THE NEVER-ENDING WAR

With a smile dripping charisma, and a pair of sparkling eyes, Rodrigo Gonzales who, in the early 2000s took over the small screen and became a children’s television sensation, has been battling visions, voices, and smells that have been with him ever since he went into combat in August 2006, during the Second Lebanon War; haunting, unyielding echoes that won’t let him get on with his life. Some call it ‘shell shock;’ others know it at PTSD – whichever name you give it, does not even begin to capture the huge, gaping wound he has been carrying deep inside for over a decade now; keeping him up at nights, and ruling his days.

For ten years, he has kept silent – not breathing a word of this to his family; his friends; his wife, even. Now, for the first time, he attempts to reopen old wounds and reshape them into memories. Going down a long, arduous path where he revisits the pain he has been holding onto for so long, Gonzales comes to realise how he is not the only one grappling with the same trauma and that the term, ‘shell-shocked,’ in fact applies to countless Israelis who have been scarred in combat over the years – whether physically or psychologically.  

“When you tell me I have severe PTSD, I have a tough time coming to terms with that. For me, calling it this black box I’ve been walking round with, rings a lot truer.” With these words, Gonzales attempts to articulate this unbearable weight to his therapist. His journey with his therapist is an open book of sorts, delving into his tortured soul and long-buried story. At the final stage, wishing to sew together all these fragments of memory, Gonzales heads into what is possibly his final battle and seeks out his Company B peers whom he had fought alongside in South Lebanon. Gonzales’ story is an unfettered, painful look at the untangling of the PTSD knot, both in and outside the therapist’s office. It explores the impact of trauma, taking on a compassionate point-of-view towards both the individual and their surroundings, along with the hope that this time; dialogue and sharing will be enough to conquer the demons of yesteryear.