Woman's work

"So you end up maximizing, rather than minimizing, the risks."-- "Woman's Work"

The forever war

How long do you think you’ll continue covering Guantanamo?

There are people who call the War on Terror the "forever war"; if this is the forever war, then this is the forever prison. I want to stay here for the 9/11 trial, which I think is years away. I feel like I have an institutional knowledge. Everyone else rotates in and out of here. The soldiers come and go, the lawyers come and go, most of the reporters come and go. I feel a responsibility to stay. I want to see how it ends. I’m a little concerned it’s never going to.

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More movies

"Side Effects": Let's hope Soderbergh doesn't really retire on this note. Generally, not bad, but that kind of movie you enjoy in the theater, and it becomes a vague memory the next day.

The ladies will enjoy the too-brief appearance of Magic Mike, and the men will enjoy Catherine Zeta Jones and Rooney Mara making out.

"Argo": My god, is this movie boring. What's with the hype? The nominations? The awards? If this movie wins Best Picture, I'm moving to Zimbabwe. Also, most of the movie is made up, so there you go.

The most authentic thing about this film is the seventies hair.

"Zero Dark Thirty": Fantastic. Totally awesome. Completely terrific. Super great. Love the ballsy chick who just wants UBL dead. There is nothing not to love about a movie in which the leading lady refers to herself as a "motherfucker."

Shame on the Academy for not nominating Bigelow for the win.

I remember one night

I've got a new post up at The War Project, featuring Justin Savage.

I remember one night we camped out on the Iraq-Kuwait border on the way in. I’m there in my sleeping bag on a cot in the middle of dry, nothing desert. No landmark, no land features, nothing.

Read the rest here.

On a related note: I'm having some trouble with the Tumblr template I downloaded for that project. I'm using Synthesis, which is supposed to display images at high-res. But when I upload the photos, it compresses them to 500 pixels wide, and then stretches them to a non-high-res image on the Tumblr. Know how to resolve this issue? Email. 

The War Project

I've got a new post up at The War Project. The project has a new home online and a new format.

This is Dan Casara's story:

For three weeks, I didn’t know that Sgt. [redacted] and Sgt. [redacted] had been killed in action.

When I found out that they were dead, it was like from that weekend on, I couldn’t sleep without some type of aid.

To this day, I need medicine to sleep.

If you're interested in learning more or getting involved, or know someone who is: email me.

Thanks to Dan for sharing his story.

[READ THE REST]

Where the boys aren't

"It's really not fit for women," the media-affairs guy had said. "There's nowhere for you to sleep."

"Then we'll go," we'd said.

"That's where we wanted to be: the place not fit for women."

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The War Project: Spc. Benjamin Hart Viges

I've got a new interview up at The War Project. Hart Viges was a paratrooper deployed to Iraq in 2003. He became a conscientious objector.

I got the reputation over there as the guy who ran the .50 cal every day. ‘Cause other squads, they rotated out their .50 cal gunner, Mark 19 gunner. ‘Cause that was kind of like a very vulnerable spot. If anybody was gonna get shot first, it was gonna be the guy behind the biggest gun. Me, I had a thing about me. Angelina. I’m an Angelina Jolie fan. I had to ride Angelina every single day. She was my gun.

Photos on Flickr. [INTERVIEW: Spc. Benjamin Hart Viges]

Filmmaker looking for Iraq or Afghanistan veteran to act in short film

The other day I received an email from David Gerson, a New York-based actor and filmmaker. David is casting for a short film that he's directing, and he's looking for an Iraq or Afghanistan veteran to cast in the lead.

"American Standard" is a film about the challenges of a vet returning home and readapting to civilian life. We are seeking a veteran who has served in either Iraq or Afghanistan (or both) who might be interested in "acting" in this short film. No previous experience necessary, just a familiarity with his own emotions and a willingness to share his experiences with the public.

 You can email David for more information here. 

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The War Project excerpt

I was in the 1-325, so we were an airborne infantry regiment, ‘cause our ancestors were gliders in World War II, and, you know, we just stand a little bit taller and talk more shit than the regular soldier, because soldier is a dirty word at Fort Bragg. You are not a soldier. You are a paratrooper.

-- An excerpt from an upcoming interview for The War Project, which should be posted next week.

Afghanistan, October, 2010

The Big Picture has posted the latest installment of its Afghanistan series: "Afghanistan, October, 2010."

Here, a Marine's helmet is decorated with lyrics from a Misfits song.

[earlier]

Dog tags

Last Friday, I interviewed an Iraq veteran for The War Project. This is a photograph that I took of his dog tags. The chain also holds the dog tags of various of his family members. There are five dog tags on the chain. It was only later, after I had looked at the photograph several times, that I realized the text on the newspaper under the dog tags reads, "REMEMBER."

I'll post a link here when that interview is up on the site.

Update on The War Project

Recently, I took a break from updating The War Project -- an independent, online project I'm doing featuring the stories of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan -- while I relocated, but now that I'm settled in, I'm back to it.

If you're a veteran interested in participating, or if you know a veteran who may be interested in participating in this project, email to find out more.

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Talking is contagious

Two years ago this day, I was a private as part of the Canadian Charlie Company Battlegroup in Kandahar, Afghanistan - a part of the 2 PPCLI-led Task Force 1-08. We deployed on a patrol south off PSS (Police Sub-station) Spin Pir, and right away, you could tell that it was going to be a bad day. Men, women and children streaming north, pushing wheelbarrows and carrying possessions... Very strong combat indicators.

-- Boing Boing commenter

The War Project letters

There's a new component to The War Project: first-person accounts written by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. The first comes from Sgt. Carlos Reynaldo Farias:

Sgt. Carlos Farias served in Charlie Company, 1st Platoon, 1-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. He was deployed to Afghanistan from January 2007 to April 2008. "I wrote [this] days after the event," he wrote in an email. "The day was hell. ... I documented it to help me get over the situation, a venting process if you will. It did help some but even at that for weeks I could not sleep fearing that either one of the members of my team or myself would die in the coming missions."

An excerpt:

Well it was the morning of the 6th, D day to be in fact, June 6th 2007 and we were south of Musa Qala and the Kajaki dam. Wake up was at 0120 and that was shitty on my part cuz I couldn’t fucking sleep all night and only got a couple of good hours during the day. So damn hot that you couldn’t really sleep well and if you did you woke up dehydrated as hell.

Moving forward, the site will feature interviews, letters, and photos. If you're not yet familiar with the project, visit the About page. If you're an Iraq or Afghanistan veteran interested in getting involved, here's the email.

[Sgt. Carlos Reynaldo Farias]

Photo credit: Spc. Tyler Harrell.

When your subject finds you

It seems I may have found my next subject, or subjects, for The War Project, or, rather, my subject, or subjects, found me.

Here, filmmaker Alex Jablonski talks about finding stories in documentary filmmaking.

You learn that the more force you apply the less likely you are to get the results you want and when you do hear a ‘no’ you can either drive yourself crazy thinking about how great the piece could’ve been or to trust that there’s a different piece you need to make right now.

In The New New Journalism, Gay Talese, who wrote the best magazine article ever written, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," says:

I don't know who the characters are at the beginning, I don't know the story, but I do know the stage of the theater. I find the characters by simply showing up at the "theater." As I spend more time in there, they emerge. It's almost as if I imagine them, and then, they mysteriously appear.

Most of the time, that's how it goes. Interestingly, I suspect this next story isn't so much a war story, but a love story, which is, oddly, fitting.

What he (and she) said

"To be a warrior, one must engage." -- "The War Within"

I get email

Your brutal in a nice way. I feel like a shaken baby. And I've been paying attention. Your scary dead on. You reminded me I wanted to re-read "Dispatches" by Michael Herr.

I bet you could write a hell of a war story. Soldiers. Now that I'm musing about it, I guess we we're a kind'a porn star. I'll have to think about that.

Anyhow, good read. Thank you. I'll be clicking around for more.

Hearts and minds

This is the trailer for "Battle for Hearts and Minds."

On July 2nd, 2009, four thousand US Marines of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade launched a major helicopter assault into a Taliban stronghold in the Helmand River Valley in southern Afghanistan in order to break a military stalemate with the insurgent group.

Directed by freelance photojournalist and independent filmmaker Danfung Dennis, it was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II.

"I think more and more docs will be filmed like this because all you need is this camera, your own laptop and some editing skills, and you can put together your own documentary." -- PBS

You have officially run out of excuses.

"Your measure's not found in how much time you have on this earth, but what you do with the time that you have."

Truth is beauty

The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can't help but gape at the awful majesty of combat. You stare out at tracer rounds unwinding through the dark like brilliant red ribbons. You crouch in ambush as a cool, impassive moon rises over the nighttime paddies. You admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move, the great sheets of metal-fire streaming down from a gunship, the illumination rounds, the white phosphorus, the purply orange glow of napalm, the rocket's red glare. It's not pretty, exactly. It's astonishing. It fills the eye. It commands you. You hate it, yes, but your eyes do not. Like a killer forest fire, like cancer under a microscope, any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference -- a powerful, implacable beauty -- and a true war story will tell the truth about this, though the truth is ugly.

-- "How to Tell a True War Story" by Tim O'Brien

[Photo by Michael Yon used with permission]

Where the girls aren't

"We'd ended up in the Korengal valley, a place of everglade beauty, screeching monkeys, and gruff mountain tribes. 'It's really not fit for women,' the media affairs guy had said. 'There's nowhere for you to sleep.' 'Then we'll go,' we'd said. That's where we wanted to be: the place not fit for women. By which I guess he meant male, smelly, rough. We were doing a story on air strikes and civilian casualties, and I wanted the point of view of the soldiers dropping the bombs."

-- Elizabeth Rubin, "Mother Courage: Being Pregnant on the Frontline"