The long, strange trip continues ( gotta love cliches ). I get back from Hell to decompress, and Sharon Waxman of the NY Times is upset because I won’t give her an interview and I don’t agree with her view of the war; children’s book authors at the Huffington Post do faux Bill Buckley/Dr. Phil analyses of me ( along with every other liberal who did a faux Dr. Phil analysis of me ); and blah, blah, blah. Noise and chatter, ad hominem smears from paranoid people who are afraid I might influence you away from the Church of Liberalism. Fine and dandy, fair enough, but it’s all just more of the same Reindeer Games of the Mainstream Media and Blogosphere.
The whole “What did he do in Hollywood?” thing is also just a ridiculous distraction. Who cares? What does who I rubbed elbows with have to do with what went on on the other side of my lens? I brought it up to make the point that even a total non-military civilian could go over there and try to film some truth. Try to bring something back home. Case closed. But I guess we’re all a little obsessed with celebrity, so everyone wants to talk about who I knew, where I succeeded, where I failed, etc, in a past life. Again, all that has nothing to do with what was on the other side of my lens in Iraq. But hey, it’s all just harmless fun. Stupid chattering fun. But that’s it.
A quick summary reminder: I spent 7 months exclusively with Marines in what are widely considered the three nastiest battlefronts of the Iraqi Theater of the War on Terror: Fallujah, The Triangle of Death, and Ramadi. I have come to respect the average US Marine more than the average civilian, and the USMC more than any organization I’ve ever been involved with or studied. They are carrying the weight of history’s most important and difficult work on their shoulders - - period.
Oh, and no one has any real clue what is in this 20 hour doc series by watching a couple of three minute clips. The clips I’ve put up are the tiniest of appetizers, the thinnest of soda straw perspectives.
I’m cutting away, and hoping to be done with the bulk of the project by the end of the Summer. - Pat Dollard
Thanks for the post and BTTT.