Brilliant idea and concept.

Has Hollywood finally snapped out of their wicked anti-American streak thanks to profits, Obama being in office, or a little bit of both? It isn’t a moral awakening, that you can be sure of.

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Christopher McQuarrie will write, produce and direct Rubicon, a new property that is intended to be turned into a movie, graphic novel and videogame. McQuarrie is directing Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher in One Shot, but the project was announced at NY Comic-Con by coproducers Mark Long and Dan Capel. They describe the project as The Seven Samurai, set in Afghanistan with Navy SEALs as the heroes, and the Taliban the villains. Since Navy SEAL Team Six killed Osama Bin Laden, the SEALs have become the centerpiece of numerous feature films.

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It’s hard to come out of Lt. Dan Band: For the Common Good without a healthy feeling of irony. You’ve just witnessed a prime example of man’s inhumanity and cruelty inspiring a display of man’s greatest virtues–honor, sacrifice, compassion, and unity.  It’s not just a concert film; it’s another illustration of the central thesis of Andrew Breitbart’s Righteous Indignation: that pop culture trumps politics without fail. In the midst of a hopelessly contentious and divisive foreign war, our politicians and pundits have nowhere near the profound effect on troop morale as a simple cover band led by a TV actor. The study of the relationship between civilian and soldier in wartime provides a compelling subject for this expansive documentary.

Director Jonathan Flora frames the film around Gary Sinise, an actor and director with a long, intimate history with soldiers and veterans, though he himself has never served. From his brother-in-law, who was killed in Vietnam, to current bandmate Kimo Williams,  a ‘Nam veteran who started jamming with Sinise after they met on a production of A Streetcar Named Desire in the mid-90s, his career has always seemed to providentially intertwine with the military. Following the jihadist attacks of 9/11, Sinise felt compelled to help those directly affected by the Twin Towers’ destruction, volunteering in campaigns to benefit the FDNY. This spirit of volunteerism, in concert with his ever more frequent band practices with Williams,  materialized into a USO tour in 2003. Despite his diverse résumé, Sinise was universally associated with his Oscar-nominated performance as “Lieutenant Dan” from Forrest Gump, so as the group expanded, Sinise named it the “Lieutenant Dan Band,” and the rest is history. (more…)

Two of the best military documentaries since Jake Rademacher’s Brothers at War premiered at the G. I. Film festival last weekend to incredible audience enthusiasm.  David Scantling’s Patrol Base Jaker and Mitty Giffis Mirrer’s Gold Star Children captured viewers with two completely divergent looks at the War on Terror.  Patrol Base Jaker won the G. I. Film Festival’s coveted Best Documentary Feature Award telling the behind the scenes story of a successful counter insurgency mission that many in the liberal press don’t want to acknowledge.

This is NOT a propaganda piece – Jaker shows just how difficult the job of counterinsurgency is, and how successful and rewarding it can be. The 1st Battalion 5th Marine Regiment’s Regimental Combat Team 3, the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, Combat Logistics Battalion 8 and the unit’s highly motivated civil affairs teams took over Patrol Base Jaker in the almost deserted Taliban controlled town of Nawa-l-Brakzayi in Helmand Province. The British unit that was relieved had been so under manned that they had to over depend on air support that sometimes killed and wounded local civilians.

Enter Jaker’s commanding officer Colonel William McCollough, a scholar-warrior of the best type who commands through example, intelligence and understanding. McCollough’s officers, NCO’s and enlisted personnel not only push back the Taliban from Nawa but implement a large number of successful civil affairs missions, ranging from rebuilding and resupplying local schools, clearing irrigation ditches and providing wheat seed to replace the poppies that help fund the Taliban. They also reinvigorate the abandoned market place, gradually getting the locals to bringing back almost 80 merchants and do their best to help reform the corrupt local governmental hierarchy and police. This is a film about gaining trust, one uneasy step at a time. (more…)

It was Greek dramatist Aeschylus (525 BC – 456 BC) who wrote: “In war, truth is the first casualty.” Photographer, journalist and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker (for his documentary Restrepo) Tim Hetherington was the man who tried to prove otherwise.

War’s casualties have never felt more cruel.

Tim Hetherington, always a seeker of truth, was killed yesterday while covering the conflict in Misrata, Libya. Chris Hondros, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated photographer was also killed. Two other photographers, Guy Martin and Chris Brown, were injured. There is always an understanding of (and no way to prepare for) the possibility that those who follow their mission into the war zone may not make it back alive. Unfortunately it is a given that comes with the territory. There is even less inclination to prepare for the possibility that someone who is in that war zone not as a soldier, but as a journalist, will be among the fallen.

News of Tim’s death first came via Facebook. (It was an honor to be one of the 1,197 friends that stayed in touch with Tim and his work on Facebook, where he was sometimes known as ‘The Timinator.’) It was here that his friend and fellow photographer in Libya, André Liohn, posted the news that no one ever wants to read. As has become my habit with breaking news, I checked Twitter for the latest update. The last tweet on his Twitter account was posted on Tuesday and read “In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO.”

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An informative and intelligent discussion that desperately needed to be had outside the world of the news media and inside Maher’s world — the world of popular culture.

The most telling moment here is the audience reaction after Maher pulls no punches and says the following: 

“What it comes down to, is that there is one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them. And they say, ‘Look, we are a religion of peace, and if you disagree, we’ll cut your fucking head off.’”

The studio audience … applauds.

In the past, whenever Maher’s brought this truth up in this way, his audience has audibly gasped as the silent tension became thick and immediate. At this point, Maher was always on his own as his guests shifted uncomfortably in their chairs and the audience gulped for air to fight off a case of the PC vapors.

To his credit, though, Maher keeps on keeping on, keeps making this case and telling this truth as he sees it, and it appears now as though it’s finally penetrating.

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Oscar-winning screenwriter Mark Boal must be thrilled about this whole Libya thing, since he seems to be making a cottage industry out of articles, books and movies about American soldiers and how they are a bunch of incorrigible psychos whose desire to murder everyone they see is constrained only by their limited intellect.  Who knows what doors the latest “kinetic military action” might open for him in Tinseltown.

His current anti-soldier hit piece, The Kill Team, is about a group of disgraceful scumbags in Afghanistan who decided to murder several civilians.  With it, Boal seems to be following his tried and true formula – write something for publication in a past-its-prime magazine that makes American troops look like cro-magnons then work to turn it into a movie.  He took a Playboy article on Americans murdering each other and soon we had In the Valley of Elah.  You may have seen it – though the odds are stacked against it.  It was ignored by popular demand.

Another article, this one on bomb disposal experts, became The Hurt Locker, which took some of the bravest and most dedicated people in our armed forces and made them out as undisciplined, drunken, unprofessional clowns.  In fact, Boal got sued by one of the guys he allegedly wrote about.  To be fair, it did win an Academy Award . . . from the same band of geniuses who passed over Saving Private Ryan in favor of Shakespeare In Love and once picked as “Best Song” the unforgettable hit “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”  So, there’s that.

Boal’s technique is to chronicle the most degenerate fringes of the warfighters’ experience and repackage the most sordid episodes as its totality.  One can easily imagine the Rolling Stone editors eager for the chance to please their dwindling audience of aging Garfunkel-digging hippies and Chomsky-devouring clove-smokers with another prejudice-reinforcing piece about how those Middle-American Army guys are barely one step above gorillas.  Rolling Stone even promises a glimpse at the grim photos the mean old Pentagon doesn’t want you to see – as if there was some moral imperative for the military to provide gist for the jihadi propaganda mill.  Hey, that’s Boal and Rolling Stones’ job!

What is particularly cunning in his approach is that there is no excuse for the crimes these savages committed, and Boal uses this fact to deflect any kind of perspective.  Hundreds of thousands of young, heavily-armed and stressed American men and women have served overseas since 9/11.  Several dozen have murdered people.  You won’t find any city in America with a murder rate like that for that demographic. 

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Ed. Note: This article is relevant to Big Hollywood because the author of the piece Michael Yon is responding to here is Mark Boal, the screenwriter who won the Oscar for “The Hurt Locker.”  Much more to come.

Call me fussy, but I prefer that my conspiracies and cover-ups actually involve conspiracies and cover-ups.  The Tillman Story, a new leftist documentary on football player turned Army Airborne Ranger turned friendly fire casualty turned symbol of…something…posits a massive conspiracy to do…something…and an enormous cover-up of…something…but never quite explains what.  However, there are lots of ominous shots of George Bush and Karl Rove, so we can somehow gather that whatever it is is, in some way, all Bushitler’s fault.

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This is a bad film, both in its execution and its intent.  As a lawyer, it insults my intelligence.  As a veteran, it insults my professionalism.  As an audience member, it failed me as a film.  Pat Tillman, first seen in footage sitting nearly silently in a studio, begins the film as a cipher and ends as a cipher.  I know little more about the man or his motivations than I did coming in.  All I know is that I could not wait for it to be over.

This over-praised documentary is based on the premise that there was an enormous, mysterious conspiracy surrounding the death of Pat Tillman, which is a problem for the filmmaker since it is clear there is no giant, mysterious conspiracy surrounding the death of Pat Tillman.  The filmmakers cannot explain who conspired, or what they conspired to do.  Was there a cover-up?  Of what?  The film desperately wants there to be one, as does the family – perhaps that would give them the story the producers need and generate the meaning the family wants.  But, as the film demonstrates beyond all reasonable doubt, there isn’t one.  This is a story of mistakes, not malice. (more…)

[Ed. Note: Not having seen the upcoming critically-acclaimed documentary "The Tillman Story," and not being familiar with the story, I asked Jim Hanson of Big Peace if he would lay it out for us. Since making that request both Kurt Schlichter and I have seen the film, so there's much more to come. My thanks to Jim for his sober, comprehensive and insightful work here.]

Pat Tillman left one of the most sought after jobs on Earth as a star in the NFL to join the Army and volunteer as a Ranger. It was a noble, patriotic and selfless act that deserves to be his legacy. Unfortunately the circumstances surrounding his death get more attention than the sacrifice he made for this country. There is a movie coming out called “The Tillman Story” that seems to perpetuate some of the worst conspiracy theories about his death. It is important that we separate myths from reality. This piece will focus on the circumstances of the incident and the immediate reaction from the military in the weeks that followed.

Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan in 2004 was a tragic accident and resulted from fratricide. He was shot by members of his own unit who failed to identify an Afghan soldier and Tillman as friendlies. There are those who want to cast doubt on that and claim that there was a crime committed and that Tillman was murdered, but there is simply nothing in the evidence available that points to that. I have read hundreds of pages from the multiple investigations of the incident and there is simply no way to get that many people to tell almost exactly the same story of how the incident unfolded. (more…)

So, in that Rolling Stone piece that brought down General McCrystal, the writer spent three weeks with the troops.

What did he find?

Trash talk directed at bureaucrats.

Yeah, I know.

Here’s a fact: if someone followed me around for three weeks, they’d find far more worse. The storage container underneath my waterbed would put me away for life. Fact is, journos like me and those at Rolling Stone are so seedy, we could never survive the scrutiny we apply on others.

Simply put: Soldiers are better people than those who cover them.

But this writer followed the troops, who might as well be on Mars. That’s what Afghanistan is. A weird, scary place without decent cable. They don’t have time to worry about some slimy dickwad writer trying to ingratiate himself into their fold in order to get a damaging tidbit upon which to build a career. These soldiers deal with death. And that’s the irony. While those troops work like hell – in hell – to protect that writer from his own demise, he’s busy orchestrating theirs. How screwed is that? (more…)

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Just got dismissed from jury duty. Lawyer felt that I would be inclined to favor my opinion over others. by agreeing with him, I proved him wrong – but also got myself excused. Later, I removed my shirt and smeared peanut butter on my nipples in case they changed their minds.

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Fresh and innovative, Patrol Base Jaker  is a captivating retelling of the remarkable history of Afghanistan from the Russian invasion to the current U.S. counterinsurgency operation. Walk in the boots of the Marine combat and civil affairs teams in Helmand Province, Afghanistan as they fight to turn the tide against a resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda. Travel to the front lines where U.S. Marines stand at a wicked intersection of war, radical Islam, international drug trade, reconstruction, and a counterinsurgency strategy designed to reestablish the rule of law in Afghanistan.

vimeo Patrol Base Jaker

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Did you ever hear Jimmy Carter sound like a war hawk? Neither had we. Until we saw Patrol Base Jaker. Seriously, check out the trailer and you won’t believe your ears. And this is no Michael Moore hatchet job either…piecing together sound bytes to create some sort of Franken-statement. It’s all authentic Jimmy.

But aside from the shockingly pro-military statements from Carter (and Obama, by the way) what we really loved about PBJ is the fact that it documents a tremendous US military success story in Afghanistan…the kind you’ll never find in the pages of the New York Times or on any of the so-called “mainstream” news networks. (more…)

A few weeks ago I was extended a great privilege from Gary Williams, the author of SEAL of Honor: Operation Red Wings and the Life of Lt. Michael P. Murphy, USN. Williams has written a superb new biography of Murphy, who was killed in action on June 28, 2005 during Operation Red Wings and received from President George W. Bush the Medal of Honor for his gallantry in combat.

Gary asked me to deliver a speech during a SEAL of Honor book event this May. Of course, I readily accepted. I never pass up an opportunity to praise our men and women in uniform, but I am Army not Navy, I am a paratrooper not a SEAL, and I had never had the privilege of meeting Michael Murphy.

So I had some work to do to get to know this man on my own terms before I could speak with the authenticity that I desired. I already knew that Lieutenant Murphy and I shared one significant thing in common, which was that we both fought the Taliban in the Korengal Valley. (more…)

I don’t have much to say, and won’t until Episode Four.

This episode certainly speaks for itself, but there’s one thing I should note. If you found the first episode a little intense, you might want to steer clear of this one, as it makes the first one look like “The Brady Bunch.” Sample comment from someone who called me about a week after watching it: “I’ve been disturbed all week.” You will be taking one giant leap further into the heart of darkness. Shortly into the next episode, you will be firmly at its center.

And then I’ll have something to say.

**STRONG CONTENT WARNING**

If you’re new to all this, just click here for all the background, including the series prologue and Episode One, “Return To Ramadi.”

You can also see episodes from my time in the Triangle of Death, prior to Ramadi, as referenced in the series prologue, here.

I have just received word that the New York Times is preparing to go public with a list of names of Americans covertly working in Afghanistan providing force protection for our troops, as well as the rest of our Coalition Forces.  If the Times actually see this through, the red ink they are drowning in will be nothing compared to the blood their entire organization will be covered with.  Make no mistake, the Times is about to cause casualty rates in Afghanistan to skyrocket.  Each and every American should be outraged. 

As chronicled here, here, here, and here the Central Intelligence Agency via the New York Times has been waging a nasty proxy war against the Department of Defense over its use of former military and intelligence personnel to do what the CIA is both incapable and unwilling to do: gather the much needed intelligence that keeps our troops safe.  

According to Washington Post columnist, David Ignatius, “[T]he U.S. military has long been unhappy about the quality of CIA intelligence in Afghanistan,” and the senior military intelligence officer in Afghanistan, Maj Gen Michael T. Flynn went so far as to publish a stunning report calling for, “sweeping changes to the way the intelligence community thinks about itself.”  (more…)

Over the weekend, Time Magazine published a long, glowing profile of Tom Hanks to help promote his upcoming HBO miniseries “The Pacific.” And as with all things entertainment media, the subject is never challenged or even made to shift uncomfortably in his seat. The push to ascend Hanks to “national treasure” status is clearly on.

Hanks does seem to be a genuinely nice man and the work he’s done to bring American history to life on film is impressive, especially during a time when the singling out of America’s exceptionalism is more and more frowned upon in artistic and academic circles. ”From the Earth to the Moon,” “Band of Brothers,” and “John Adams” are not only artistic achievements, but in this MTV-addled culture, might be the best hope of teaching America’s youth about the unique history and greatness of this nation. And I suspect ”The Pacific,” the 10-part miniseries premiering this Sunday on HBO (which Big Hollywood’s Michael Broderick will cover extensively) will be a worthy addition to what came before.

But when it comes to leftist Hollywood, whenever Tinseltown and America meet, you have to brace yourself for it — and by “it” I mean the leftist sucker punch. Throughout, Hanks sounds perfectly reasonable, intelligent and even patriotic for a couple of thousand words. But of course that’s just the lure to get us on his side before we’re walloped with this left cross: [emphasis mine] (more…)

In my role as Executive Director of Ride 2 Recovery, a mental and physical rehabilitation program for injured veterans that makes a difference in the lives of those who come thru our program (more info: Ride2Recovery.com), I am asked to preview movies, music, and all things military and, or veteran related entertainment. Since we deal with a lot of PTSD patients, the scars of war are all to familiar and the haunting that they feel and the effects it takes on their families is hard to explain to those who do not know these brave men and women or experienced war and its related hardships themselves.

So it was last Thursday that I, along with a few other military organizations came to meet for a viewing of the upcoming movie “Lifted.” Because the director was a noted Hollywood liberal, I was not really sure what I was about to see.

In this ever polarized environment we live in today, it is rare to find a movie about the War on Terror that takes both a decided anti-war theme, but yet gives supporters of the conflict a chance to feel pride in the way a boy and his family overcome the struggles of deployment. (more…)

Kandahar, Afghanistan
08 February 2010

American troops are spread widely across Afghanistan.  Some are remote and accessibility is difficult.  In 2008, I was with six soldiers in Zabul Province who didn’t even get mail for three months.  They had no email.  They were on the moon.  Six courageous men, in the middle of nowhere, and their nearest backup was a small Special Forces team about five hours away.  Resupply to these small outposts is crucial, difficult, and would require major effort by ground.  Enter the United States Air Force.

Tonight’s mission was to fly from Kandahar Airfield (KAF) to Bagram Airfield (BAF), pick up specially rigged bundles of fuel and ammunition and parachute those to American forces up near the border of Turkmenistan. (more…)

Over the last few years, I have lost friends and become estranged from relatives because of politics.  At one time, I would have thought such a thing was unimaginable.  But in the past decade, as the rift between those on either side of the culture-values-political divide has expanded, it strikes me it was inevitable. 

The world, after all, saw friends and families divided in America during the 1860s and in Germany in the 1930s and now we see it here.  On the one side, we have Americans who believe that, in spite of its flaws, America is the greatest, most generous, nation on the face of the earth.  On the other side, you have Americans who believe that this nation is a house of horrors that has to be radically transformed by the radical transformer in the Oval Office, which these days should be renamed the Offal Office. 

If you’re convinced, as I am, that Barack Obama is the greatest menace America has ever faced — a far graver danger than Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union or Islamic fascism, simply because they all lacked the ability or determination to destroy our Constitution — losing a few friends and relatives is no big deal.  (more…)

My ex-wife pulled off one of the most diabolical stunts ever perpetrated on one human being by another.  When she was a kid, she took it upon herself to teach her younger brother the names of all the different colors.  But for reasons known only to her and Satan, she taught him the wrong names.  So, although he wasn’t color-blind, he wound up being what you might call color-dumb, believing that purple was yellow, green was orange and white was brown. 

What brought this to mind was discovering that it was the late Tim Russert who labeled liberal states blue and conservative states red.  Inasmuch as red had long represented the Soviet Union and the politics of those lunkheads around the globe who were devoted to Communism, I wonder if Russert had intentionally set out to muddy the waters or if he, too, had had a sinister older sister. 

A great many people, including right-wingers who should know better, have given Obama high marks for antagonizing his liberal base by deploying 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.  For one thing, General McChrystal had started out requesting 80,000 additional men and then lowered his request to 40-60,000 when it became obvious that Obama, even after spending two years insisting that Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, was a good war that had to be won, actually believed that he could personally beguile Al Qaeda and the Taliban as easily as he had America’s lap dog media.  (more…)