During his campaign for the White House President Obama said, “We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there… I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan.”

He promised to send another ten to fifteen thousand troops to help those already there. He also declared that the war in Afghanistan was the proper front in the war against terror. Now that he is Commander-in-Chief, his vision seems to be less clear.

The military commanders gave the President four troop deployment options earlier this week but he refused all four. Not for military reasons but because of some hooey about the corruption of the government in Kabul and their inability to run a fair election. Mr. President, if our support for governments was based on whether they are corrupt or not and could run a fair election, we would have pulled federal funding from Chicago years ago. The problem with pulling out of Afghanistan, or Chicago for that matter, is that they would fall into violent anarchy. We have already seen that happen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Current thinking on what to do in Afghanistan is based on two faulty assumptions:

The first is that wars are clear and concise events with specific outcomes and easy to find exit points. When John McCain told us the truth about how long we might be in Iraq, we didn’t want to hear it. We have been in Japan and Germany for over sixty years and in the Philippines for much longer. I wonder if back during the Spanish- American War leftist were telling the President that the Philippines were tribal islands and would never be able to be organized into a stable democratic government?

The second faulty assumption is that if we walk away from Afghanistan, simply pull all of our troops out, the war it then over. How long would it be before the Taliban was running things again and Al Qaeda was using it as a base of operations?  We will be fighting the same people again in the future, perhaps armed with nuclear weapons from Iran or Pakistan. Our national attention span has shortened to Twitter-like dimensions while our enemies think in terms of centuries.

The real problem for President Obama is that is if he deploys more troops and commits to staying, Afghanistan is no longer Bush’s war but his. Not even a year into his term and he is already worried about his legacy rather than doing what is best for the country. He is worried that his presidency will get bogged down in the battle for liberty instead of being able to focus on strengthening ACORN and the SEIU.

The left doesn’t mind waging long, costly, and non-winnable wars, so long as they are they start them themselves. Look at the war on poverty and the war on drugs. Our cities are littered with the lives ruined by those wars. We have thrown enough money into those two rat holes to finance Iraq and Afghanistan for the next fifty years and toss in twenty years of free government health care to boot. Do we have an exit strategy from the Welfare State, Mr. President?

Nobody liked this movie when it was called “Body of Lies.” 

This is the most revealing trailer yet and thankfully we’re given a heads up as to what the story might really be about. Hollywood will look for cover with the excuse that “Green Zone” is based on a true story, but we all know which “true stories” Leftist Hollywood cherry picks in order to fulfill the demands of an anti-American narrative. For example, the true story of 100,000-plus Americans risking their lives to liberate and protect from terrorists people they’ve  never met is one “true story” we’ll see in hell first.

Everything you’d expect from director Paul Greengrass and Damon is here, including that goddamn shaky-cam (it’s not saying the Lord’s name in vain if you mean it). Damon’s character is the protagonist and he’s there to do good but it’s not the terrorists who are the antagonists getting in his way … no, it’s The United States of America personified by the Greg Kinnear character.

Look fast for my favorite part of the trailer at the 1:42 mark after Kinnear appears to order Damon’s assassination. When Kinnear’s confronted in the next scene suddenly he’s sporting that old “liberal tell” identifying the bad guys in leftist films: the lapel flag!

In the comments, Hollywood’s few remaining water-carriers should please explain why an industry we’re told is more interested in making profits than making political points would green-light the umpteenth anti-Iraq movie after all umpteen that came before flopped miserably.

SIDE NOTE: Once again I want to make clear that this post violates the rule which only allows Leftist critics and film writers to speculate about an upcoming film before seeing it. I knew that before putting fingers to keyboard and am fully braced for the consequences.

George Clooney in 2005’s  Syriana

Meanwhile the national discussion has segued to our own collective insanity, political correctness, which we are now discovering paved the very way for the massacre. It is this cultural and mental straightjacket that forced a U.S. Army general to say diversity is more important than losing American lives; that compelled our Homeland Security Secretary to reassure the Arab world that we’re doing everything we can to protect against a mythical Muslim backlash; that prevented people from speaking out about red flags that could have saved the lives of everyone murdered at Ft. Hood; and that prevents our officials from even naming the enemy. No such ailment afflicts the jihadists, however, who are celebrating Hasan as a hero, who have no problem acknowledging his ideological intent, and who recognize our political correctness as a self-inflicted fatal wound. Unlike our leaders and media elites, they don’t sap their wartime focus with hand-wringing and navel-gazing.

Also unlike us, they have no problem asserting their values in the war’s crucial cultural front, either, a theater of operations where we are weakest. A burgeoning Arab film industry, for example, in partnership with Hollywood, is set to make unapologetic and positive cinematic portrayals of Islam as important an export as oil. Abu Dhabi is investing $1 billion in movie productions over the next few years. Crash and In the Valley of Elah screenwriter Paul Haggis recently taught a screenwriting master class in Dubai to fifty promising and “socially and politically astute” writers. A Qatari media company is pairing with Lord of the Rings producer Barrie Osborne on a $150 million biopic of the Muslim prophet Mohammed – “a profound genius,” says Osborne, ”who founded a religion whose name in Islam signifies peace and reconciliation. This is what our film will aspire to do.”

Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

Very high-minded, if misinformed. But what’s wrong, you ask, with such multicultural bridge-building in this time of conflict between Islam and the West? Well, here’s an eyebrow-raiser for you about the Mohammed biopic: its “technical consultant” is Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the vastly influential spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni movement whose aim is the imposition of Sharia worldwide and “the destruction of Western civilization from within.” Al-Qaradawi has issued fatwas in support of suicide bombings in Israel, attacks on coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the execution of Jews and gays. With him guiding the project, it’s starting to sound less like an effort to promote ”peace and reconciliation” and more like a propagandistic Trojan horse. Certainly not every film in the forthcoming cinematic wave out of the Middle East will have a dark design; but do not doubt that the Islamists recognize the cultural impact of cinema, or that the seemingly benign partnership is useful to their agenda.

And does the cultural exchange run both ways? Is Hollywood equally as eager to export Western values and a positive portrayal of America? I think we all know the answer to that. And why should we expect otherwise? For decades Americans have been conditioned and intimidated by political correctness, and indoctrinated by its handmaiden multiculturalism, to believe that all cultural values and practices are equally valid – except Western culture, which we’re taught is the domain of white male imperialists, racists, and slavers. And Hollywood continues to be at the forefront of the dissemination of that world view, too often denigrating America and whitewashing radical Islam.

 Hollywood may be out of touch with the “flyover” Americans between L.A. and New York, resulting in war-on-terror box office flops like Rendition and Lions for Lambs, but don’t underestimate the influence of its persistently blame-America-first propaganda on young audiences, on coastal elites, and on those countries that hungrily absorb the culture we export. Every time Hollywood makes a Syriana, which has been used as a recruitment tool to radicalize young Muslims; or a Redacted, which has also been used to inflame Muslim opinion against the raping, murdering American occupiers; or a Body of Lies, whose opening quote – “Those to whom evil is done do evil in return” – asserts that Islamic terrorism is just America’s chickens coming home to roost; or a Flightplan, in which you are manipulated into suspecting that the Muslims aboard an airplane are terrorists (Hitchcockian twist: they’re not!); every time Hollywood makes such thinly-veiled agitprop, the PC message is reinforced here and abroad that we are the bad guys, that America’s geopolitical meddling, not global jihad, is the genesis of Islamic terrorism. And therefore we can only end the Big Overseas Misunderstanding, or however President Obama is euphemizing the war on terror these days, by groveling and making amends – which is indeed his strategy for resolving it (resolving, not winning – remember, he’s not comfortable with the word victory).

Our President, who considers it his duty to combat “negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” is openly pursuing a globalist future in which America abdicates as a superpower. Leftist Hollywood marches in lockstep with that post-American agenda (”It’s an Obama world,” said the director of GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, a movie scrupulously scrubbed of pro-American symbolism and real-world enemies – like jihadists). This subversive alliance is a prescription for cultural implosion, and an ascendant Islam is positioning itself to fill the void.

One-way multiculturalism in England

Think this is all alarmist, Islamophobic nonsense? It could never happen here, you say? Well it won’t if we do something about it. But if you want to see what a country looks like that has been gutted by multiculturalism, political correctness, and tolerance of the intolerant, and yet which continues to think “it can’t happen here,” see what has become of England. A hundred years ago the sun did not set on its empire; more recently it still stood tall under Churchill and then Thatcher. Now, harboring radical imams and embracing Sharia, it is teetering on the brink of cultural – and even literal – civil war with an unassimilated, radicalized Muslim population that is aggressively uni-cultural. Who could have imagined that this would be England’s future? Only the Islamists could. Back on our shores, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs believes that the maddeningly tentative official response to the Ft. Hood assault is indicative not just of political correctness, but of de facto Sharia, and that we are already ”witnessing an Islamized America.”

The PC multiculturalist agenda, which Hollywood has often taken the lead in pushing, is a cancer that kills people and corrodes countries. It is the insidious source of all our misplaced “Why do they hate us?” agonizing. Not only is it undermining us in this clash of civilization versus barbarism, but it could prove to be the single most critical factor that will result in America’s defeat. But a Hollywood that unashamedly celebrates the American values that this country and the world hunger for can also take the lead in reversing that agenda’s damage; indeed, I believe such a cinematic wave is coming – but that’s a topic for another day.

* The media report thirteen dead, but one of his victims was three months pregnant, which in my book raises the count to fourteen.

When New York Times journalist David Rohde was kidnapped last year in Afghanistan, the company engaged in a painstaking effort to squash the story. They succeeded in persuading major media who learned of the kidnapping to keep quiet. The cover-up was so good that a New York Times reporter I spoke with in December 2008, while she and I joined Secretary Gates on a trip through Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq and back to the United States, had not heard about the David Rohde kidnapping.

The New York Times openly agrees that publishing such articles increases the peril to the lives of hostages, yet it published details about a British couple being held hostage in Somalia, and thus increased the value of the hostages to the kidnappers.

Some months after Mr. Rohde’s kidnapping started leaking, I published a generic blurb about the case, but made sure none of the information was new.

I knew more than was included in the vignette, but chose not to release it. I did not share what sources had told me: that Taliban members were being paid large sums of money (and that money was being wasted) and that some of the efforts flowed through Dubai. I have not published any other additional information from sources. Shortly after publication, March 13, 2009, I received an e-mail that included this request from a person close to Rohde:

“The NYT has asked for a news blackout while they do what they can for David Rohde’s release. All the wires and the big papers are following it. Therefore, while I’m sure you don’t mean any harm, I’m not sure your post about him is helpful.”

The person who e-mailed was not from the New York Times.  I removed the blub I had posted to my site. Though no new information was released, I had offered the kidnappers more coverage.

Sources continued sending reports about attempts to repatriate Rohde. I had not sought out this information. It had fallen as it usually does, like rain.

After Rohde returned to the United States and details became public, the Washington Post and others contacted me about my decisions to publish and then remove the vignette. My thoughts were that if the words risked the life of Mr. Rohde, they should not be publicized.

While reading the New York Times’ article about the British couple, I became upset, and wondered why they would implement a black-out for one hostage, but not another.

I shifted my Blackberry over to Twitter and punched out some blurbs, one of which said the following:

“Numerous very well placed sources have told me New York Times/associates paid millions to get Rohde release.”

And:

“NYT is endangering the hostages in Somalia.”

It is important to know that while tweeting those words, I was sitting on an airplane, on a research trip, for an article for the New York Times. An editor had asked for something about Afghanistan, and I chose the topic of biogas, which included trips to Cambodia, Laos, Nepal (twice), Vietnam (this week), and Afghanistan.

The New York Times is one of the best sources on Iraq and Afghanistan. Their war correspondents are the “A-Team” and that included David Rohde. I was happy to write a piece for the New York Times.

The flurry of follow-on stories that picked up on my tweets, such as those by the Huffington Post, focused on ransom for Mr. Rohde, rather than the point about the harm the New York Times’ detailed coverage could cause the hostages.

On November 2, the New York Times posted a public response:

“Several Web sites repeated Monday erroneous allegations that The New York Times had paid a ransom in the case of its reporter David Rohde, held by the Taliban for seven months.”

The New York Times didn’t mention me by name, but the story continued spreading, with people reporting that I accused the New York Times of lying. Nowhere in the “tweets” was ransom mentioned, or anything about lying. I have no evidence that the New York Times misled the public, nor did I say or imply such. The tweet about money was based on what I had been told by reliable sources. Again, this is the tweet:

“Numerous very well placed sources have told me New York Times/associates paid millions to get Rohde release.”

The New York Times rebuttal statement goes on to quote David Rohde:

“American government officials worked to free us, but they maintained their longstanding policy of not negotiating with kidnappers. They paid no ransom and exchanged no prisoners. Pakistani and Afghan officials said they also freed no prisoners and provided no money.

“Security consultants who worked on our case said cash was paid to Taliban members who said they knew our whereabouts. But the consultants said they were never able to identify or establish contact with the guards who were living with us.”

Though it didn’t address the exact amount of money, the New York Times confirmed my tweet about money by acknowledging that “cash was paid to Taliban members.” My sources have said that large sums of money went through Dubai to Pakistan, not to mention the costs paid to consultants and other expenses.

Though my statements were in line with the New York Times’ statements, other outlets continued to state that I was accusing the New York Times of “lying.”  Not the case.

Chris Rovzar, who blogs at New York Magazine, was off mark when he ran this headline: Freelance War Reporter Accuses Times of Lying about Taliban Bribes.

My words said nothing about lying or bribes, and I am not a “freelance” or a “reporter,” though some of the work involves reporting. I contacted Mr. Rovzar and was pleasantly rewarded by his goodwill, candor and willingness to reexamine the words.

Moving on, the New York Times picked up on points about its coverage of the Somalia story when it published:

“Bloggers also accused The Times of hypocrisy in reporting on a British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates while keeping quiet Mr. Rohde’s kidnapping. . .

“The New York Times did not break the story of the kidnapping of Paul and Rachel Chandler, and during our reporting of it The Times consulted Christine Collett, Ms. Chandler’s sister-in-law, to ask her if the family objected to the publication of any information regarding the case. Ms. Collett, who was quoted in the story, said the family had no objection to The Times reporting on the case.”

Reporting with permission from a sister-in-law hardly makes it right. How many everyday people have experiences dealing with kidnappers? In fact, the Rohde case was the first time I realized how sensitive negotiators are to even passing acknowledgment.  How many of us know that even acknowledgment of the kidnapping can lead to harm?  Most people are unaware, but the New York Times knows. Did the New York Times share advice on its recent experiences when it asked Ms. Collett’s permission?

This incident aside, my respect for the New York Times’ reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan is undiminished. It offers world-class coverage, and continues to be on the reading list.

The New York Times and I simply have a difference of opinion on the hostage topic.

I believe that they have been truthful, while understandably guarded on the abduction of David Rohde. It would be wrong to bash a paper that has fielded such an outstanding team in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hostage issue is just one important issue, and all points by all parties seem to have been made and noted.

Finally, it’s time to move on from this distraction to a much larger topic: Afghanistan. Bad signals are coming from the White House.

Please give the gift of independent reporting. Your gift goes far and is used for transport, lodging, living expenses, satellite communications and for repairing and replacing gear that fails due to the rigors of the battlefields.  Millions of people, in more than a hundred countries, see these photos and words.  Your generosity goes very far, and is greatly appreciated.

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Due out December 4th, “Brothers“ is a remake of a 2004 film called “Brodre,” which is summarized in part on IMDB with the following nugget:

Then Michael comes home with a full-blown case of post-traumatic stress disorder because of what he had to do to survive in captivity.

Leftist Hollywood loathes everything the American Military stands for: Honor, patriotism, selflessness and masculinity. Openly trashing the troops backfired decades ago, so the tactics had to change. Today, “support” for the troops is reflected in film after film after film stereotyping America’s best and brightest as victims, dupes, head cases and monsters.

Things have gotten so twisted in this area that a film like “The Hurt Locker,” where an American Colonel lets an Iraqi suspect bleeds to death — where the lead character is so mentally warped by war, so addicted to chaos, he can’t love his own son — is considered pro-military, even by some conservatives.

Sure, each individual film might be defensible in some way as “factual” or “realistic,” but you have to look at the cumulative effect of the same “factual” and “realistic” focus pumped into theatres again and again and again…

Popcorn flicks tend to be better about this than these Oscar-trolling melodramas, but when Leftist Hollywood has “a message to send,” this is the message.

UPDATE: Before I forget, let me state up front that I’m well aware this post breaks the all-important rule which states only Leftists are allowed to speculate, analyze and comment on films they haven’t seen based on trailers and the like…

There’s a whole industry of Leftist critics and film writers devoted to going on at length about their impression of upcoming films. But when someone on the right does it … well, that’s just wrong. Unless, of course, we like the movie. Then nobody ever complains, “How do you know you’ll like the movie…”

Yeah, it’s a squirrely rule, but I was aware of it beforehand and will not complain about the coming consequences.

SECOND UPDATE: The only effective part of the trailer is seeing Natalie Portman on ice skates. It’s whachoocall “bittersweet,” because it takes you back to her enchanting and memorable turn in “Beautiful Girls.”  Such promise.

So many of us in the business know people who have been overseas to help entertain the troops, and the luckiest among us have actually had the experience ourselves. I’m proud to have moved from Category A to category B this last week, when I was able to spend five days down at Guantanamo Bay.

There’s a lot to talk about. But the thing that struck me hardest was the fact that even though I expected to be blown away by our men and women in uniform, I really had no idea of just how far my high expectations would be exceeded. The competence and discipline I took for granted going in. It was the soldier’s generosity that kept knocking me on my butt.

So here are the remarks I was privileged to have been able to give. I hope that it in some small way captures not just what I feel, but what all we civilians feel, and not just about the men and women stationed at Guantanamo Bay, but rather about every single one of them: past, present and future.

“The Surge” is really a snapshot, briefly summarizing the events of late 2006 to deliver key background, setting the stage and highlighting key strategic elements implemented in 2007 that ultimately pushed terrorist groups out of Baghdad, with the help of an emboldened Iraqi nation.

The story is told in a fast-paced, modern style, transitioning between interviews, live footage and pictures with military-style cuts and zooms. The interviews are very informative, though there were two problems. First, there is little if any negativity reflected in the film when analyzing the Surge strategy. Some opposition would have more effectively recaptured the atmosphere surrounding the controversial troop increase, and also lent further credibility to the effort’s effectiveness. The reason no negativity was shown, however, is that the generals, and now most politicians, agree that the Surge worked exactly as it was supposed to. 

Additionally, the film is simply too short. It analyzes key components of the surge strategy, and also gives a broad overview, but it left me as a viewer hungry for more information. Fortunately, a panel of experts spoke after the viewing, providing more than sufficient information on the strategy. The film’s website contains extensive information for further research as well as a streamed version of the film.

The discussion panel that followed the film consisted of:

- General John Keane, a retired U.S. Army four-star general. Keane was one of the architects of the Iraq troop surge.

- Dr. Kimberly Kagan, the founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War. Kagan has written on the Surge strategy for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Foreign Policy Magazine.

- Colonel David Sutherland, a colonel in the U.S. Army. Sutherland commanded the 3rd “Greywolf” Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division in Diyala Province during the Surge.

- Lieutenant General James M. Dubik, a retired lieutenant general for the U.S. Army. Dubik oversaw the generation and training of the Iraqi Security Forces in the second half of 2007.

- Michael R. Gordon, the New York Times’ chief military correspondent. Gordon is currently writing a history of the conflict in Iraq from 2006 to the present.

The film’s highlights, which include never-before-seen interviews with General David Petraeus and General Raymond Odierno, reveal a complex strategy. Instead of simply throwing troops at the Iraq problem, President George W. Bush authorized generals to carefully install selected numbers of troops in areas of need, providing crucial stability and allowing the U.S. to mount an offensive.

The U.S. military was not the only one to carefully plan. The Surge was necessary because violence was increasing not in a random way, but in a systematic one designed to undermine the fledgling Iraqi government. The film points out both the plans, and cowardice, of the enemy quite clearly. Shi’a death squads and al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) fought each other, but in a nontraditional way by attacking civilians. This terrorist strategy backfired due to the Anbar Awakening and the Surge, two fundamental changes in a joint effort to stabilize Iraq. 

One strategy the film clearly illustrates through interviews and footage is the importance of building relationships with locals, and also the ability of our armed forces to do so quite effectively. The Surge troops secured the locals, working among them and giving them a reason to rely on U.S. military might, rather than the manipulative AQI. Once the locals felt safe, they began to share the who, what and where of AQI and Shi’a weapons caches and safe houses. This fundamentally changed the war. 

Such effective strategy should not be ignored, but analyzed and reused. General Stanley McChrystal’s request for an additional 40,000 troops, while significant, could do in Afghanistan what the Surge did in Iraq. While the countries differ, the troops do not, and American soldiers have shown themselves time and again to be the friends of repressed peoples and the bane of oppressors. Through the last century this hasn’t changed, and the people of the United States, can be confident when they celebrate Veterans Day today that this fact will be as true in Afghanistan as it was in Iraq.

As details became clearer the death toll rose and the attack seemed to be the work of a single shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a devout Muslim. As the day wore on it became clear that Major Hasan held radical beliefs concerning United States foreign policy and had shared those beliefs not with just a few close friend but with just about anyone who would listen.

Then it was announced that the President was going to speak about the shootings. I expected to hear a calming voice that would honor those slain and get to the heart of the matter: We have a serious problem in this country with domestic terrorists both in and out of the military and we need to do something about it.   

Since I had been in the car all day and listening to news/talk radio I knew the President was at a meeting of American Indian tribal leaders. When he came on the radio his first remarks were not about Fort Hood but about the conference. His tone wasn’t serious but he jokingly made comments about the conference. I don’t want to try to read too much into this but usually when we speak we talk about the most important things first and then move to the trivial. He complimented the Secretary of the Interior for a great day and gave a “shout out” to a conference attendee. He then continued for another 150 words until he got to the shootings. The most important thing he said in reference to the shootings was,

“We will make sure that we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident…”

That is what I wanted to hear! The consequences be damned, we are going to get to the bottom of this. Great! However, before the weekend was over we were being assured, by the President, the Attorney General and the Director of Homeland Security and by any other administration official who could get their mug in front of a camera that this was not an act of terrorism. How could they know? Did they have all the facts? It reminded me of President Obama’s reaction to another much less important incident when his friend was arrested after lipping off to a cop. He said something about not wanting to jump to conclusions but the police acted stupidly.

Why isn’t Major Hasan being considered a terrorist by the White House? Is it because he acted alone? Is it because he used a gun instead of a belt of explosives? Is it because he wasn’t part of a larger group? Is it because he may have been mentally unbalanced?

There have been a number of attacks in this country in recent years that have been dismissed rather than being looked at as acts of terror. Meanwhile some folks are quick to be labeled terrorists. The shooter of an abortion doctor, a lone gunman at the National Holocaust Museum and a bomber at the Olympic Games were all quickly branded terrorists. These were similar to the Fort Hood shooting in that all were done by a single person acting outside any organized group and two of the used firearms rather than explosives. The difference? Major Hasan and others who have committed acts of terror that were not labeled as such were Muslims. Why are we hesitant to label acts of violence by Muslim-Americans “terror?”

Before you go ballistic and claim that I am branding an entire religion as terrorists I want to say I believe that 99.9% of Muslim-Americans are loyal citizens who see their religion as a peaceful one. That being said there are approximately 5000 Muslims serving in the military today. If just .1% of them believe, like Major Hasan, that acts of terror are justified then there are four more guys just like him waiting for their chance.

My beloved United States Army is a blunt instrument, a magnificent club that has pummels our nation’s enemies into submission.  But the Marines are America’s rapier, a razor sharp weapon of war that has never been bested and never will be.  For over two centuries, the United States Marine Corps has been fighting our country’s battles in the air, on land and sea.  They don’t give up.  They don’t quit.  There’s no word for retreat in a Marine’s vocabulary.  And they are making history even today in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere.

November 10th is the Corps’ 234th birthday.  With the indulgence of my Devil Dog brethren, here is this Army veteran’s countdown of the Top Ten Marine Corp movies:

10.  55 Days at Peking:  The Boxer Rebellion in China provides the backdrop for this epic true-life tale of Marines (with help from a few others) protecting civilians from rampaging Chinese peasants.  Charlton Heston is the head Marine; Ava Gardner and David Niven show up as well. 

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9.  Jarhead:  This film of Anthony Swofford’s book about Marines in Operation Desert Storm is a mixed bag.  Perhaps director Sam Mendes was trying to make up for his slander of military men in American Beauty by making an attempt to understand how men function in wartime.  He effectively captures the unreality of that war, but his depiction of the desert environment itself is somehow off (though not as inaccurate as the awful Three Kings).  The clouds of oily smoke after the Iraqis set off the wells did bring back some memories.   Look for Jamie Foxx as a tough Marine sergeant.

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8.  Gung Ho:  This World War Two story recounts the real-life story of the Marine’s raid on the Japanese position on Makin Island early in the war.  Watch for Robert Mitchum as a Devil Dog named “Pig Iron.” 

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7.  A Few Good Men:  This is problematic film for several reasons.  First, it promotes the idea that lawyers as attractive, interesting people, which is demonstrably untrue.  Second, it is positively schizophrenic in its attitude toward the Corps.  Noted Hollywood liberal Aaron Sorkin penned the script, which features Jack Nicholson’s legendary “You can’t handle the truth!”speech.  Many look on that speech as an inspiration, not an indictment.  Regardless, the issue of a society that demands protection yet questions the manner those who protect it do so resonates even more powerfully today than when Sorkin wrote it.

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6.  Aliens:  Okay, so James Cameron’s classic sci-fi flick is not technically about the United States Marine Corps, but ditch the space ships and hi-tech weapons and this band of Colonial Marines would be at home in today’s USMC.  The interplay between the Marines is priceless.  Their gunnery sergeant, played by Al Mathews, is calm, capable and scary.  And as Private Hudson, Bill Paxton plays the most amusing military screw-up in film history.  “Game over, man!  Game over!”

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5.  Generation Kill:  This a miniseries is a tough call because there is a lot good and a lot bad about it, but it honors the Marines who have been fighting for us since 9/11 and so deserves a spot here.  The bad first – there’s too much talking and pondering of the bigger issues going on.  Those portions feel forced into the script to fit the filmmakers’ pre-existing anti-war narrative.  What is accurate is the look and feel of the film.  This light recon battalion is quite similar to an Army cavalry recon squadron, and the way the men lived in and around their vehicle feels true.  One particularly good scene involves a young Marine asking to medevac a wounded civilian.  You expect a typical movie conflict between the sensitive young officer and his uncaring superior, but instead the filmmakers have the battalion commander explain his perspective and the consequences he has to consider when deciding whether to divert evac resources away from his own wounded.  It’s a powerful scene that demonstrates how high ranking officers, often portrayed on film as self-absorbed, obtuse and insensitive, bear enormous responsibilities for making difficult decisions that their subordinates sometimes do not fully appreciate.

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4.  Pride of the Marines:  This is the story of Marine Al Schmid, blinded fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, and his return home.  It is a moving testament to the human cost of war and it demonstrates the price paid by many Marines over the years – and a price many continue to pay today.  It is also the story about how once you become a Marine, you remain a Marine, and how that pride will stay with you throughout your life.

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3. Heartbreak Ridge:  The great Clint Eastwood does a tour of duty here as Tom Highway, a Marine gunnery sergeant his obnoxious new commander labels a “dinosaur.”  When all hell breaks loose on a tropical paradise called Grenada, Clint and his platoon smack around Castro’s minions.  It’s very cool.  One theme of the film is how a great sergeant grows his lieutenants into real leaders, and anyone who has been a platoon leader will smile as the nerdy LT learns to take charge and finally seizes the initiative to win the fight.  Look for Mario Van Peebles as the world’s least likely Marine.

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2.  Full Metal Jacket:  Don’t see this a week before you ship to basic training.  Take it from personal experience that this is a poor idea.  R. Lee Ermey’s hilarious and horrifying turn as a Marine drill instructor is a legend, and properly so.  His four minute verbal assault on his recruits is appalling, and yet one cannot turn away.  The second half of the film, which covers the retaking of the Vietnamese city of Hue during the Tet offensive, is a solid depiction of the terrors of urban combat.  Watch Big Hollywood’s own Adam Baldwin and the rest of the cast as they demonstrate the awesome firepower of a Marine infantry squad:

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1.  Sands of Iwo Jima:  A classic Hollywood story told against the backdrop of the greatest battle in Corps history, it features the Duke in his legendary role as Sergeant Stryker.  As much as we all love R. Lee Ermey, John Wayne remains the gold standard for hardass Marine sergeants.  This is the story of a tough NCO welding a gaggle of recruits into a lethal team of Marines, and this story is being repeated today with a new generation of tough NCOs and recruits.  Only the battlefields, uniforms and weapons are different.  The fighting spirit is the same. 

I bleed Army green, but even I have to admit that the Marines are something special.   But they don’t need validation from me or from anyone else.  They are Marines.  That says it all.

Semper Fi.

Shabbat in the Israeli town of Efrat is a deeply spiritual experience.

The sun falls, gently folding itself into the surrounding hills and valleys. The same Judean hills where Jews have lived, worked and fought since Biblical times.

The unearthly light makes a final golden splash.

My wife Karen and I are visiting Karen’s brother David, his wife Elana, and their four children, residents of Efrat.

Attending Sabbath services in an Efrat synagogue, out of the corner of my eye, I spot “Larry.”

Security requires that I do not use his real name.

We’re both from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a tough neighborhood even by Brooklyn standards. Together, we attended high school, Brooklyn Talmudic Academy, a tough Yeshiva even by San Quentin standards.

We have been friends forever.

Larry’s parents are Holocaust survivors and as Larry often tells me, his father is obsessed over the fact that so many Jews were unprepared, mentally and physically, to fight the Nazis.

“He’s written thousands of pages about this,” Larry confides.

Thus, it is only fitting and somewhat ironic that several years ago, in an Efrat supermarket, Larry bravely confronted an Arab Muslim homicide bomber and deleted the terrorist.

Larry and I discuss the killing which probably saved dozens of innocent lives, men, women, children and infants.

“How’d you know he was a terrorist?”

“I didn’t. I mean I knew him. He worked on a construction crew here in Efrat. For years.”

“So what made you suspect that he was dangerous?”

Larry is no John Wayne. He’s middle-aged, doughy around the mid-section, has an infectious smile, and wears a yarmulke. Larry is, well, just a regular guy from Brooklyn.

“Look,” says Larry, “he was an Arab worker, we got along just fine. But the day I saw him wasn’t one of the days he was supposed to be here. Also, he was heading into the supermarket, a place he never ever went to. And he was wearing an overcoat on a very hot day. It was all wrong.”

“What did you do?”

“I was outside when I spotted him. I followed him into the supermarket and I looked at his face and he looked, I dunno, spacey, all drugged up.”

Hamas—a proudly Jew-hating and genocidal yearning terrorist organization— often medicate their homicide bombers. Drugs dull the edge of fear.

“How did you know you weren’t shooting an innocent man?”

“He sizzled.”

“Excuse me?”

“He tried to self-detonate. There was a malfunction. I saw smoke. But homicide bombers are almost always armed with redundancy, a second detonator. I didn’t want to take a chance on him hitting the backup trigger. We were in a supermarket. Women and children all around. I drew and and shot him in the chest.”

“You shot to kill.”

Larry nods.

“How did you feel when you saw him go down?”

My buddy ponders for a long moment: “Scared, relieved. I dunno. You do what you gotta do.”

“Not everybody would have had the presence of mind.”

Larry shrugs and half smiles: “Hey, us Bensonhurst kids had to grow up tough, right?”

“I guess.”

We study each others’ faces. We are older, middle-aged, we have children and grandchildren, but we are still our impish and dopey childhood selves.

“Nobody lives in the old neighborhood anymore,” Larry sighs.

“Yup, they’re all gone.”

We step outside where men and women gather before heading home for the Sabbath meal. Friends make plans to visit, share coffee, dessert and lively conversation.

Jeremy, David and Elana’s son is home, on leave from active duty somewhere quite dangerous in the land of Israel.

Meet my nephew Jeremy. Again, for reasons of security I can’t reveal his face, but he looks like Paul Newman in Exodus. Seriously.

A fresh, evening breeze dances through the winding streets of Efrat.

Together, Larry and I stroll along. I press my friend for more information. Details are all important in counter-terrorism. And Americans better get wise to the details in order to effectively deal with the emerging grassroots Islamist terrorist threat. The United States is, after Israel, ground zero for the Caliphate Islamists.

“The Glock is a good weapon when every millisecond counts,” says Larry. “There’s no safety, which can take precious time away from shooting. You can keep a round in the chamber, then just draw and fire.”

Larry totes his Glock in a Fobus speed holster.

“What kind of rounds did you use?”

“I keep hollow points in the Glock, but my spare magazine has full metal jackets. The day I killed the terrorist, I put him down with the hollow points. Don’t want to use full metal jackets in a crowded supermarket, they’ll go right through and kill an innocent bystander.”

“The supermarket was crowded?”

“At that time of day, sure. That’s why it was chosen as the target. Look, the terrorist was here,” Larry demonstrates using his body and mine, “and behind him were several women and children.”

“How close were you to the the terrorist?”

“About fourteen feet.”

I shiver.

Most gunfights, contrary to popular mythology, take place within seven feet. Fourteen feet can seem like a yawning chasm when the adrenalin is pumping, innocent bystanders are all around, and a determined terrorist has his finger on the detonator.

“The full metal slugs would have gone right through him and there’s no telling…”

Larry’s voice trails off.

My childhood buddy is a sweet man, a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. There is no bravado in Larry. He’s fine with killing the terrorist, but it does not define who he is.

Me, I’d script a self-glorifying movie, get all aw’ shucks on talk shows, try and cash in, big time.

It’s time to go home and enjoy the evening meal. It’s time to enjoy the miracle of the Jewish Sabbath.

There is an entire culture and religion bent on eradicating Israel and Jews.

We are so few, and we are so vulnerable.

But there are, thank G-d, many men and women like Larry in the Jewish state, the land of Israel.

Larry and I hug.

I say: “You’re my hero.”

Larry chuckles.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech