"Restrepo" & "The Tillman Story" Documentaries

Watched two documentaries lately that had a lot in common with one another.

Both about the people in the military, both closely related to books that I've read and both excellent... with that excellence leading me to a sense of disgust about the military leadership featured in one of the films.

First movie was "Restrepo" from filmmaker Tim Hetherington and writer Sebastian Junger on their time spent embedded with a US military unit in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan. The movie is the companion piece to Junger's written account "War" and shows a portrait of just how chaotic and messed up combat can be.

I wrote of this in my review, but I was struck by the idea of someone doing a tour in such extreme and violent conditions and then (hopefully) returning home to live a normal life. I'd say my thought was that it takes a special person to be able to do transition back seamlessly, but really... I don't know how anyone could compartmentalize the type of combat written of and then return home without issue.

-----

Second movie (and the one featuring the military leadership) was "The Tillman Story" by Amir Bar-Lev. It's about former NFL player Pat Tillman, killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan and covers much of the same territory as the Jon Krakauer book on Tillman, "Where Men Win Glory" (which I reviewed here). Both the movie and book portrayed Tillman as someone shamelessly exploited by his military chain of command after his death.

The books and movies referenced here depict the death as well as emotional scars that can come from combat. What's so troubling is how someone (like Tillman) could sign up for that, and then have the circumstances of his life and death manipulated for a political goal... in this case, support of a given war.

Really good books and movies all four... just not the happy and fluffy kind of really good.

"War" by Sebastian Junger

Recently finished reading "War" by Sebastian Junger and found it be a pretty good book... with some really compelling parts interspersed with a few that dragged somewhat.

I'm a fan of Junger's writing after having finished "The Perfect Storm", "A Death in Belmont" and then "Fire" (with my review here). His most recent effort stems from a year spent in the Korengal region of Afghanistan entrenched with with a Forward Operating Base Army platoon. From this time came the book as well as a documentary film titled Restrepo after combat medic Juan Restrepo who was killed in action.

What struck me about "War" was the descriptions of the men in the platoon and how they functioned together in a combat situation. Junger describes their connection as one of Love (also the heading of the book's third and final section) for your fellow solider and a togetherness that one just doesn't find elsewhere.

To that end, I also found myself very interested in what Junger wrote about the difficulty of leaving combat to return to the trivialities of a non-combat zone base or civilian life. In particular, the life of platoon member Brendan O'Byrne was featured and as I was writing this review, I found this really interesting piece about he and Junger's relationship since their time in the Korengal. Gotta be tough to return to "real life" when it doesn't get any more real life than war.

Additional thing I found noteworthy was the idea of courage. As stated before, Junger equates courage with love, but many soldiers didn't seem to view their actions as courageous, but rather simply doing the job they were trained to do. To illustrate this, Junger included in the book a 1908 quote from New York City Fire Chief Ed Croker at the funeral for five of his men...

"Firemen are going to get killed. When they join the department they face that fact. When a man becomes a firemen his greatest act of bravery has been accomplished. What he does after that is all in the line of work."

Compelling notion and a quote that I'm glad to have seen in this interesting book... which also made me want to see the aforementioned movie, Restrepo.