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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThrough a melange of film footage and animation using more than 30,000 drawings and sketches, filmmakers Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman follow Manny Babbitt’s life from childhood to grave, focusing on his struggles but also on the system they believe failed him.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Courtesy of Dee Hibbert-Jones<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n He was caught, convicted and sentenced to prison but served most of his time in a mental hospital. After he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he was let out. He went to live with Bill and his family, and during that time, he broke into the home of\u00a0Leah Schendel, 78, and beat her to death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the film, Bill talks about figuring\u00a0out Manny participated in the crime and choosing to turn him in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I was so grateful for these cops, you know? They were going to make it right, somehow,” Bill Babbitt says. “I told my family it was going to be alright.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Manny was convicted and efforts to appeal the case failed, he was executed on his 50th birthday. In the year before his death, the Marine Corps awarded him his Purple Heart in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hibbert-Jones, a native of England, and Talisman, an Israeli veteran, that they have lifelong\u00a0feelings against\u00a0the death penalty, viewing it as cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Hibbert-Jones said in cases involving the mentally ill, the punishment seems even more egregious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We have been showing this film at universities, and people say, ‘This was years ago. This doesn’t happen today.’ But that’s not true. These issues have not gone away,”\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nearly 40 years after Babbitt was discharged, the Defense Department does not know how many troops have been discharged with combat-related mental health disorders, according to the Government Accountability Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a report published in 2015, the Army, Marine Corps and Navy do not accurately label the reasons for discharges ineligible for disability pay, making it impossible to know how many service members in the past decade have been kicked out for misbehavior that may be related to PTSD or other combat-related disorders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation in 2013 by The Gazette of Colorado Springs found that the Army continues to discharge troops who have combat-related mental issues for misconduct and poor behavior without examining the connection between the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report also found that Army psychologists face pressure to clear troops for discharge from superiors who want to thin the ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hibbert-Jones said she would like to win in order to shine a spotlight on the plight of veterans’ mental health and capital punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “One of our hopes for the film is it will reach audiences that might not otherwise be aware of these issues,” Hibbert-Jones said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Last Day of Freedom” is currently available on Netflix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patricia Kime covers military and veterans’ health care and medicine for Military Times. She can be reached at pkime@militarytimes.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A film that raises questions about veterans’\u00a0mental health care, capital punishment and justice for troubled troops is on the short list for an Oscar on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":46180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":25,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3267],"class_list":["post-40816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"KRLKACA3MRD27OPJEWZH2GDDWQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2016\/02\/22\/oscar-nominated-film-spotlights-death-row-veterans-combat-ptsd\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n