Posted on 01/07/2010 6:14:32 AM PST by 13Sisters76
Please forgive the vanity post, but I am moved to say something about the movie "Taking Chance". I was completely unaware of this movie until yesterday and admit to some trepidation as I rented it. I distrust Hollywood's treatment of our military and especially their treatment of our war dead, so was expecting something completely different than what I watched last night. The movie is reverential and touching and shows the love that REAL Americans actually feel for our soldiers. I admit that my estimation of Kevin Bacon has taken a new high and his portrayal of the Marine officer that escorts the soldier home is excellent. I hope that anyone renting movies in the future will give this movie a look- it was worth it.
I watched it on cable of all things (same stations that usually play stuff like “inconvenient truth”). You’re right. It was touching.
I watched it when it was first played on HBO. It’s everything you say it is.
Excellent and moving.
I agree 100%, I am humbled by the professionalism shown by those whose duty it is to bring our heroes home to their final resting place.
I was brought to tears a couple of times myself in the way the process was portrayed by Kevin Bacon and the other actors who honored not only Chance, but all of our men and women in uniform.
For once, Hollywood did it right and with honor instead of ridicule!
Kevin Bacon is one of the pleasant exceptions to the Hollywood skunk rule.
Sounds like a good man.
My wife says "Mmmmm...BACON!
Too= took. (Cold fingers)
I too had the same trepidation, and the same result watching it.
On a related note, I am from Massachusetts, and a football fan. My friend and I didn’t have tickets to a Patriots game, but found there was a guy who brings a Winnebago down, sells tickets for 15 bucks and you can have all you eat of professionally prepared various tailgate foods, just BYOB. If you don’t have a ticket, they set up a wide screen television to watch while the others go into the game.
Very cool setup, you get to experience all the fun of tailgating, and the proceeds go to charity.
Anyway, while we were there, I met a young marine who had just returned from Afghanistan only the day before. Someone had brought him down to this, even though he didn’t have a ticket.
Word got out, and within a half hour, a ticket came over from another big tailgating group (their group logo on the side of their Winnebago was “Men Behaving Badly...the logo was...I think it looked like a preacher holding a alcoholic beverage in one hand and what appeared to be an open bible in the other...
It was a primo ticket someone got for this young guy. No questions asked, he didn’t ask for it. Word came out that there was a Marine home on leave with no ticket, and one appeared, free of charge.
Even up here in Massachusetts, there are those who understand.
Of course, that was counterbalanced by a woman who was a personal guest of one of the guys who owned the camper I was at. As we watched the game, someone mentioned the Marine, and this young ditz said....”eeewww....a Marine...I don’t really know....he looked so...normal. Don’t they brainwash you or take your brain or something?
I was a guest of these people as well, and all I could do was glare at this idiot. So obviously, not everyone gets it. Well, those people are everywhere too.
Just amazing.
Being a Patriot Guard Rider I knew it was going to bother me and I was not disappointed. I have been involved in too many military funerals.
The emotions we experience are always waiting just below the surface. I had to stop the movie several times to get them under control.
This soldier's death was prior to the formation of the PGR or some of us would have been there for the family.
I have met several of the military escorts. That has to some of the thoughest duty there is. God bless them all.
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