The Longest Month

I've nothing against anyone in any military force. Still, I found the idea of anyone making the fight for a(ny nation's sovereignty into some quasi-mythical claptrap ridiculous, overbearing, and dangerous.

Fighting isn't anything to be proud of. The American revolutionaries who fought for the birth of the States didn't think anything like today's lunacy. They fought because they had to become free.

It might sound slightly cliché, but I'll take a quote from Captain of the Enterprise, James T. Kirk, who was trying to help destroy a supposed several-millennia-old creator of their society by leaving his intelligence but not his soul or compassion in the eponymously named 'Landreau' computer.

But when it was time for that final thrust to face Landreau, finally, whatever it might be, the two people of the planet suddenly became hesitant. Reticent.

Captain Kirk said one must fight for freedom, which isn't freely given.

That's more in the spirit of fighting for one's freedom I'm referring to.

The French who overthrew their monarchy, and, even when the Soviet Union collapsed, that's exactly what those Russians who wanted to maintain freedom did when they fought the remaining old communist oligarchy who decided to stage an overthrow.

I know many people around the world who were alive when Boris Yeltsin, a former Communist apparatchik, appeared from virtually nowhere and said, 'enough'!

That's what fighting's about.

It's not about mostly testosterone-pumped, not much upstairs types who think that 'fighting' means becoming a marine or some such nonsense.

If someone wishes to join their nation's military just for that (such as this film's speakers), it's a waste of my time, and it should be a waste of your time.

Stories like these often die with the soldiers who lived them - because they are too difficult to tell. This documentary found a way. Real stories. Real attack pilots. Real soldiers. No scripts. Their words. If you want to know what it was like to be in the cockpit of an Apache gunship in the skies over Baghdad during the surge, this is as close as you'll get.

What a great documentary! Another part of Air Cav history with real stories, photos, and footage giving a small glimpse of what went on at the height of the surge in Iraq. You can feel the emotions from the soldiers who lived it as they share their part. These are stories and events that need to be shared.

The honest interviews of the pilots and ground crews involved make this documentary much more intimate than most, watching it you feel like you are talking with friends.

The Apache airframe is unique and to fly it so are the pilots. To disregard your life to ensure your brothers and sisters on the ground come home is the best honor. Thank you for remembering those who gave all so we can honor their legacy. Attack!