. It's just nice performances all around by Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton, a cameo by Bill Nighy. It's just really fun, witty, very clever and very entertaining.

Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Jean?

Jean Oppenheimer>> I think everything Lael is saying is true, but for some reason, it just didn't work all that well for me. Reading about the story and the synopsis, it was very amusing. This happens to me a lot seeing films, particularly comedies --

Larry Mantle>> -- this is a better read film than seeing (laughter)?

Jean Oppenheimer>> (Laughter) A better read than seeing, something like that. But I really think it's a film that audiences will really embrace. I mean, it is broad. I think the one real criticism that can be made is that it's too long. It sort of drags out more than it needs to. This should have been a crisp hour and a half, and I think it goes almost two hours. But it's a film that I would probably recommend even though I myself wasn't crazy about it.

Larry Mantle>> We close out our films this week with the French farce, "The Valet". The comedy tells us the story of a very wealthy Frenchman who has a top model as his mistress, but to keep his wife from finding out, he asks a valet parking attendant to take over as the pseudo boyfriend. Comedy, of course, ensues.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> The French farce, "The Valet". What did you think, Lael?

Lael Loewenstein>> This is also a very enjoyable time at the movies. Only really could the French pull off something as light-footed as this and make it work, although I can imagine that this is going to be remade as a very clunky studio comedy.

It's all about, you know, kind of mistaken identity and opportunity that comes along and presents a valet to make a great deal of money as a stand-in boyfriend for a top super model. So it's just a crazy, crazy story. Nice performances from Kristin Scott Thomas and Daniel Auteuil. You know, just all-around enjoyable.

The director, Francis Veber, is sort of the master of French farce. He did a film a couple of years ago called "The Closet" which stars this character that comes up again and again, Francois Pignon. This time, he's this unsuspecting valet. So it's a very funny piece.

Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Jean?

Jean Oppenheimer>> I'm going to be the curmudgeon today. This is another comedy that I wasn't crazy about. I mean, it's fine. It's sort of a typical French farce. I don't tend to like farces. It's almost less offensive than some of the other ones I've seen. I think everything Lael said is true. I mean, it's a cute plot, it's an easy plot. It's easy to look at, it's easy to take. So if you really just want something light and entertaining, you know, this would be one, I guess, to go to.

But I did want to mention that there's also a French film series playing in Los Angeles this week. It's called "City of Lights, City of Angels". It's held every year. It's a lot of French films that haven't been released in the United States yet. They have some wonderful films being shown today, tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.

One of the ones that I recommend is called "Hunting and Gathering" and it stars Audrey Tautou who, of course, was in "Amelie". There are a couple of other films, a couple of noir films. You know, it's at the Directors Guild of America if you want more information.

Lael Loewenstein>> And "The Valet" made its premier there last year.

Larry Mantle>> Thanks for joining us for FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle joined by critics Lael Loewenstein of Variety and Jean Oppenheimer of Village Voice Media. Please join us again next week for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> KPCC broadcasts a longer version of FilmWeek on Fridays at eleven a.m. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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