(There are Spoilers) One of the most hidden fact about how war effects those who participate in it on both sides of the battle-line is the basis of the film "In the Valley of Elah": Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.<br /><br />Based of the true story, shown on CBS' 48 Hours, of the late US Army Specialist Richard Davis "In the Valley of Elah" shows how those servicemen and women who are now engaged in the fighting in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, suffer more then just from being shot bombed and ambushed by the enemy El-Qeada and Iraqi insurgents. They suffer from their own demons that they were exposed to and took back home with them. Demons that in many ways lead to actions as destructive as those they faced on the Iraqi battlefield.<br /><br />Former US Army criminal investigator Sgt. Hank Deerfield, Tommy Lee Jones, is called by the MP's at the military base that his son Michael, Jonathan Tucker,is stationed at and told that if his son doesn't show up within 48 hours that he'll be declared AWOl. Hank knowing that something is wrong in that Michael being the gong-ho army man that he is would never leave his unit, here in the safe and free good old USA, this after searing 18 months in the Iraqi war-zone. Arriving at the army base Hank realizes that something isn't right with the way he's treated by Michael's fellow GI's in what exactly happened to him at the time of his disappearance.<br /><br />Checking out Michael's room, in the army barracks, Hank spots a cell-phone and , knowing that it's off-limits due to an army investigation, slips it into his pocket and takes it back to his hotel-room. Getting a friend of his electronic expert Rick Gonzalez to get the video, on the cell-phone video camera, cleaned up Hank sees the war in Iraq and Michael's, and his fellow GI's, participation in it. And what Hank sees greatly disturbs him.<br /><br />It's not long after that a badly burned decomposed and dismembered body is found just outside of the Army base. The murder victim turns out to be no other then Hank's long lost son Michael Deerfield! With both the Army M.P's and local police not quite sure under who's jurisdiction the crime scene falls under, the body was found in pieces in both that of the US military and local police zones, the vital evidence in the crime ends up being corrupted due to both sides mishandling it. It's when Hank and local Bradford police Det. Emily Sanders , Charlize Theron, re-examine the murder scene it turns out that whoever killed Michael didn't do that good of a job at it. The badly blotched murder thus eliminates a local Mexican drug gang, who would have done a much better job in covering up the crime, that was the #1 suspect in Michael's murder at the time.<br /><br />***SPOILER ALERT***Putting all the pieces together Hank as well as Det. Sanders come up with the shocking conclusion that Michael's murder was the result of something that he did earlier that evening. As all the evidence mounts in not just who murdered Michael but what the circumstances were to his grizzly death it becomes apparent that he himself was more responsible for his untimely death then those who inflicted it on him!<br /><br />War brings the best and worse out of those who fight and suffer in it and in this case it brought out the absolute worst of Michael Deerfield. Michael Deerfield was left a mental cripple when he came back from Iraq, like so many of his comrades in arms, but was not given the treatment, by the US military, that he so desperately needed. Unhinged and with what seemed like a death wish Michaels out of control actions were guaranteed to lead him ether into a mental institution or an early grave. Hank despite denying to himself the obvious, from the cell-phone video he observed, was left broken and destroyed together with his wife and Michael's mom Joan, Susan Sarandon, when the truth finally came out.<br /><br />P.S Before he was murdered Michael sent his parents a package from Iraq that had deep significance to him and those he served with there. A weathered torn and bullet ridden old American flag. Hank in tears had that memory of the war, that in effect killed his son Michael, flown at the high-school that Michael attended. Fasened to the flag poll with rolls of utility tape, so it well never be taken down, Hank had the flag flying in the universal sigh of distress: Upside Down! The distress that his and Joan's lives turned out to be after their son Michael came marching home from war!