American Veteran

America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have created a new population of veterans: service members so severely disabled they would have died in previous wars, but because of advanced tactics and technology, they survive. At 21, Sgt. Nick Mendes was paralyzed from the neck down by an IED in Afghanistan. AMERICAN VETERAN follows him through the five years after his injury - from the VA hospital bed where he learns to eat and breathe on his own again, to the fully accessible home where he now lives with his new wife, a medical caregiver he met in the hospital. Presented in an unflinching, close-up style, the film brings us into Nick’s world as he studies for a real estate license and learns to play video games and cast a fishing reel with his mouth. And we watch the surprising love story of Nick and Wendy, as they form an emotional and even sexual bond neither could have imagined. An unforgettable story of a quadriplegic soldier's harrowing, romantic, often surprisingly funny life.