The Line

A well-told story about real fur seals, for whom moral principles are important, corrupt politicians who help military assassins, a nasty galagher and his wife, I hope the navy will reopen the case.

This is a great examination of the mental price of war, and what our American soldiers toil with mentally from the horror of combat. Although it uses the Gallagher case as the backdrop, it examines a much broader part of military experiences, especially for those on the front lines. I don't like how the filmmakers, at the end, slyly took a side/opinion. Otherwise this did a great job telling this particular story, and more importantly the overall issues at the heart of the matter. The one guy who was in "operations", in my opinion, was the only one who had a clear thought process about the whole situation. I have a real problem with training our people to defend us/go to war, and then bring them home to accuse/try them for crimes. Burden of proof better be beyond and mountainous.

In the end, Gallagher showed us he wasn't a warrior not even a soldier. Real warriors don't needlessly put their men at risk. Real warriors don't chase medals. And they certainly don't murder unarmed prisoners or terrorize civilian populations. The joke is, he couldn't even admit bravely his believes and that makes him more coward than ISIS members who are at least proud of their ideology. What a shame!

This was clearly an opportunity to give the men who testified against Gallagher, the chance to speak freely and offer their stories. Eddie has been give the platform on Youtube with many retired Seals allowing him to give his side of the story. This however, does not address the full amount of prosecutorial misconduct that went on. It also gives the head prosecutor an opportunity to justify why he used the email tracking. Clearly the judge disagreed. It gives the former secretary of state his chance to justify his reasons for the way things went down. And at the end, they lay the bias out in plain sight (after letting it fester for 3 episodes). Not a lot of unbiased interviews included in this documentary but I found Gio's insights pretty damning to these other dudes.

This came out about 3 yrs ago. Im just getting into it now through the mini series doc. The series good in setting the stage but was slanted toward the accusers. It left me empty with no solid conclusion. I did a deeper dive and read Eddies book and watched a 5 hour interview on a podcast that was more interesting that any streaming movies I have saved.

I felt there was so much more to hear on this and found that to be the case. There is SO much more going on behind the scenes that it is incredible this case even went to court. This never would have made the evidentiary standard in civilian court. Im amazed at how bad the Navy and the military treated Eddie without a conviction and the massive effort to convict him by fraudulent means. The things they did to him and his family deserves a full on docudrama unleashing all the dirt they tried to pull on him and his defense. The was a third world court trial and the prosecution should ashamed of themselves. In fact they deserve to be prosecuted for misconduct. The bottom line is even if someone did it- the prosecution must prove it. It is there job to do so legally and ethically. None of these were done in this case. Some cases are not provable for conviction. Once again Trump was found to be right on this. Riveting case for sure since you cannot believe this is happening in the US Military. Gratitude to Eddie and his family for their sacrifice in the service of our country. Watch the doc, but did deeper. Read the book and listen to the 5 hr podcast.