The War Tapes.  Coming to a theater, perhaps near you, perhaps not.  I have not seen it, but the clips look good, and it comes highly recommended by Col. David Hunt.  More importantly, it comes highly recommended by Michael Fumento.  I hope it hits DVD soon.

Michael comments on the film:

Critics have described the film as “disturbing,” “humbling,” and “truly a grunt’s eye view of the war.” Believe it or not, that last one was criticism. It came from leftist screenwriter-director Nora Ephron. The views of grunts and embedded reporters are worthless, Ephron says, because they’re “too close” to the war. Better, apparently, to do all the reporting out of Baghdad’s Al-Rashid Hotel or – better still – from ivory towers. (Stunningly, Ephron also thinks embedding was an evil idea dreamed up for this war. Ever hear of Ernie Pyle, Nora?)

But The War Tapes simply shows the war as it is, for better or worse, primarily through the eyes of three apparently quite average National Guard soldiers. (Two are actually pudgy, unlike the lean, mean fighting machines I was surrounded with on my two deployments.) Producer Deborah Scranton gave them, and other soldiers from the New Hampshire National Guard’s 172nd Infantry Regiment deploying for a year to Camp Anaconda in the Sunni Triangle, mini-DV camcorders. With these they show the boredom, the horror – and yes, the humor – of men given the nasty job of accompanying primarily food convoys past IEDS, RPGs, machine-gun ambushes, and worst of all, suicide car bombers.

I don’t know about Nora, but I have certainly heard of Ernie Pyle.  As a child I read and re-read his “Here is Your War.”  I cite Pyle extensively in my July 3rd post “Ernie Pyle Helps us Through July 4th.”  The thing I liked about Pyle’s work is that it wasn’t heady philosophical stuff like politics, just war theory, ethics or even why we are in the war.  Those questions can be contemplated back home.  Pyle wrote about the common man, for the common man, on things that were common and uniquely uncommon.  In Pyle’s writing you visited the men where they were and you almost did the things that they did.  You felt the dirt and grime and were weary along with the men.  You feared along with them, you laughed along with them.  Most of all, you just felt like you knew them.  Pyle didn’t feel as though he had to make political statements about the war, and he didn’t feel that he had to take a “neutral” viewpoint.  Pyle wasn’t neutral.  He was pro-American fighting man, heroism, warts and all, and he made you feel it.

Col. Hunt’s assessment of The War Tapes is on-point:

This film is not for war or against war, it for soldiers and their families: it should be viewed by anyone who thinks they know what being a soldier means, or cares what they do. The War Tapes should be in every home and in every elected official’s office and in every military leaders “must see” file, it is that good and that important.”

So when is it coming out on DVD?