Courage Under Fire

Courage Under Fire is a movie about the decision to give a medal of honor to a female soldier for the first time. Fighting in the Gulf War, Karen Walden was regarded highly by most of her fellow soldiers, but Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Serling is hesitant to reward her without investigating due to an incident back when he was in combat. He meets with & questions as many people as possible that were involved to determine if she really is worthy of the medal; however, there are many inconsistencies between the stories of her crew. The main & most important discrepancy was if & when the M16 weapon ran out of ammunition.

Serling first interviewed a group of 4 men all together who told their view of the events. Aspects of social psychology play a part in their testimony because they are all influenced by what the others say & agree with one another without much thought. They also probably want to appear as brave, tough heroes who have this glorious story to tell with heartwarming, inspiring memories of their lost captain, so their story is influenced by those social and emotional aspects of psychology. Serling also touches on perception and cognition issues when he asks them to clarify whether or not the plane purposely threw or accidentally dropped the explosive object during the rescue mission. Similarly, although they couldn't see it, the men claimed to know that the M16 was being fired when they were running away and getting on the plane to escape. The sensation (hearing), perception (recognizing the sound as a gunshot), and cognition (labeling the gunshot as an M16) were involved in making this distinction which was a crucial piece of evidence contributing to the investigation.

Serling furthered his investigation by talking to other soldiers who were on Walden's crew that day of the rescue - Rady & Illario who both praised her, and Monfriez who criticized her. With a group of people, not only is social psychology involved, but also personality. It seems as though Monfriez and Walden's personalities clashed, which resulted in him having a totally different perception of her and therefore, a different testimony.

The way that Serling initiated the interviews & asked the questions could have influenced the way the soldiers responded depending on if they personally thought she deserved the honor or not. This ties into the chapter readings from our textbook about all the ways that evidence is altered or influenced in minor ways that people might not even be aware of. Serling is especially aware though due to his experience from the evidence being collected (or covered up), so I was surprised that he didn't ask questions in more of an objective manner without them knowing the purpose behind it. He might have gotten more straight forward answers from the get go if he had done it that way. Instead, he received filtered answers with carefully selected words & information shared depending on how that witness felt or what they wanted the outcome to be.

One last thing worth noting is the effect of stress & emotion. The soldiers were obviously under a very stressful situation which goes hand in hand with the emotions they were feeling at the time as well as the emotions they experience recalling the events. While stress & emotion can enhance memory, sometimes they can effect memory recall in a negative way, so it had to be taken into consideration during the collection of eye-witness memory and then the way that it is applied to the case.

Terms:
social psychology, emotions, perception, cognition, personality, evidence collection, stress

Courage Under Fire was mostly about psychological effects with very little aspects in law which is the reverse of Bone Collector which was more about forensics with little aspects in psychology.

To start this blog off war is all about social psychology because in terms of law it is not okay to kill people, except if it is self-defense with deadly force which is only in a few of the states, but it is okay in all countries to kill someone if you are fighting in a war. Many of the military personal in the Courage Under Fire movie had similar psychological effects.

Nat Serling (Denzel Washington) was very opportunistic and outgoing at the beginning of the movie which you can put that into the category of personality psychology. Serling goes through a behavioral psychological change because he had made the order to fire on a friendly tank he thought was the enemy. After his horrible decision he had signs of PSTD (post-traumatic stress disorder) by having flashbacks of his actions either while he was asleep or in a conversation with someone also he would resort to drinking in an attempt to make himself feel better or drown out the memories. His personality was slightly different as well he went from being the opportunistic guy to being more withdrawn from others especially his family which you can see when his wife confronts him on what is going on. When interviewing the survivors of the down helicopters Serling showed considerable amounts of cognitive abilities because he remembered two different soldiers saying that an M16 ran out of ammo at different times and being able to figure out ways to find the truth.

Monfriez (Lou Diamond Phillips) and Llario (Matt Damon) felt the consequences the most for their actions since Bruno (Bronson Pinchot) was injured and unconscious the whole time while they were being attacked and Altameyer was on his death bed heavily sedated unable to be much help to Serling. Now they all had very similar memories of the crash, but they lied when Serling asked them questions about Karen Walden (Meg Ryan). Monfriez described Walden as actually being a coward when Llario described her as being the bravest woman ever being able to think clearly and rationally even in danger. When Serling was getting close to finding out what happened to Walden Monfriez had a personality change he became irrational and suicidal. Llario had already had a personality and behavioral change, which was after Walden died. when Serling got close to the truth Llario was withdrawn and resorted to drugs to deal with his pain.

Terms: social psychology, personality psychology, self-defense, behavioral psychology, PSTD, memory, and cognitive

Courage Under Fire was a very good movie that showed more psychological aspects than law. To be brief it is a movie about a Lieutenant that shot one of his own tanks and felt very guilty about it. Lieutenant Serling was also to investigate the story of Karen Waldren, the first female to get the medal of honor. He interviews plenty of her soldiers to get to the bottom of what happened that day she died in combat.

Lutientant Serling started off interviewing a group of soilders. They told their story of what happened that day. This would be a social aspect of psychology because as they talked they were all looking at each other and pause then proceed with their story. They basically influenced each other on what they said and how they said it. Finally, one commented that although they couldn't see it, they heard the M16 go off which was a big thing in the movie.

During the movie Lutientant would have flashbacks of the tank that got shot. His friend Tom Boyler was the one who was burning. I would say this would be Post Tramautic Stress Disorder. He was really stressing because he couldn't really talk about it, he had to focus on what happened to Karen Waldren.

Lutientant Serling went on investigating. This time he interviewed Karen Waldrens crew. Rady, Ilario, and Montfriez very much had different personalities. The one that seemed way out of line was Montfriez. Waldren and Montfriez seemed that they really did not get a long. As Serling went and interviewed them individually, each gave their own story. This is a cognitive psychology aspect because each of them had to think back and remember what had happened that day. Another example, was Ilario changing up is story because he just didn't want to recall what actually happened.

I feel that emotion dictated everyones behavior. The group of men where pretty happy that they were saved and their story seemed very legit. As for Waldrens crew, one was mad, one was very grateful, and one was very mad. They each said their story and behaved on how they feeling. A good example, would be Montifriez, he was a very bitter guy, but he couldn't control what he was feeling so he decided to end his life.

I believe this movie was very good demonstrating psychological aspects. It helped me be more observant of behaviors and how they play a part of a story.

This was the first time I had the opportunity to watch Courage Under Fire. Overall I thought it was a pretty good movie, and I was absolutely able to relate many concepts about psychology and law from the textbook and lecture to the film.

One thing that really stood out to me from the movie was the flashbacks that all of the people in the army seemed to have. I have learned about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) before, but seeing it in a movie made it way more real to me. The flashbacks that go along with PTSD are psychological issues, and it seemed as though many of the men were trying to drown out their problems through alcohol consumption. It was as though they were drinking to try and suppress the memories from what happened over in the Middle East. Colonel Nat Serling (Denzel Washington) was the character that these flashbacks and alcohol consumption circled around. This is because he accidentally ordered his men to fire on one of their own tanks. He did this unknowingly, but it really weighed down on him and made him feel terrible about what he had done.

Another concept that was prevalent throughout the whole movie was eyewitness memory. Colonel Nat Serling had the job of doing an inquiry on what happened to Karen Walden (Meg Ryan) to see whether or not she was deserving of receiving the Medal of Honor. He had to do some digging to put the story together, and he did this by setting up cognitive interviews with Walden’s team. He set up the context and tried to make the men feel comfortable so that they could more accurately tell him what happened the day she died.

The memory process involves three steps: encoding, storage, and retrieval. To give their eyewitness testimonies, the men on Walden’s team had to have first encoded what went on the night she died, stored that information, and then retrieved it when Serling asked them about it. The testimonies that they were providing would be used as evidence in the report that Serling had to write up about the whole incident.

The problem, though, was that all of the men on Walden’s team were telling different stories about what had happened. There were too many discrepancies for Serling to come up with a report that made sense. This could have possibly been due to what is known as retrieval inhibition, which is selectively retrieving only some aspects of a scene and therefore “inhibiting” other aspects (p.149). It could have also been possibly due to the postidentification feedback effect, which is the tendency for biased feedback to distort the memory of eyewitnesses (p.151).

In the end, though, the true story finally came out after one of Walden’s men committed suicide by driving his car into an oncoming train, which clearly shows that he had some psychological problems going on. The person who finally confessed to Serling and told the true story of what happened was Ilario (Matt Damon). When he talked about what happened, emotions were clearly at play. He was upset and confused about what had happened. He felt guilty for leaving Walden out there to die. The guilt is probably what pushed him to tell the truth, and after having told Serling everything, Ilario broke down and began to cry.

Finally, something that really struck me as odd from the movie was that the army was really trying to cover up what happened in both Colonel Serling’s situation and Captain Walden’s situation. They were willing to do whatever they could to keep it under wraps and make the army look good. This is obviously illegal, as well as immoral, and it made me feel bad that the families of the deceased army members had no idea how their children were killed. I feel like that probably happens a lot in the army and that there is a lot that we don’t hear about.

All in all, I found Courage Under Fire to be very helpful when it came to relating concepts from the textbook and lecture to the movie. I was able to make connections that I could not before, and I was able to really learn from the information that the movie provided.

Terms: post-traumatic stress disorder, flashbacks, psychological, eyewitness memory, cognitive interviews, memory, encoding, storage, retrieval, eyewitness testimonies, retrieval inhibition, postidentification feedback effect, eyewitness, emotions

Courage Under Fire was a very compelling movie that focused on memory recall of soldiers during the Gulf War. While battling through his own guilt, Nat Serling is assigned to investigate Karen Walden’s death while in combat to see if she is deserving of the Medal of Honor. Because Serling has experienced the death of fellow soldiers under a stressful situation, he is very determined to find the entire truth regarding Walden.
Serling first interviewed a group of four men that witnessed the helicopter that Walden was in. Though the interviews might not fit the description of a cognitive interview to a T, Serling does a good job at trying to ease into the questions and recreate the scene, helping to relax the witness, rather than just being extremely blatant about it. These four men were interviewed as a group as opposed to individually, and they never had an opposing story. Through encoding, storage and retrieval, the men were able to recall what they remembered on the day of the attack. I believe that the group interview had somewhat of a social influence on them, because if they were interviewed separately, odds are that some of the information may not have matched up with all four stories. The biggest piece of ‘evidence’ came from this interview, and that was that the soldiers agreed that they heard an M16 being shot during the rescue mission. Nonetheless, each soldier participated in recollection while being interviewed, as did all of the interviewees that Serling met with.
Serling also had the opportunity to meet with the soldiers that were with Walden in the helicopter. The difference in these interviews is that they were all separate unlike the group interview. As you would expect, the information from each interview differed incredibly. Two of the soldiers, Rady and Illario, were fond of Walden and commended her courage and bravery. Monfriez, however, was not so fond of Walden. Puzzled by his detest toward Walden, Serling was not as gentle with Monfriez’s interview and their personalities often clashed. Despite the attitudes toward Walden differed among the soldiers, they all agreed that the M16 ran out of ammunition sometime in the morning before they were rescued. This did not match to the group of solder witnesses, and it confused Serling. As noted in our textbook, the weapon focus effect states that witnesses of a crime (or in this case, war), tend to focus most of their attention on the weapon being used than anything else because it poses great danger. Being a part of the military, these men were very educated on the look and sounds of all weapons being used in combat. For soldiers to get something mixed up is very unlikely. After speaking to a distressed soldier, Altameyer, in the hospital, he knew something bad happened overseas. This is where I had to stop and think about what was really going on. It’s not that all of the soldiers perceived the scene differently and were recalling what they thought happened; it’s that they all were covering up the truth in a different manner. They knew what really happened the entire time, but the guilt of leaving their wounded captain behind, after she refused to leave her injured soldier overrode what they admitted to the public.
Psychology intervenes with the military a great amount, especially when it comes to researching Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is extremely evident in this movie with each of the soldiers interviewed and especially in Serling. Serling often had flashbacks of the battle he commanded that ultimately lead to the death of a very good soldier and friend of his. He feels an enormous amount of guilt on top of it all, because he was the commanding officer that made the call to fire on what he thought was an enemy tank. Rather than getting help for his PTSD, he turns to alcohol to self-medicate. In addition, it was fairly evident that his family is suffering just as much as he is, for he seems very distant from them. Other examples of PTSD would be when Serling went to speak with Altameyer. Once he was able to recall the incident, he started to shake and repeat the same phrases over again, obviously in distress. Monfriez, overworked by guilt, pulled a gun on Serling and eventually committed suicide. After his interview with Serling and bringing up memories, Illario went back to the place that he would visit frequently as a kid. It was there that Serling finally got the entire truth of what happened to Walden.
Another example of recall worth noting regards to Walden’s daughter, Anne Marie. When Serling was interviewing Walden’s parents, Anne Marie enters the kitchen and is frightened by Serling because she remembered that the soldiers that brought the news of her death were dressed as he was. This shows that children are able to recall events similar to adults, and can recall the feelings that they had during certain situations. Another notable issue related to psychology is the gender issue. It was noted throughout the movie that Walden was the first woman to be awarded the Medal of Honor, and that everyone was pulling for her to win it. If it had been a man, would such an in-depth investigation been made in regards to if he was worthy of the award or not?
The text brought up a great point that physical and psychological evidence need a balance with each other in order for a rightful conviction. Both types of evidence can be distorted and looked over. In cases such as this one in the film, there is no physical evidence; it’s all hearsay from the soldiers that witnessed it. Though Serling was not trying to solve a crime, he was trying to find if Walton was worthy of the medal or not. In my eyes, it is the same concept as crime investigators digging down to find if the suspect is guilty or not.
Terms: memory recall, stress, witness, encoding, storage, retrieval, cognitive interview, social, weapon focus effect, personality, physical/psychological evidence, PTSD, suicide, guilt, gender.

I really enjoyed watching the movie Courage Under Fire. The movie did not have much to do with the law aspects of eyewitness accounts, but rather the psychological aspects of why people’s memories sometimes fail them.
In the movie, Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Serling (played by Denzel Washington), is given an assignment to decide whether or not Army Captain Karen Emma Walden (played by Meg Ryan) is deserving of the Medal of Honor. As he goes on this hunt to find the truth, many people are questioned and their stories do not always add up. This is where psychology and eyewitness memory comes into play. Serling goes around interviewing the other men part of Walden’s team and he actually does a pretty good job of using cognitive interview. Serling is very calm when he is interviewing the other people and does not try to persuade them in any way. Instead he just asks them to describe what happened with a lot of detail. He lets them reflect on what happened and just listens instead of interjecting. This way, the stories should have been recalled as remembered without outlying influences.
The first group of men that Serling interviewed did a good job of demonstrating sensation psychology and perception psychology. They remembered specific instances of the scene including sights and sounds. They first noticed these stimuli, showing sensation, and then labeled them, showing perception. The men clearly remember hearing an M16 firing during the rescue mission. This starts a giant question throughout the movie because other men recall the M16 running out of ammo in the morning. Serling begins to question some of the men’s stories because of this detail.
Even though Serling did a good job of not influencing the details and facts of what the other soldiers remembered, the stories still came out wrong. This is because the soldiers lied about what happened. Everyone is worried about looking bad so they all changed the story so they did not look like the bad guy. Whether this is by choice or someone’s memory trace, how they remember the experience, actual does get screwed up, is never certain. In the movie though, it seems as the soldiers lied to cover their own butts.
This sometimes happens in the court of law too. People never like looking as if they made a mistake. People like to be perceived as perfect and very confident in what they believe they saw. In the movie, one of the soldiers told a completely different story about what happened on the battlefield with Captain Walden. He states that he was in fact making the calls and Walden was a coward. But because he sounded so confident, it was easy to believe him. A different soldier told his story but was unsure of a few details, like the M16 firing. This made his story harder to believe because he did not have a lot of witness confidence. In the end, we find out that both of these men, along with others, were just trying to cover up the story of what really happened to save themselves from looking like jerks.
I thought this movie was intriguing to watch although it was a little harder to relate to Chapter 7 in the book because the book focuses more on the law aspect of eyewitness accounts while the movie is more about the psychological aspects of it. Overall though, it was a really interesting movie.
Terms: eyewitness accounts, cognitive interview, sensation psychology, perception psychology, memory trace, perception, witness confidence

I had never seen Courage Under Fire before and, to my surprise, I actually really enjoyed the movie. I like the fact that the movie depicted a woman in a position of power who was receiving recognition for her work and I also the fact that it showed, not only the physical, but the psychological effects of war. Courage Under Fire related well with chapter 7 and highlighted the complications that arise from dealing with eyewitnesses.

In the beginning scenes of the movie, Nat Serling shows signs of having PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). After shooting a friendly tank which held his best friend, Serling begins to have flashbacks to that night which were affecting both his job and his personal life. This is shown in the scene where Serling is having dinner with his family but has to get up and leave because his flashbacks were becoming so severe that he could not focus. Serling’s PTSD eventually leads to his heavy consumption of alcohol which he used to cushion his pain from his flashbacks. In an attempt to rectify his pain, Serling attempts to write Boylar’s parents about what actually happened the night their son died. I believe that adding this as part of the movie was a good idea because it shows that not only can war kill and harm people physically but it has a major impact on a person’s psyche as well.

Once Nat Serling begins investigating whether or not Captain Walden deserved the Medal of Honor, he had the responsibility of interviewing the crew of the original plane that went down and the crew of Captain Walden’s. All of the interviews that Serling had to conduct dealt with the encoding, storage and retrieval of memories from the different crew members. Each crew member had to gather the information around them (encode), and then stored that information. When interviewed, each man had to retrieve the memories they had made that day of the crash.

In his first set of investigations with the Blackhawk crew, social psychology is at play. Serling interviews the crew as a whole so throughout the interview the crew members were playing off one another rather than individually coming up with their own thoughts. This would be a case of mob mentality, where the group is thinking as a whole rather than separate parts. Also, during Serling’s interview with the Blackhawk crew, the men demonstrate sensation, perception and cognition. The crew members had to rely on their senses to determine what was occurring below them to the medivac crew. The men used their previous experiences in war to determine that gun shots were being fired and in particular that a M16 was being used.

In the later scenes, Serling interviews the members of Captain Walden’s crew, Ilario, Altameyer and Monfriez to determine what had happened the night that Captain Walden had died. The three interviews, however, did not seem to match up. There were inconsistencies about when the M16 was used, when it ran out of ammo and the reaction of Walden to crashing and being stranded. Ilario praised Walden and her efforts to protect her crew whereas Monfriez said that Walden was a coward and was useless in their pursuit of staying alive. My first thought of these inconsistencies was that these two men perceived the situation much differently. It was obvious to me that Monfriez viewed himself in a more favorable light then he did Walden. It appeared that there was a clash of two dominant personalities. I also was attributing the inconsistencies of the three crew members with the idea that maybe they did not remember every single detail due to the stress of being stranded and surrounded by opposing troops in the middle of the desert. This would be an example of an estimator variable, which Serling could do nothing about; the amount of stress that the members were put under was an uncontrollable variable. The idea of stress affecting the crew members was further supported when Monfriez ended up killing himself to escape whatever had really happened and when Ilario disappears to escape being questioned even further. However, after finding out that Monfriez was the one who killed Walden, it changed my perception of what was occurring in the movie and the crew member’s reactions. I soon realized that Monfriez’s recollections of the crash was influenced by his fear of being caught, Ilario’s interview was impacted by not wanting to get involved and not wanting to remember what had happened. These would be examples of cognitive dissonance. Ilario had already said that Walden had died as a causality of cross fire, so instead of claiming that he did lie, he ran away to escape having to justify his course of action. Monfriez had also told Serling that Walden had died in cross fire and instead of admitting that he had lied, he killed himself to escape the conflictions between confessing and not confessing.

This movie did a good job of depicting the emotional and psychological strains that war can have on a person, and how it can change a person’s life dramatically. It also showed that a situation, depending on the motives of the person, can be portrayed in different ways by the eyewitnesses.

Terms: eyewitness, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), psyche, encoding, storage, retrieval, memory, social psychology, mob mentality, sensation, perception, cognition, stress, estimator variable, cognitive dissonance

This movie involves eye witness testimony almost exclusively in a trial about a military action. I thought that this movie focused a little bit more on the psychology part of psychology and law but still had slight references of how both psychology and law work together in the legal system.
The first thing that I saw was that Serling was definitely suffering from some psychological depression as well as most likely PTSD during the movie after his crash. He became very detached from many people in his life and he didn’t seem to enjoy the things that he normally did before his incident happened. He was distant in his relationships with people and he didn’t seem to care where his life was going. Anyone could imagine the kind of pain he was going through and that shooting at a friendly tank and being responsible for the deaths of some of his friends would leave a scar on anyone. He felt imence guilt for what he did although he had no way of knowing and thought that he was doing the right thing.
The next psychology and law related concept in the movie involved all of the eyewitness testimony that was one of the only main factors deciding this case. This movie is an amazing example on how eye witness testimony can be very misleading and that people do lie in front of the law. It was brought up in the movie when Serling was questioning Rady & Illario , and Monfriez. Rady and Illario thought that Walden did an outstanding job at the helicopter scene and believed that she should get the medal of honor because she did everything right. This process involved the retrieval of information from both of their memories. They had to relive this experience so they could tell it back to Serling.
Monfriez on the other hand turned the story completely around and didn’t like Walden’s behavior at all. His nonverbal communication was very sketchy in that he seemed like he was not telling the whole truth and that he may have something else that he didn’t want to add. For the most part he shed Walden in a very negative light and obviously didn’t want her to receive the medal of honor.
This discrepancy in testimonies is something that makes you question the validity of eyewitness testimony at all. I mean all three of these witnesses cannot be right because one is telling a completely different story from the others. So you get into a position of who do you believe. This can only come from some sort of bias such as showing favortism to one testimony over the other. Since this case was primarily based on eyewitness testimony (meaning that they had no other evidence that was clear) it’s very possible for bias to come into play.
Eventually Monfriez was caught on lying as was determined by his different nonverbal cues and his behavior. This lead to him committing suicide before he could really tell the whole side of the story from his point of view.
This movie is a good example of how eye witness testimony should be questioned by jurors and how easily it can be flipped around and made into something else.

Terms: Psychology and law, depression, PTSD, eyewitness testimony, retrival, nonverbal communication, testimonies, bias

Courage Under Fire is a movie about the recollection of events from the eyes of veterans. The main premise of this movie is whether Congress should present fallen solider, Karen Walden with a Medal of Honor or not. Nat, a Lt. Solider is sent to investigate her story by interviewing soldiers who were with her and under her command at the time of her death.
Nat also has a past of serving in Desert Storm and faced tragedy during his time of deployment. Because of those events, he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, by having flashbacks and dreams of the event that are clearly disturbing to him and interrupting his work and family life. Due to this, he turns to alcohol as a coping method to his psychological trauma.
As he is given his orders to investigate whether or not Walden deserves the Medal of Honor or not, he interviews the soldiers who were with Walden at the time of their plane crash, having them recall sights, sounds, and feelings of the event. In psychological terms, he is asking for their sensations, perceptions, and then to make sense of it all cognitively.
His interviews are an example of eyewitness testimony. The soldiers interviewed go through what anyone who is being interviewed for a testimony go through, asking for their scripts- the encoding of the information at the time of the event, the storage of the information at the time of the event, and then the retrieval of the information (accurate or not). However, as read in chapter 7, memory trace deteriorates over time, making it difficult to find accurate accounts of the event at hand. Nat struggles with finding an matching story from each solider, as they all have their own personal accounts of what happened. Their opinions, backgrounds, and own personal biases can effect how they interpreted the event and encoded and recalled the happenings of the event. I personally think that the feelings and personal bias a person has towards something or someone could change the recollections and make someone remember the bad things over the good things or vice versa. The stress a person is under can also have affect on their memory encoding, storage, and recollection. These are reasons why Nat doesn't receive the same story from everyone, making it hard to collect accurate data and make a recommendation if Karen should be awarded the medal or not.
Nat does a good job of holding a cognitive interview by reducing the witnesses anxieties and creating a rapport, asking them to recall their events, asking questions to probe more thoughts, and then he makes sense of it himself.
This was a very good movie and a great example of eye witness testimony and how stress can affect a person's well being and retrieval of information.

The movie Courage Under Fire was thrilling, mysterious, and heart-breaking. Watching the movie provided me with a broader prospective of eyewitness testimonies and how important it is to pay attention to details. The movie also highlighted the importance of finding and expressing the truth.

Within the movie are several eyewitness interviews. With each interview Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Serling (in charge of the investigation) tape records each interview as evidence that may be referred to later. Our book discusses recording as beneficial evidence that may be used in court.

With each interview Lt. Col. Serling notices inconsistences of specific details. For instance, the time in which the M16 was used was inconsistent. The various testimonies of the time the M16 used could be due to the soldiers’ trace memory. According to our book, trace memory is the biochemical representation of our experience in the brain- appears to deteriorate over time. With this deterioration, the soldiers’ memories were more vulnerable to revision and corruption. Another account was the way the story played out. Two of the comrades praised Captain Walden’s leadership and confirmed that the idea of destroying the tank was hers. On the other hand, another comrade described Captain Walden as a coward and that destroying the tank was his idea.

With farther investigation, Lt. Col. Serling discovers the truth behind the death of Captain Walden and what happened that night within the Gulf war. Captain Walden had acted bravely and gave orders to stay with the wounded comrade. With enemy soldiers approaching, a mutiny was occurring to abandon Captain Walden and their wounded comrade. Suddenly confusion occurred in which Captain Walden became a victim by being shot by perpetrator Staff Sergeant Monfriez. The Captain obtained his gun while they awaited reinforcements. Reinforcements appeared in the morning to quickly pick up the soldiers. Captain Walden however, was left behind by her comrades and was killed.

Staff Sergeant Monfriez was experiencing cognitive dissonance when he first told his side of the story to Lt. Col. Serling. Cognitive dissonance predicts that once you commit yourself to a particular course of action, you will become motivated to justify that course of action. Monfriez made a mistake in shooting Captain Walden, therefore he was inclined to protect himself from prosecution. In doing so he left her behind and made up a story that justifies his actions (she was a coward, not a good captain).

A script is a term that may also be applied to this movie. Scripts are widely held beliefs about sequence of actions that typically occur in particular situations. In this context, the soldiers gave interviews that they inferred the investigators wanted to hear. Staff Sergeant Monfriez even admits to giving a scripted interview in which he told the interviewers that Captain Walden was brave even if he didn’t think so. The soldiers also failed to admit the mutiny incident and the murder of their Captain. They instead came up with a death that was considered acceptable in a time of war.

Overall this movie hits home because my dad was a Major in the U.S. army and was killed in action in the War on Iraq. The plot of this movie was an investigation to discover the truth of a person’s death, even if it is not considered acceptable by society. I know if something similar had occurred in my father’s death, I would want to know and deserve to know the truth. That is why paying attention to detail, learning about eyewitness testimonies, and other psychological crime terminology is important; to educate individuals to discover the truth and to seek justice.

Terms: Scripts, cognitive dissonance, tape recording, victim, perpetrator, eyewitness, memory trace

Courage Under Fire is a film that plays every once in a while on channels like AMC, but before now I had never had a chance to watch it all the way through. Consequently, I had no idea that the film would be such a detail heavy examination of eyewitness testimony. The entire movie focuses around eyewitness testimony because in the investigation of Walden's candidacy for the medal of honor, Serling had only the verbal accounts and written testimony of the involved troops as evidence. There are quite a few psychological aspects at play in this movie because of the nature of the investigation.

It seemed to me that the portrayal of eyewitness testimony that this film presents is a pretty accurate one. All of the stories that were given by the individual soldiers were largely the same, but the minute differentiation in the details of the stories were what unraveled the the coverup of Walden's death. The fact that their recollections corresponded with film scenes of the same event allowed for a striking visual example of how eyewitness testimonies can differ.

PTSD also played an important role in the movie as all the soldiers who are subject to the investigation, as well as Serling himself, are all reeling from their combat experiences. It is actually Serling's own traumatic friendly-fire experience that fuels his drinking and also his detail oriented investigation of Walden's death ( he was under heavy pressure to simply wrap up the investigation and have the medal awarded).

Perception was also a very important piece of the film. In Serling's first interview with the group of soldiers, he made a note of the importance of the M-16 fire in the morning, as it is what helped to save that squadron. In his later interviews, he noticed that the accounts varied around that specific detail, no one seemed to know for sure when it stopped firing despite the fact that they were all there. Serling's perception of the soldier's reactions to the question of the M-16 fire is what allowed the truth to be uncovered. I thought that this was a very good example of detail in eyewitness testimony in that the apparently small details can be the most valuable to a case.

In the case of Monfriez, there seemed to be quite a bit of cognitive dissonance in play. Most notably, he said that he is "a good soldier" when that was entirely untrue. His recollection of the story was also the farthest removed from any of the others. He attributed the entirety of their desperate situation to the cowardice of Walden, when in fact he was the coward. He gave himself away in this overcompensation and displacement to outside factors in an attempt to cover up the story. There are quite a few instances of this that were revealed between his story, and that of Illario. As it turns out, Monfriez tried to retreat (abandoning a wounded soldier) and also mutiny against Walden. He also put a round in her stomach when he thought she was going to fire on him. when they headed to the chopper when walden was covering them, Monfriez told the pilot that she had died which greenlighted the napalm strike. He intimidated Illario into keeping his mouth shut, which in turn skewed Illario's story.

Terms: eyewitness testimony, PTSD, perception, cognitive dissonance

Courage Under Fire provided us with a great chance to look at the discrepancies between witnesses when it come to remembering events that take place in a stressful scenario. The scenario in question throughout the movie has to do with a couple of downed US helicopters and if Captain Karen Walden should receive the Medal of Honor.

During the course of the MoH investigation the main character, Colonel Serling, experiences many flashbacks from his experiences of warfare and displays many signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). After accidentally firing up and killing some of his own men Serling began to have many dreams and visions of the event. This led him to turn to alcohol as a type of sedative in order to cope with the guilt and pain. It also resulted in Serling alienating himself from his family, to the point where he would hide down the block to watch them play in the yard as opposed to being out there with them.

Throughout the movie Serling is interviewing men of the two helicopter units in order to clarify some of the details surrounding the events of their crash and rescue. The major issue at hand is the use of an M-16 in a firefight. When speaking with the first helicopter crew one member claims to have heard an M-16 throughout the firefight then slowly gains more confidence in believing that. The other men in the group soon agree with it. This can be an example of cognitive dissonance because one of the men had committed himself to a statement then proceeds to find ways of backing it up by making more definitive claims about what he heard. His statement could have also influenced the memory of the other men.

When talking with the men in Captain Walden’s helicopter the memories they recalled differed not only from the other helicopter group but also from the memories of the men within their helicopter. Sgt Monefriez recalls the weapon in question running out of ammunition right away and not firing during the night where as the medic Ilario remembers the weapon having ammo into the morning. The discrepancy between the two show how having a stressful environment can drastically affect the encoding and storage process of memory. With so many points of focus and so many stimuli the brain may not be able to accurately recall details that did not seem important at the time.

Both men do however try to hide the actual events of what occurred that evening in order to protect the deceased Captains chance at receiving the MoH. To preserve the image of Captain Walden and themselves the two men initially held to the scripts of the Medal of Honor process. The two men merely said what the interviewers wanted to hear in order to aid the process. It wasn’t until Ilario underwent a cognitive interview with Colonel Serling that the truth came out.

A couple of the major areas of psychology in play throughout the movie were sensation and perception along with social psychology. Sensation and perception directly relate to the memory encoding and storage process. The actions of the night of the helicopter crash along with the use of the M-16 are the stimuli that were present and required specific labeling. The sound of the M-16 had to be labeled as such and needed to be differentiated from the environment; this is a great example of perception. A display of social psychology is how the men in Walden’s helicopter banded together to hide the truth of what happened. They would have rallied behind Monefriez out of fear because he was the most commanding one in the group and could manipulate the others.

Terms: PTSD, cognitive dissonance, encoding, storage, scripts, cognitive interview, sensation, perception, social psychology

Courage Under Fire portrayed both legal, and psychological aspects. The film is based on an Army captain, who is struggling to come to terms with the situation that he dealt with. The main character, Nat, was in the Middle East and made a call as a captain that got one of his own men, Officer Boylar, killed. The Army was aware of this, but the matter was brushed under the rug, and Captain Nat was sent to work in a military office. Here, he reviewed various military cases, one in particular being about another Capt. named Walden. Nat is to decide whether Walden should receive a Medal of Honor after she was killed in combat.

For the duration of the movie, Nat fights guilt, PTSD, and depression about his own case. He is quiet and reserved and displays anti-social behavior when it comes to his family and friends. His wife is worried and we later find out that Nat is a recovering alcoholic, which is the method he used to deal with his psychological effects from the war. Nat feels that issue was not served justly, but is unsure of how to fix the issue, due to his boss telling him the issue is a closed matter.

In Walden's case, the unit was going to rescue another downed helicopter, and were shot down themselves. While going down, one of their unit members, Rady, was severely injured.This event provides much tension and stress in the group, causing a break down in their social psychological acts. The tension among the platoon displays non verbal behavior that can be very destructive in a combat situation.

Rady attempts to survive at the mercy of his crew mates, but his condition continues to deteriorate. Once nightfall hits, Monfriez wants the platoon to consider leaving Rady behind (another serious crime in the Army), and move positions in order to evade the enemy. Walden states that no such thing will be done, and Monfriez suggests leaving his platoon on his own. When an officer leaves their crew in the Army, this is called mutiny. Walden tells Monfriez this and the scene turns violent, as she points a gun at him, informing him that mutiny is punishable by death. Things take a turn for the worst in this moment and the enemy stages a surprise attack on the group. Walden shoots the first surprise attacker, and Monfriez, thinking Walden was shooting him, shoots Walden in the stomach. Walden is critically injured but manages to make it through the night.

The next day is shown with Walden's crew in heavy combat, with the enemy closing in. A very weak Walden struggles to defend herself, and the platoon is split up, leaving Walden behind. Walden is killed and Monfriez and Illario are rescued.

The film displays a strong emphasis on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Nat battles PTSD throughout the entire film. As he works on Walden's case, he finds that the stories are not matching up with the situation. Each story tells the case a little bit differently, and Nat begins to suspect something is not right.

Cognitive psychology is a main theme among the characters, requiring them to tell witness testimonies, recalling the events from the event in their tour of duty that lead them home. As each soldier provides a testimony, Nat begins to notice an inconsistency among their stories, and begins to investigate deeper into the case. Each character exhibits distressed behavior about being questioned and provide very vague answers, confirming all of Nat's doubts about the missing pieces in the investigation. Both Illario and Monfriez seem to find is difficult when going through a memory trace, either due to psychological disorders from the event, or because they want to cover something up. Nat makes it his top priority to make sure this case is throughly examined, and nothing is left out.

Monfriez is most resistive when being questioned, amplifying Nat's suspicion even more. Monfriez gives an array of ill-tempered behavior, and gets defensive. At one point, Monfriez even threatens Capt. Nat, out of fear and frustration. He seems to be struggling with the situation, and does not let Nat know that he shot his Captain, leading the investigation to Illario.

Illario can relate to the psychological issues that Nat is facing. Many times during the film, Illario is seen suffering from PTSD as well, and also struggles to provide an accurate testimony. His eyewitness testimony is muddled and Nat sees right through all of it. He carefully examines the Illario as a witness, and tries to tap his memory as far as he can. Suffering from PTSD however, Illario leaves out important parts, like Monfriez, and continues to hinder the investigation.

Towards the end of the film, Nat begins to realize that Monfriez is an important part of Nat goes to question him a second time, intent on bringing the truth to justice. As the questioning continues, Monfriez loses his control of himself. He orders Nat at gun point to get out of the car. He then puts his vehicle on train tracks, and drives it into an oncoming train, committing suicide in front of Nat. This behavior conveys a clear psychological breakdown in Monfriez who seemed to be suffering from PTSD or could have been suffering from severe depression and guilt.

After Monfriez's suicide, Illario comes clean about the illegal acts of Monfriez and gives Captain Nat a truthful eyewitness testimony. Nat has the all the information he needs and reports it to his boss. It is determined that Monfriez committed illegal acts during the last two days of his tour. This realization becomes irrelevant however, due to Monfriez's suicide. Walden's daughter receives the Medal of Honor for her during a ceremony which Nat attends.

At the end of the film, Nat uncovers the truth to Officer Boylar's family and apologized. He informs them that Boylar was not killed by enemy fire, but was killed by one of his own men, accidentally. Nat apologizes.

This act seems to relieve some of the stress and guilt that Nat carried throughout the film. Nat's PTSD thrived on the fact that he was carrying a tremendous amount of guilt and depression. All of the mental things that Nat was dealing were connected. The event led to the guilt and the depression, and also the PTSD. In turn, Nat briefly turned to alcohol to relieve this symptoms, but with the help of his wife, evaded a relapse into the behavior.

Overall this movie was an excellent example of how psychological conditions can effect the perception, memory and cognitive dissonance of an eyewitness testimony. The legal parts of this movie were very interesting and showed that the Army has cases that are not so honorable. The Psychology behind each character was unique and interesting, creating realistic people, and a believable story. We also learned that PTSD can take a serious tole on the life after battle for a soldier. A great film with a great message, with all aspects of Psychology and Law included.

Terms: perception, cognitive psychology, social psychology, mutiny, guilt, depression, PTSD, cognitive dissonance, eyewitness testimony, investigation, memory, memory trace, stress, agression, resistance, witness, suspect

Courage Under Fire provides several examples of eyewitness testimony. And, most importantly, shows how eyewitness accounts can be unreliable and highly subjective. In general, Walden is a victim of sexual bias and stereotypes (such as crying, weakness, “a butch,” etc.) throughout the film.
Throughout the movie, Colonel Serling tries to ascertain how Captain Walden acted during the war. Because no physical evidence is available, Serling must solely rely on the eyewitness accounts of soldiers. And, unfortunately, these accounts do not match. In order to properly collect this data, Colonel Serling records the conversations he has with the soldiers.
In the initial meeting where all of the soldiers are in one room, their stories clearly match. This certainly adds an element of social psychology to the film and shows why interviewers should question witnesses separately. If questioned separately, the interviewer is more likely to preserve the quality of the testimony. When questioned together, witnesses tend to be influenced by the memories of the others; the result is group bias.
When the character played by Damon (Illario) is initially interviewed, viewers can clearly that he is exhibiting several nervous tics. Throughout the interview, Illario drums his fingers on the table, shakes, and resorts to smoking. These actions could be physical manifestations of a psychological disorder such as PTSD, a reaction to stress, drugs, or some combination of these variables. Illario clearly looks stressed throughout the scene and cannot remember what his initial answer was to Serling’s question about the M16 ammunition. This supposed memory loss could be from PTSD or merely show that Illario was lying and cannot remember his story. Either way, this falls under the category of cognitive psychology. Additionally, one can tell that Illario cared for Walden on a personal level. His feelings for Walden create a personal bias and can lead to false testimony in order to protect her.
When Serling interviews Monfriez, Monfriez quickly becomes a hostile witness. In Monfriez’s case, this hostility may be a product of trauma from the war. Monfriez changes his story frequently and definitely has a personal issue with Walden. In the end, the stress and fear Monfriez undergoes causes him to commit suicide. Like Illario, he does not want to speak about what happened.
When Serling interviews Rady, Rady’s testimony is extremely unreliable because of the large quantity of drugs he is taking. Additionally, perhaps out of self-defense, Rady increases his doses and fades out when Serling is questioning him. In the court of law, Rady’s testimony may either be thrown out or considered an excited utterance.
Serling’s mental state may also negatively affect the quality of the eyewitness testimony. Serling, who suffers from PTSD and has become an alcoholic, desperately needs to get on the good side of the Military so that he is not stripped of his medals. Additionally, he is under significant pressure to lie about what happened when he was in battle. The pressure he is under and the guilt he feels may color the accurateness of the report he is forming.
Terms: Eyewitness testimony, social psychology, nervous tics, PTSD, cognitive psychology, memory loss, personal bias, false testimony, lying, trauma, excited utterance, self-defense, alcoholic, sexual bias, stereotypes

Courage Under Fire was a perfect example of eyewitness testimonies and how they can be unreliable. It also showed how they need to really investigate cases so they can better know the whole truth, like what Serling did throughout the movie.
At the start of the movie Serling was asked to investigate whether or not Captain Walden was worthy of the medal of honor. He started by investigating the whole crew of what they remembered of the incident. He first questions them while they are all together, all putting different pieces of the puzzle together to explain to Serling what happened. The first thing Serling finds suspicious is whether or not the m16 weapon ran out of ammo or not. From there he investigated more, pulling the real story out of the crew while they are alone.

Sensation/Perception: This aspect of psychology could be applied throughout the entire movie. One particular scene that comes into mind is the one where Illario is explaining what happened when Serling is investigating. He explains that Walden had her gun pointed at him, ready to shoot, when someone started attacking them. At that point Walden shoots at the attacker which is right behind Illario and in turn Illario shoots Walden. He detected that Walden had a gun in her hand and heard a loud noise. When he labeled that noise as a gun shot, he though Walden had shot at him, when in reality she was shooting at the guy directly behind him.
Social: Social psychology could be detected throughout the movie as well, but a certain scene would be near the beginning of the movie when Serling is questioning the group of men about what happened with Walden. They all stated different aspects to what happeded, reinforcing each other and influencing what the others would say as they went. In particular, when they mention the m16 weapon they all agree with what they other has said.
Personality: I liked how they portrayed Serling's personality. They made him stand out from the rest of the investigators in the fact that he would not turn in his report until he knew the whole story. He did not let them influence him into turning it in so they could release it to the press, he stuck to his guns and continued to investigate everyone until he had the whole story to hand in.

Terms: eyewitness testimonies, personality, social psychology, sensation, perception