On the morning after America watched as her son struggled for his life and ultimately died in a hospital in Baghdad, Paula Zwillinger is standing in front of the club house at a golf course in Poughkeepsie, New York, enjoying the nice weather -- cool, but sunny. The weather, she says, is the most important factor in a golf tournament. It's a surprising sentence on this morning. Although Paula Zwillinger doesn't play golf, she's here to attend her first golf tournament to support American troops in Iraq. Zwillinger wears a blue fleece sweater emblazoned with the words "Semper Fi Parents," an organization she founded. "Semper Fi" is the motto of the United States Marines. Her son, Robert Mininger, was a marine. She also wears two badges on her sweater, one depicting a circle and the words "Marine Mom," and the other a small rectangle and a gold star, the emblem of a parent who has lost a child in the war. She also wears a black bracelet with her son's name, date of birth and date of death. The bracelets are available on the Internet at www.herobracelets.org .

The first participants in the golf tournament begin signing in at folding tables in front of the clubhouse, while a group of four somewhat unsteady US war veterans, led by former Marine Luis Fusaro, approaches from the parking lot. Fusaro, 65, the youngest in the group, took part in the Bay of Pigs invasion. He's the head of the local veteran center where the parents of soldiers hold their monthly meetings. The four veterans are carrying M1 rifles with heavy wooden handles, the kind of weapon that was used in World War II. They'll be using the guns to fire a military salute, nine salvos, to mark the beginning of the tournament at noon. Although it'll be the first time shots have ever been fired at the Casperkill Golf Club's beautiful 18-hole course in Poughkeepsie, the local police issued a permit for the four-gun salute without hesitation. Following the death of her son in Iraq, Paula hasn't had any trouble getting her requests approved. Indeed, turning her down has been an all but impossible proposition since last night.

On the Sunday before last, at 8 p.m., US broadcaster HBO aired a one-hour documentary titled "Baghdad ER." After spending about two months in an American military hospital in Baghdad, a camera team returned to the US with gruesome, brutal footage. The film begins by showing a nurse carrying a bloody arm across a hospital corridor, an army chaplain blessing body bags, an officer placing a "Purple Heart" onto the bare chest of a shocked, injured soldier and an Iraqi having his leg amputated. For several minutes at the end, the film shows Lance Corporal Robert Mininger -- Paul Zwillinger's son -- dying. A team of doctors tries to save his life, a chaplain prays at his bedside, the familiar sound of medical monitoring devices signaling the end of a life is heard in the background, and at one point the doctor in charge says: "That's it. The time is exactly 11:56 a.m. Friends, we did our best."

Robert Mininger's body is covered and the film ends.

According to HBO, the army gave its team full access to the hospital, and the film is dedicated to the US military's medical personnel. It's an American film with American personnel that just happens to portray events taking place in Baghdad. It makes no attempt to understand the foreign world outside the hospital's doors. The doctors play basketball in their free time and smoke Cuban cigars on the hospital roof. Though initially thrilled about the project, the Pentagon quickly lost its enthusiasm when officials saw the first of its gruesome images. After that, the Pentagon sent letters to the families of military personnel, warning them about the film. Instead of the 300 high-ranking military officials originally scheduled to appear at the film's gala premier in Washington, only 50 soldiers showed up.

Sunday evening is cable channel HBO's best night, the night HBO has traditionally aired the latest episodes of its successful series, "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under" and "Sex and the City." Showing a bloody film like "Baghdad ER" on Sunday evening is a statement. But what for?

A mother's painful odyssey

HBO apparently isn't quite sure of the answer itself. The channel donated $2,500 to Paula Zwillinger's golf tournament, making it the event's biggest sponsor, and yet the sign showing the company's name is tiny and it's set up on a secondary course where a putting contest is being held. The winner gets a gift basket. Not a single HBO representative showed up for Paula's golf tournament, whose program guide depicts the insignias of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Even Methodist Pastor James Moore, here to bless the tournament, doesn't seem quite sure about the exact reason he is here. He prays "for the soldiers who went into the horrible war, willingly or with hesitation and with insufficient conviction," and he prays "that the leaders of this country will have the wisdom to lead us out of this war."

No one is really listening to Pastor Moore, least of all Zwillinger, who is far too excited. Now she has to focus on her role.

Zwilling comes from a non-military family, and when her son went off to war in Iraq in January 2005, she placed an ad in her local paper asking other mothers of soldiers to get in touch with her. A few women responded, and the new group began meeting once a month at Luis Fusaro's veterans' center to talk about what to send their boys and whom to contact when they hadn't heard from their sons in a long while. Robert Mininger was scheduled to return home from Iraq in July 2005. Paula Zwillinger had already booked the local fire department's event room and hired a catering company and DJ for her son's welcome home party. Robert died on June 6. Two Marines came to Paula's house with the bad news on June 7, and the body was brought home on June 10. His memorial service was held in Poughkeepsie on June 13, followed by another service in Pennsylvania, where Robert's father lives. The memorial services were followed by an official military funeral at Arlington Cemetery outside Washington, DC. Zwillinger had her son buried there because she believes that's the way he would have wanted it. All she knew was how and when her son had died. She had no concept of what it was like in Iraq. In her mind, it was nothing but a hot, sandy place.

Saying goodbye

In the fall, an HBO producer called and told Zwillinger that HBO's camera team had witnessed her son's death. The filmmakers, Matthew O'Neill and Lee Grant, traveled to Poughkeepsie. "They felt my pain," says Zwillinger, who went to New York City a short time later to review the footage at HBO's headquarters on Sixth Avenue. It's difficult to imagine how the images may have affected her, the images of doctors, machines, the chaplain, her helpless son, of everything happening so far away.

She says that the experience brought her peace and that it enabled her to say goodbye, to sit at her son's deathbed.

But her words sound like an excuse, like words she assumes she is expected to say. Zwillinger has become something of a VIP in recent weeks. At the premier in Washington, she met actor James Gandolfini, who stars in "The Sopranos," and at HBO's Manhattan headquarters she met Sheila Nevins, president of the company's Documentary and Family Programming division, with whom she is now on a first-name basis.

"We cried together," Zwillinger recalls.

She leads the four veterans to the green at the 18th hole, where the four-gun salute will be fired. She supports the oldest of the veterans, Ken Mulchay, from behind so that he doesn't fall over when they present their guns and flags. It's a bit windy, and Mulchay looks as pale and transparent as an old leaf. He's 84 and the most highly decorated World War II veteran still alive in the state of New York. An hour later, as about 50 golf carts hum across the Casperkill Golf Club's manicured grounds in a show of support for America's armed forces, Mulchay sits on a bench on front of the clubhouse, waiting to be picked up. He was a soldier for 30 years, and he fought the Nazis in Germany and the communists in Korea. "War is bullshit," he says. "The Iraq War is total bullshit. Our boys are dying for nothing."

Why, then, is he here today?

"For the parade," says Mulchay. His car pulls up. Luis Fusaro has stowed the veterans' weapons in the bed of his truck and is now sitting in the clubhouse bar, telling the waitress stories about the Bay of Pigs and the Marines' concept of honor. He sits there for five hours, waiting for the dinner to honor participants in the golf tournament. Fusaro is a hunter and fisherman, not a golfer, he says. After his seventh or eighth beer, he yells out: "Marines are always the first to arrive and the last to leave!"

A new life

After the soldiers' mothers have distributed all the programs on the tables in the dinner tent, Zwillinger shows them the photos stored on her small digital camera. They are the images of her new life as the mother of a fallen soldier, a soldier whose death was broadcast on TV. There are also pictures from the golf tournament, pictures from a visit to Marine Camp Lejeune, where the rifles, boots, dog tags and helmets of fallen marines are arranged in eerie, makeshift memorials. Zwillinger's camera also contains pictures from the film premier in Washington. The women sigh when they see the memorials, and they giggle at the pictures of Tony Soprano putting his arm around their friend Paula. She nods. In her mind, all these images belong together now.

She shows a short film she shot with her digital camera at her second son Greg's 20th birthday party at a local Hooters restaurant. The waitresses, with their short, orange-colored shorts and their pushed-up breasts, sing Happy Birthday. Greg has barely enough time to swing his way through a hula hoop before returning to the Marines' boot camp, the same camp his brother attended. He signed up for a six-year tour of duty just after his brother was killed. He wanted to be close to his fallen brother, he says. Zwillinger objected, but only half-heartedly, even though Greg is now her only child. She says she understands him. In fact, she says, she'd go to war if she could, adding that she'd like to go to Iraq just to shake the hands of soldiers, preferably at Christmas.

"If movie stars and pop singers are allowed to go over there, why not me?" she asks.

But wouldn't that be a signal that she supports the war?

"I support the troops," she says.

Is she in favor of the war?

"No one is in favor of war," she says.

She has no idea how the other mothers in the group feel politically. They don't discuss politics. All she knows is that they don't want to let down their troops out in Iraq. She could imagine devoting herself entirely to this work on the home front. She'd like to design rings for women who have lost their sons, or perhaps broaches, armbands and memorial gardens. She's currently designing a memorial garden to be installed for her son on the grounds of the veteran center in Poughkeepsie. She's thinking about organizing annual get-togethers for all those depicted in the film. She also feels a connection to Ed Ricke and Bowen Carey, the two Marine officers who brought her the news, just under a year ago, that her son had died for his country.

The two Marines are sitting in one of the many golf carts out on the course, playing along -- both in the tournament and as part of Zwillinger's new life.

A film endorsed by conservatives and liberals

Ricke and Carey saw the film the evening before the golf tournament, but only after receiving a warning from their regiment commanders. The US military leadership's official explanation for the warnings is that the film could trigger post-traumatic stress syndrome. But what they're more afraid of is that the images it portrays could diminish popular support for their mission even further. They've probably realized by now that it's impossible to control such images, which end up flying through the country like grenade fragments. The conservative press praises the film because it depicts the bravery of soldiers and the cowardice of the enemy. The liberal press likes the film because it presents the senselessness and brutality of war. The reviews are filled with emotional language, even though the film itself remains oddly clueless. The only conclusion it allows is this: Never have fewer wounded soldiers died in a war than in this one.

HBO executive Sheila Nevins says, cautiously, "of course, anything that portrays the horrors of this war is, to a certain extent, a statement against the war."

It sounds almost like an apology. For the two US Marines who broke the news of her son's death to Paula Zwillinger, the film is "real." They finish their round of golf with two under par and join the rest of the group in the tent for dinner.

After dinner, Zwillinger announces that she plans to hold a second golf tournament for the troops next year on the same course. She informs the guests that the tournament's proceeds, about $8,000, will be spent on Christmas packages and a memorial park to be built on the grounds of the veteran center. She winks to Luis Fusaro, who by this time is so inebriated that he almost falls over in the attempt to return the wink.