The documentary is about a solider who makes a judgment to shoot, and it's not in the heat of battle. However, it is not a straightforward murder case either. The soldier is an unsophisticated young guy from a rural community who "happens to be gay". Usually the "happens to be gay" line is sort of a PC afterthought , but in this case it is relevant .
He is gay at a time when our society says we are all enlightened and it doesn't matter, and this is true to some degree... well.... sort of.. As a baby boomer I hear the young people don't care about the gay thing, yet guys my sons age seem to be obcessed by anything that could remotely be called "gay". From sitting next to a buddy at the movies to sharing a hotel room to save money, they seem way more inhibited than prior generations or baby boomers were to doing anything that remotely looks "gay". I'm sure in the military it would make a difference , I thought his boyfriend was selfish and wrong to out him at his job. He said he didn't like being put back into the closet, but he pretty much outed himself by his mannerisms where Clint did not, and he shouldn't have begrudged Clint for having that choice to conceal it if it helped his career.
Listening to the accused's men in his unit , they are very convincing in their account of an order to fire that they all consistently thought was "Fu*&ed up". Either they are the worlds best actors, or they were telling the truth. In addition , Clint's explanation of what went down was frightening. He shot into a village to get them to come talk , then he changed the rules of engagement to include simply being on a motorcycle , not unlike guys thinking two guys eating at a restaurant together was "gay", its ridiculous . He may have been over compensating in an effort to be viewed as "tough", and made a poor decision to shoot at people for simply riding a motorcycle as a result . Whenever you try to hard at anything it has the opposite effect of what you are trying to do.
As far as motives on the part of the accused, he seemed to sadly feel under pressure to prove that, although he was gay he was not weak, something he didn't need to do because he wasn't, and people wouldn't have thought he was (weak that is).
We were depending on the filmmakers to present us with both sides, and in this case they seemed to succeed.
They noted that no biometrics were taken from the victims, however, he wouldn't have had biometrics prior his decision to shoot, and they didn't have any weapons on bomb making materials on them at the time of their death. None of us were there, but based on what seems to have happened, I can see why they got the verdict that they did.
