Going to War

Filmmaker Michael Epstein’s PBS-aired documentary serves up first-hand accounts from members of the U.S. military about being in the frontlines of battle. In mesmerizing interviews, veterans from different wars detail how their branches of service prepared them for battle—with much of the training centered on stripping away the concept of individuality in favor of a unified battalion where ego has no place. But nothing quite prepares these warriors for being in the thick of conflict, or in one astonishing anecdote told by a Vietnam War veteran, being mistakenly loaded into a transport truck of corpses and later found by a medic who was amazed to discover a living person among the freshly dead. Not everyone feels the agony of the moment—one female veteran of the Iraqi occupation expresses a surprising degree of exhilaration at being in the midst of the mayhem. The film features Sebastian Junger, co-director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Restrepo, and Vietnam War veteran Karl Marlantes, author of the Vietnam War novel Matterhorn. While the film doesn’t break any new ground in its consideration of frontline military service, it does provide a reminder that there is really no such thing as a good war. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)