They are very interesting though in light of this program they may seem rather lacking. I was a Flight Mechanic on a KC-130 so I got around the Gulf region quite a bit. Take a look if your interested.

Jeff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Geknjm2Rt4

War, even war with rules of the game (like sports: see Carol Gilligan’s “In A Different Voice” which gets into the gamelike nature of male group activity), is a human activity that permits murder in the name of a societal value or values. Isn’t that amazing? There always has to be a leader or a group or a powerful class or a government who startthe game, doesn’t there? Even rebellions require leaders. The question is: is it the rationale that gets people into this game, or is it something about war, about killing others, that’s so powerful that just about any rationale will do? E.G. nazi germany

Do women enjoy war as men do? Do they long to return to a war zone to save a buddy? Do they get the thrill from war that men do? Well, some women apparently do–I’ve heard them on NPR. But most don’t. It’s not because they’re going to be mothers. Or are avoiding pain. Giving birth is equal to most extreme forms of pain. So what’s the difference in this respect between women and men? Is there a difference? And if so, isn’t that something really important to understand? Because it seems that a lot of men in any society at any time seem to enjoy war. Even descriptions of warring gangs on villages in Africa, Asia, etc. often point to the drunken appearance of the soldiers, their eyes glazed.

So, listening to the program tonight, I asked myself: why should I want to get into the heads of these American soldiers? Is it to see war from a camera angle that adds a frisson because the camera becomes the eyes of the soldiers? Why would I want to see this? What do I learn? Their feelings, their skills at what they do, their frustrations, their triumphs, their mistakes? Am I asked to be a voyeur of what is one of the most most appalling recurrences in the history of human society? If not a voyeur, then what’s the point?

Moreover: this documentary offers yet another new technique for plunging into experiences that further desensitize us. No, I don’t believe that I will have a grand new perception of what war is about by haivng an upclose and personal experience of it. Instead, I think how much further this technique may now be taken– and who doesn’t run to exploit a new technique, a new technology, damn the consequences? Think of it, we can attach cameras, perhaps, to the torturers? to the tortured? Get into their heads?

I was struck by Zack, who loves being a soldier. This citizen soldier does his job, doesn’t think about why he’s doing the job. It’s an occupation. What about the guys who did think about what and why they were soldiering? What about the Israeli refusenicks, in a society where the citizen soldier has the highest respect, who thinks about his role in the occupation and dares the societal denegration he’ll experience when he says, after thinking about it, “No!”

So what do soldiers love about soldiering? Zack told us what we already know from Christopher Hedges, who said it in his book, “War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning:”War experience is like a drug.” Yes, as Zack said, it gives the rush of adrenalin that people will risk their lives for in the air, on mountains, on the sea, etc. When Hedges realized he’d become an addict to violence, he got out. But soldiering may, indeed, become an addiction. I believe that Zack said something almost to that effect in the interview tonight.

So governments and other powerful agents can count on soldiers to keep on, to go back to Iraq again and again, leaving families behind, because they know that saving your buddy, the buddy in war who is as close as your own beating heart, becomes the most important thing in a soldier’s life.

After the Six Day War, a remarkable book was published of interviews with soldiers about their experience. What really struck me was the answer one soldier gave to the question: “How did it feel to finally see Jerusalem (forbidden to Jews since 1948) and the Wall?” The soldier replied: ” Well, I suppose I should have felt this was really important, maybe even one of the most important things in my life, but the truth is, the most important thing for me was that I saw my buddy, Uri, and when i saw he was alive, I never felt such happiness.”

Those who send young men to war can always depend on this sense of bonding–which often seems to me to replace or fulfill the need for a genuinely mystical or religious experience–to keep soldiers fighting. Indeeed, Zack did mention the meta-experience he has in Iraq, of doing something bigger than anything you’d do for yourself. He wasn’t talking about reconstructing schools; it was about “doing the job” in a combat situation.

Years ago, i was struck by the depiction, on Greek amphoras, of soldiers in battle, lunging with their spears while having erections. I began to suspect that men–some men–may love war because it keeps them in a state of continuous erotic arousal. I don’t know if that’s the case, and I certainly hope not, for if it’s so, then the dream of this species’ learning to resolve conflict without war is a pipe dream. Then again, who says wars are fought to resolve conflicts? There are other reasons, not so mysterious, that are far more petty and ignominious. Look at Iraq.

So I want to get back to my question: why should we run to see this documentary? If I were a filmmaker or documentarian or student of film or journalist or historian of war or psychologist, etc., I might have a reason. I suppose. What is the basis of this passion to experience the thing in itself, if at all possible, even if it’s about terrible suffering? That’s the question that troubles me.

And finally, what does the ceaseless saturation of media space with the technology, politics, experiences, opinions, consequences, fears, and analyses of war do to all of us? Are we not, by now, a militarized society feeding on war and the adrenalin rush it gives just as do the soldiers on the front? Can you imagine, almost five years after the eleventh of September, 2001, living for a week, just a week, with no mention of terrorism, catastrophe, spying, military technological developments, death death death? Is this documentary so neutral in its agenda? Since when are there pure facts as such about experience? Is the documentary neutral like a well-carved figure, like a plough, like a bird’s nest?

As I said, I’m pondering these questions, filled with feeling, saddened that a generation of children is growing up in an environment so degraded by the world-wide eruptions of war and violence, learning from the adult world that war is inevitable and natural, like the seasons.

In my research that’s what I’ve found as well. Soldiers, like anybody else performing hero acts– want attention.

My question: did the soldiers act differently with the cameras present? Army Lt. Col Robert Bateman was on On the Media last Friday, and he had repeated his statement frm before the war that more embedding would prevent future My Lai massacres.

“Is the disconnect between civilian life and military life widening or is the war in first person, told through films and blogs, breaching the gap?”

In theory, the blogs *should* help bridge (not breach) the gap. But again, there’s a misconception about the blogs. There are some well-written blogs, and there are some blogs which connect to individuals personally or through chains of trust. But I had far better luck investing my time in books (most of the better writing warbloggers have retired).

This brings to mind some more of my research on milblogging that I’ve yet to publish on Civilities (sorry…). I’ve a good bunch of milblogs, and read the books of Colby Buzzell (Army blogger/enlistee) and of Nathaniel Fick (Marine officer/scholar), and have recently been reading The First Casualty by Phillip Knightly, a history of war correspondents.

It’s a tricky subject to tackle. Nobody really has the best “full” picture. But the major concern about news correspondence is what’s happening *now* vs. the long view. When something is packaged as a movie, it’s not packaged as current events. So viewers are more apt to recognize the artifact as someone’s POV.

I do remember that many of the milbloggers were counting on The War Tapes to “counter” the media.

I’m genuinely curious, and will see this when it makes the rounds. Is it another development in an already sophisticated recruitment toolbox or something more candid?

Also I can recommend watching Voices of Iraq (http://www.voicesofiraq.com/), it is interesting and provocative, whatever context or bias it is viewed with.

I agree that cameras in the hands of Iraqu’s would be good. I also think that a documentary about the IVAW – Iraqi Veterans Against War http://www.ivaw.net/ – would start to balance the picture a bit. You need a aggregrate of perspectives.