Finally, a film about our military I can recommend

Please click on and watch the above trailer.

Last night, my wife and I were heading for Chicago where I am giving a talk on Abraham Lincoln to one of many clubs around the country who support the school where I teach.

I had seen that the movie "Brothers at War" was going to be shown in Decatur, Illinois, so we made plans to stop there and see it before arriving in Chicago. Little did I know that Decatur was the hometown of the family of the subjects of the film. The director of the film, Jake Rademacher, and oldest of the brothers, had decided to make the film about his two younger brothers in order to get an idea why men were signing up to return over and over again to go back to Iraq.

He showed up for the film last night, being greeted by so many old friends, and gave us a little Q & A after the film. The audience had a decidedly supportive cachet but even more of a frustration with the way the mission in Iraq has been treated by Hollywood and the US press media. It was clear this was one reason that Rademacher made the film, but it is really refreshingly free of politics and polemics. What it is truly a tribute to is the sacrifice that the men and their families make to support their highest sense of service to the United States of America and a chance to help oppressed peoples who have been bullied by dictators like Saddam Hussein.

The last 30 minutes of the film are the most rewarding because we finally get a sense of the Iraqi people, and more importantly, the nascent new Iraqi army. Most of the film was shot in two stints Jake took with his brothers, and their comrades, in Iraq.

We see many things we never see on the TV news: Iraqis telling us our troops are "the good guys", GIs saying "I'd give my life for America...without hesistation", the boredom, the good-natured four-letter word joshing, a firefight...and casualties.

It's not a whitewash...it was clear that the Iraqi army isn't going to be the US Marines anytime soon, but the looks on their faces when they get praise from their Marine advisor for running TOWARDS the gunfire, and taking on the "wahabis" as the enemy is called, is priceless. The men kiss each other on the cheek, and you can see that if we are willing to have the gonads to hang in there with the Iraqi people, and not just for a few months or years, that they just might make a difference in that insane part of the world.

I stopped wiping away the tears after the first few minutes of the film an just let the salt dry; a mark of pride in what I was viewing.

There is no word yet on when there will be a DVD of this film, but I encourage anyone to go to the website and click on either "theaters near you" or "join a task force." As you can imagine, there were plenty of theaters showing junk like "Lions and Lambs" or even "Redacted", but getting "Brothers at War" has been a real challenge. Even with the financial and connective support of Gary "Lt. Dan" Sinese and Jon Voight has not made it easy for Rademacher to get this film distributed.

Any city that can sell 1000 pre-paid tickets will get the film there, so the producers are organizing "task forces" in various states to get the film shown in their area. As you can imagine, much of the focus has been in towns with a large National Guard or military base population.

But this is a film that should be seen by all US citizens so they have a better understanding of what military families sacrifice in order to keep us safe.

I, for one, would love to be able to show it in my classroom someday. There will be issues with that, it's rated R for language and a brief shot of a pretty tough war wound, but the message to our culture needs to be heard.

Coach