YET FURTHER THOUGHTS ON RESTREPO

Another classmate of mine, Frank Kehl, contributes further thoughts on "Restrepo," following those of Ted Beal on January 5, 2011, below.

I'm just back from hearing Sebastian Junger at the Carnegie Council, "The Voice for Ethics in International Policy." Junger is the author of War, and the co-producer, director of Restrepo about a year in the life of US soldiers in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. This listserv had a lively discussion of Restrepo the documentary, about the operations base in the Valley named after a Columbian-American medic killed in combat. That discussion was before Junger's co-producer and friend, Tim Hetherington, was killed in Misrata, Libya, six weeks ago when a bomb exploded in the midst of a small group of war correspondents.

Those who've read the book or seen the documentary know that Junger's intent was to reflect war the way war is experienced by combat troops in a zone of nearly constant combat: the emotion of knowing your base could be attacked at any time; the terror as you wait and try to catch a little sleep before a 24 hour patrol that will begin at 2 AM; carrying over 100 pounds on that patrol; the discomfort of not showering for a month at a time, etc.

Yet all but one person in that unit that he followed re-upped for another hitch.

Junger explored the "adrenaline high" hypothesis (my word) of why 19 and 20 year-olds would do that. Yeah, that's a part of it he acknowledges. But it leaves out two other elements. As a thoroughly trained, and fit and equipped combat soldier, you are at the top of the food chain (his phrase). The statistic: 3% of the military sustain 80% of the casualties; these young men were among the 3%. You are respected by other military and by civilians back in the world. Take away your weapon and your uniform, and back in the world you are a 19 or 20 year old at the bottom of the food chain. So, along with the danger there is this respect.

But also there is brotherhood. (All the soldiers at OB Restrepo were men.) Brotherhood is different from friendship. Yeah, a few of the soldiers were friends, but ALL were brothers. What does that mean? In the Q & A he referred to a couple of Hollywood war films. Band of Brothers was one. The other, The Hurt Locker, was the counter example. It got the "adrenaline high" half of war right -- the bomb demolition expert certainly gets off on risk and danger -- but the other half, the brotherhood, was missing: he's a cowboy who disregards the safety of the men in his unit. Junger pointed out that your life depends on your brothers, and their lives depend on you. Life and death. That covenant (my word) trumps all else. If you're under attack behind one rock and run out of ammo, and the guy behind a nearby rock has ammo to spare, is he going to risk his life to run it over to you? Junger noted that it does happen in war that a soldier will fall on a grenade to save his brothers.

I thought, the Three Musketeers' "One for all, all for one," kind of sums up that aspect. Junger put it like this: it doesn't matter if you had an argument with the guy the day before; it doesn't matter if he's American-born or not, black or white, North or South, gay or straight; you are brothers in the brotherhood of the ultimate, life or death.

In the Q & A, I asked Junger to explore more deeply a previous question. Junger has been a war correspondent in Bosnia, Liberia, Afghanistan among other places. What were his thoughts about his own mortality when he put himself repeatedly in those situations. His friend and partner Tim had been killed covering Libya. I had recently seen the exhibit on Spanish Civil War photography at the International Center of Photography. The featured photographer was Frank Capa, but Capa worked with two other fine photographers. One, a man, survived. The other, his girlfriend, was killed in that war. Capa himself was later killed in Vietnam at the end of the French occupation in 1954. Those odds were not particularly reassuring.

He answered that when he started covering war, he was young and bored -- with the journalism he was doing. And in denial. Denial will take you a long way, he stressed to audience laughter. Also, in fact, most war correspondents don't get killed. And, he said, emotionally he had more or less come to terms with the risks he was taking and was OK with them.

Then his tone shifted.

When he learned of Tim Hetherington's death, at first he was surprised that he hadn't taken it harder. Then, in subsequent days and weeks the gravity, the finality of that event, weighed on him.

During that period, he got an email from one of the soldiers he had known. The soldier told him: you got pretty close to understanding what war is (referring to his book and documentary). But not all the way. Now you really understand. When you are in combat, you don't know if you will survive or not. But for sure, not all of your brothers will survive. That you know. That you come back with. That you can never forget.

So, added Junger, I had come to terms with the risks I was taking. But I had never asked my wife, or my parents, or my friends. They had not come to terms with the risks I had taken on. They had not signed off on them.

I'm older now, in my 40s -- 49. When I first went to cover war, I was in my 20s. After Tim died I began to think about war differently. In his last email Tim said he was with other correspondents in a bombed-out building. The buildings on both sides of the street were also bombed out. On each side of that street Libyans were firing on each other. I realized that those young men were not there by choice or desire. A "machine" had put them there. It's that machine of war that interests me now.

After the talk was over, I went up and shook his hand, told him I had been so impressed by his Perfect Storm that the following summer I took the whole family up to Gloucester, looked up the brother of the captain who went down with the Andrea Gail, found he was working at a restaurant and went there only to discover it was his night off. So I left a short condolence note.

Junger graciously said, "That's a good story."

I added, "And a tribute to your skill."

Frank Kehl