Outside Looking In

As the war has progressed we have been able to follow quite a bit of it on line and through the MSM. What I'm never sure of is if the version I'm receiving or if what I'm watching has been slanted to try and influence me in any way.

What I do know is that I found Restrepo a great piece on not just the war but the men ( mainly kids) who fight them. I was saddened to hear of the death of the photo journalist involved in the project yesterday. The video below gives you a look at what I found to be a very professional individual who figured out that there is a very human side to every conflict and honestly, that is what it is all about.

I've stated here before, I doubt any soldier ever assaulted a bunker in pursuit of some political ideology. I have often quoted "Hoot" from Blackhawk down as well. It's very surreal at times to hear someone who you have never met, say the things you have been thinking the entire time your in the military. Two lines from "Hoot":


~ "You wanna know what I think? It don't really matter what I think. Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit, just goes right out the window."~


~ "When I get home and people ask me,'Hey, Hoot, why do you do it, man? What are you? Some kind of war junkie? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you. And that's it. That's all it is."~

I think through the movie Restrpo and through the book Infidel, Tim Hetherington was able to capture some of that. I can tell by the interview I've posted below that his interactions with the soldiers had led him to believe that the war was and is very human.

You see a great novel will draw you in and I find the development and story line of the characters to be what is truly the meat and potatoes, if I can't identify with some of those characters than I'm not really concerned with what goes on around them.

For someone who served it will never be about the death and destruction it will all ways be about the people you served with and the interactions you while being in the most dire of circumstances.

Tim Hetherington got this in my opinion. RIP Tim. You point of view will be missed.