Healing A Soldier’s Heart

Healing a Soldier’s Heart is an intimate, transformative documentary that follows four Vietnam War veterans, all suffering from severe PTSD as they return to Vietnam to confront their past actions and to seek forgiveness for their actions from their former enemies. The film becomes an immersive journey of compassion, restitution, ritual, self-forgiveness and spiritual awakening.

Each of our four protagonists carry within the invisible wounds of war—nightmares, guilt, addiction, and a sense of spiritual disconnection or “soul loss”—hallmarks of moral injury and PTSD. Under the care of Dr. Edward Tick, a trailblazing psychotherapist who has devoted his life to veteran healing, the men embark on a sacred pilgrimage to the sites where they fought, killed, and lost some of their dearest friends.

Dr. Tick appears throughout the film as a poetic beacon of compassion and empathy: “Each of these vets waited a lifetime to make a single pilgrimage back to that sacred site where the most intense moments of their life happened and where everything was rendered different, horrific, and sacred simultaneously.” His immersive, cross-cultural approach fuses psychotherapy, ritual, and face-to-face meetings with former Vietnamese soldiers, allowing the American vets to listen, express heartfelt apologies, engage in Buddhist prayer, and to offer gifts and other acts of restitution.

The film captures deeply intimate moments: a veteran breaking down on the soil where a comrade died; a Vietnamese elder offering words of grace and forgiveness; a wife holding her husband’s hand as he releases decades of stored anguish. These scenes are not staged—they are raw, vulnerable, and transformative. As Dr. Tick says: “The same suffering goes on consciously or unconsciously. But we have to make the suffering conscious in order to achieve healing.” 

Wives and partners of the vets are seen offering critical emotional support and bearing witness to their husband’s long-awaited expressions of remorse and transformation. By the film’s conclusion, viewers witness something quite rare in both cinema and mental health: men once on the brink of suicide, rediscovering meaning, peace, and a new sense of well-being and spiritual wholeness. Their profound shift from broken warriors to spiritually reawakened human beings offers important insights and healing strategies for millions of other PTSD-suffering veterans from the Vietnam war, as well as more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, Public Television will broadcast Healing a Soldier’s Heart  to premiere on Public Television stations throughout the US, on Veterans Day weekend: November 9^th at 6:00pm PT / 9:00pm ET on PBS.org.

The Public Television broadcast of the film comes at a critical time. A 50-year anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war means that for many Vietnam veterans now in the final chapters of their lives, the urgency to honor their suffering—and to share and learn from stories of reconciliation and transformation—has never been greater.

Rather than reopening old wounds, this film shows that it is possible to close them—with compassion, cross-cultural connection, and spiritual courage.

PLEASE NOTE:  We are currently raising the necessary funding to successfully promote and launch HEALING A SOLDIER’S HEART on PBS stations, Veterans Day, November 11, 2025, for American vets, their spouses and families, and the American public. NOTE: All donations are tax deductable. If you would like to help this cause, contact producer/director Stephen Olsson at: stephen@CEMproductions.org.

Duration: 56 minutes

Produced & Directed by: Stephen Olsson
Edited by: Rhonda Collins, Parisa Soultani, Kristin Tieche, Patsy Northcutt