The Art of War
David
By Terry Boyd, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, December 14, 2004
BAUMHOLDER, Germany Filmmaker Michael Tucker is perplexed.
The Berlin-based documentary maker asks why America doesn’t seem to
care about the Iraq war or the American soldiers who are fighting it.
America, he says, has lost interest in the war and turned the channel
to “Survivor” and “American Idol.”
“My friends say, ‘You’re obsessed with this war,’” Tucker said in a
telephone interview from his Berlin office. “I say, ‘How can you not
be?’ The American people have no idea what life is like for these
soldiers.”
Tucker, a Seattle native, has channeled his obsession into “Gunner
Palace,” the first feature-length film about the Iraq war; a film that
he says is from the perspective of the soldiers themselves.
It’s a film that may do for the 1st Armored Division’s 2nd Battalion,
3rd Field Artillery Regiment nicknamed “Gunners” what HBO’s “Band
of Brothers” did for Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division: Make
them into American icons.
The movie is set to open Feb. 11 in six U.S. markets, then expand the
following week to 15 markets. Tucker said he hopes to have pre-release
screenings next month at major U.S. posts, such as Fort Bragg, N.C.,
and Fort Drum, N.Y., but those plans are not yet complete.
Tucker spent a total of two months between September 2003 and April
2004 living with the unit at what soldiers call “Odai’s Love Shack,” a
partially bombed-out palace on the Euphrates River where Saddam
Hussein’s son, Odai, brought paramours for trysts.
The regiment set up headquarters at the palace complex, which they
nicknamed “Gunnerland,” while patrolling Al-Adhamiya, one of the most
volatile sections of Baghdad. Tucker accompanied soldiers on countless
missions and simply hung out with the troops. He said that left him
with a sympathetic view of his soldiers that strongly runs counter to
an image colored by soldiers’ abuses of Iraqi captives at Abu Ghraib
prison.
“I tended to give soldiers the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “They
didn’t ‘sandbag’ detainees (place sandbags over their heads). It
shocked me you didn’t see rougher treatment of detainees” given the
constant threat level.”
He did see, over time, mounting frustration among troops over the
language barrier, and the fatigue of working nearly around the clock.
“It’s a bunch of 20-year-old kids who just want to survive,” he said.
Gunnerland was a world between the reality of raids and attacks and
the “real” world via the Internet, phones and the media, Tucker said.
There were the funny moments, when soldiers would pull up to find
suspects conveniently waiting to be caught, and darker moments when
the U.S. troops rammed Humvees into houses, only to find out they had
the wrong targets, he said.
Tucker said his goal is to show Americans without being voyeuristic,
political or patronizing a world that he finds inspiring and
terrifying.
He quotes one of the men he calls “soldier/poets:”
“It’s like (Spc.) Richmond Shaw said – ‘For y’all this is just a show,
but we live in this movie.’”
Tucker and his partner, Petra Epperlein, have shown “Gunner Palace” at
the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado and the Toronto Film Festival
in Canada to enthusiastic reviews.
It is, said Tucker, art out of pain.
It was painful getting to know and respect soldiers and officers such
as Sgt. Maj. Eric F. Cooke and 1st Lt. Ben Colgan before they died in
separate attacks, he said.
After that, he said, he couldn’t make “something rah-rah.” But neither
could he make a film disrespectful of soldiers. Tucker said: “I most
like that it shows them being them.”
Tucker succeeded in keeping the film “apolitical,” said Jon Powers,
26, a former 2-3 Field Artillery captain, now a schoolteacher in
Buffalo, N.Y.
“It’s a great movie … for soldiers to see, and … for their families
and friends to see if they want to understand what we went through for
14 months,” said Powers, who saw “Gunner Palace” at the Toronto Film
Festival in September.
The film is, he said, an accurate depiction of daily life made by a
filmmaker given extraordinary access by Lt. Col. Bill Rabena, the
battalion commander. Attempts by Stars and Stripes to reach Rabena
were unsuccessful.
“People always ask me if there was censorship; if I had trouble
getting access and all those issues,” Tucker said.
Instead, he said, he had unrestricted access to soldiers in their off
hours, to all missions and even to interrogations of suspected Iraqi
insurgents. “They embraced your being there,” Tucker said. “People
just want their story told.”
Whether the regiment’s soldiers will be able to go to the local base
theater to watch themselves on the big screen remains unclear. Army
and Air Force Exchange Service executives say that’s unlikely, unless
a major distributor with whom AAFES has a contractural relationship
picks up the film, and it goes into wide release, said Judd Anstey,
media branch manager at AAFES headquarters in Dallas.
Viewers should be prepared for what Powers calls “some down-and-dirty”
footage, including a scene where soldiers are “playing guitars and
basically hanging out,” a peaceful moment interrupted by a mortar
attack. “But once (the audience) gets over the shock, it will get a
conversation started. … The guys who went with me to see it said, ‘Is
that what it was really like?!’ … I said, ‘Yeah.’”
diver...@aol.com
( OT, BTW)
reviews here..
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gunner_palace/
& SINCE we're off topic,
2 films..
1:) Sideways.. Funny .. really funny...
2:) Million Dollar Baby..
this film just connected.. Gritty atmosphere..Great Fight Scenes...
She apparantly worked out 4 hours a day for weeks to get in shape for
the film..
Great story.. Morgan Freeman can do no wrong..
- But you might want to just get up & leave before the ending...
David
culture. I see it as a defensive move. The last thing I want to be
is in sync with the masses.
cuh...@webtv.net
enemy.I don't know if I would classify it as an,Art.Our U.S.Men and
Women in our U.S.Military think on their own,Individually,they work via
Gut Hunches.
cuhulin
dxAce
David wrote:
> I'll wait on the mainstream stuff. I'm a year behind on the pop
> culture. I see it as a defensive move. The last thing I want to be
> is in sync with the masses.
LOL, I rather doubt that you'll ever be in sync with anything, 'tard.
dxAce
Michigan
USA
David
RHF
.
Michael Tucker is Obsessed with "America's War in ______ "
{ It Is His Nature }
.
And 'you' are an "Obsessive Compulsive" OFF-TOPIC Poster [.]
{ It Is Your Nature }
.
Sadly - If it is "Off-Topic" on this NewsGroup :
Most likely it began with a Message posted by the
Prime Obsessive Compulsive Off Topic poster DaviD.
[ A Political Cadre of the Democrat Party of the USA. ]
.
david - one wonders... do 'you' like being "you" ~ RHF
.
.
David
are a lot of military types here who may find the flick interesting.
If you don't, fine. Just back the fuck off, will ya?
On 5 Mar 2005 15:20:52 -0800, "RHF" <rhf-new...@pacbell.net>
wrote:
Li Changchun
news:eugk211cdjp5sm5r7...@4ax.com...
> Look here you freak, nobody elected you the fucking sheriff. There
> are a lot of military types here who may find the flick interesting.
> If you don't, fine. Just back the fuck off, will ya?
>
Oh my! Revealing your true Liberal/Leftist/Socialist/Communist character
now are you?
RHF
.
.
David
Where the heck do you nut jobs come from? Where does it say that
anyone who hasn't drunk the Kool Aid is a communist?
The film is politically neutral. It is pro-soldier. Yet, because of
who knows what, the reactionaries react.
RHF
.
Yes the Focus of the Film is on the Soldier and the War.
.
Yes 'you' Posted another Off-Topic Message - NOT About Shortwave.
.
DaviD - Hello - Get A 'freaking' Clue ~ RHF
.
.
running dogg
> DaviD - Did I Touch a Sensitive Spot ? - freakingly yours ~ RHF
It seems so. He knows that he doesn't care about shortwave, just about
spreading his ideology. Well, this is not the place for it. To be fair,
other posters seem to regard this group as a forum for their mental
instability. Al Patrick posts bible quotes all the time and suggests
that God agrees with his favorite kook hosts, while dxAce insults
everybody with the same insults all the time and listens exclusively to
Diego Garcia. But David posts the most off topic posts, and most of the
stuff he posts isn't even on shortwave (at least Al's kooks are on SW)
but stuff he got off the internet.
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
cuh...@webtv.net
a mighty fine Sheriff too.Over here,if somebody is trying to break into
your home,just let the bastard get so much as one finger inside and you
shoot the bastard stone cold dead and it is OK.
cuhulin
David Stinson
drag them inside before you call us..."
Telamon
"RHF" <rhf-new...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> DaviD - Did I Touch a Sensitive Spot ? - freakingly yours ~ RHF
You sure did by giving him the attention he craves and he will keep it
up as long as you pay attention to him.
--
Telamon
Ventura, California
cuh...@webtv.net
advice to DO exactly That!
cuhulin
cuh...@webtv.net
cuhulin
cuh...@webtv.net
cuhulin
RHF
.
"Where the heck do you nut jobs come from ?"
If 'you' Post It - The Will Come !
and come, And Come. AND COME !
.
Many would ask : "Where are 'you' coming from DaviD ?"
.
get a clue - stop the off-topic posting ~ RHF
.
.
dxAce
RHF wrote:
> DaviD,
> .
> "Where the heck do you nut jobs come from ?"
It's my understanding that there is a factory down south somewhere. No doubt
working overtime.
dxAce
Michigan
USA
cuh...@webtv.net
too,both North and South. www.homelandsecurityus.com Article about
the messed up news media and Steve Quayle's link,Story of the Day.
cuhulin
David
help keep wages depressed and thus help the government make more
money.
dxAce
-=jd=- wrote:
> On Sat 12 Mar 2005 09:41:22a, David <ric...@knac.com> wrote in message
> news:vqv531t95ocjt01vv...@4ax.com:
>
> > The illegals are here because the government wants them here. They
> > help keep wages depressed and thus help the government make more
> > money.
> >
>
> Odd logic you have there...
Most 'tards are indeed odd.
dxAce
Michigan
USA
Honus
"RHF" <rhf-new...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:1110608514.4...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
Try taking your own advice. You just started an entire off-topic thread
yourself. If you ignore the guy, he'll go away. All you're doing is feeding
him.
Brenda Ann
> The illegals are here because the government wants them here. They
> help keep wages depressed and thus help the government make more
> money.
>
Don't know about the government per se, but the economies of several states
(CA, OR, WA, ID, NM, AZ, TX) count on them for sure. Without the migrant
workers, many crops would never even be planted, let alone harvested,
because most Americans simply won't do those jobs for any wage. I used to
work the fields (strawberries, sugar beets, potatoes) when I was young, and
was almost universally the only caucasian person there. Most were Mexicans,
some were Native Americans. Some Afro-Americans depending on the state, but
not many.
This is not a moral assertion on whether it's RIGHT or WRONG.. only an
assertion that it is fact.
running dogg
> DaviD,
> .
> "Where the heck do you nut jobs come from ?"
A slow leak somewhere in the South where WWCR is located?
> .
> If 'you' Post It - The Will Come !
> and come, And Come. AND COME !
> .
> Many would ask : "Where are 'you' coming from DaviD ?"
That's more certain. A slow leak in Los Angeles.
> .
> get a clue - stop the off-topic posting ~ RHF
> .
> .
>
RHF
There are more Illegal Aliens in LA County
then in All of California's Central Valley.
.
Illegal Aliens depress the Wage Scale and make many
under-educated and poor American Citizens Un-Employable.
.
They (Illegal Aliens) may be 'good' for Business in the
short-term; but they are not necessarily "Good" for
America, over the long-term.
.
so say i - my opinions stated as facts ~ RHF
.
.
CW
Think, think, I know it's hard but try.
"David" <ric...@knac.com> wrote in message
news:vqv531t95ocjt01vv...@4ax.com...