"Gunner Palace" . . . another documentary coming soon . . .

[OneBlueSky]

this one's by a guy who spent time with the troops in Iraq . . . there are a couple of trailers on the website . . .

http://www.gunnerpalace.com/

With 400 soldiers under my nose and 24/7 operations, I quickly realized that it would be impossible to simply pick a handful of soldiers and stick with them. I would have to try to roll with as many people as possible as often as possible. While the soldiers were first distracted by my presence, after about a week I found a groove and I was soon allowed to wedge in between breech teams as they cleared houses.

The first raids were surprisingly soft. Sometimes we just rolled up and knocked. One night we headed out to capture a general who was on the coalition "blacklist", when we arrived at his house, a team knocked on the door and went inside. He put his kids to sleep, kissed his wife and grabbed a pre-packed bag by the door. He knew they were coming.



On another night, while raiding the home of suspected bomb builders, the scene was very different. One of the suspects reached for a weapon. He was put down with a fist. He and his two brothers were brought out to the lawn. He pleaded to the camera as soldiers commanded him to shut-up, "I'm a journalist. You get this wrong. Do you call this freedom?" I felt confused. I somehow wanted to clear up what I thought could be a case of mistaken identity. Nothing was found in the house. The brothers were taken to Abu Ghraib--four months later they were still there waiting for charges or to be cleared.



After that raid, an IED went off a few hundred meters outside the gate. Iraqi Police and American MPs were wounded. I joined the Quick Reaction Force lining up to investigate the scene. As we waited for the order to roll, the wounded came in. One was a young female National Guard soldier. The IED exploded right in front of her. She took shrapnel everywhere-including one eye. That night, her fellow MPs spent the night in the Palace. In normal life they were policemen, mechanics and lawyers. Here, as they staggered into the Palace to bed down, they were soldiers-their T-shirts covered in blood, many of them shaking with grief.

- more . . .

http://www.gunnerpalace.com/

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

1. This might be a pretty good movie.

sounds like realtime.