War is hell: Award-winning documentary Restrepo sends viewers on a deployment to the deadliest place in Afghanistan

Published August 4, 2010 The treacherous terrain of the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan is regarded throughout the U.S. military as one of the most dangerous posts an American soldier can be assigned. Long-time war journalists Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Jungermake their directing debuts with a documentary that follows Second Platoon, Battle Company of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, as they struggle through a one-year deployment in this hostile land. Restrepo, which took the Grand Jury Prize at this year’sSundance Film Festival, focuses on a remote 15-man outpost that the platoon named in honor of their medic, PFC Juan “Doc” Restrepo, who was killed in action. From 150 hours of footage shot over ten months — combat, boredom, humor, terror, labor and death — comes 94 minutes of life at war. CL’s Tim Sukits conducted phone interviews with the two co-directors of the documentary, which opens at Burns Court Cinema this Fri., Aug. 6. How did this whole project get underway? Hetherington: “Well, Sebastian had the idea to follow a platoon of soldiers. He was interested in the G.I.s in [Second Platoon, Battle Company] and so he met that platoon in Kabul and they were going to Korengal. He talked to me about it and we teamed up and went up there, so it was pretty organic. We initially went together then we started to tag team it, so each of us had different times.” Did second platoon really get into four or five firefights a day? Junger: “I think their record was 13, but some days none. There was usually fire in the Valley every day. [Battle Company] had something like 460 firefights, or exchanges of gunfire.” What was the most intense moment of the embedding for you personally? Hetherington: “For me the most intense was in the fall when we went to [Rock Avalanche] when Larry [Staff Sergeant Rougle] got killed. It was traumatic… I broke my leg in the middle of the night on the side of a mountain, so you can’t get a helicopter up there.” Junger: “When there was combat everything kind of went into a blur. It was a psychological defense, but I felt removed. Everything felt kind of dreamy. One thing was before any missions where you knew it was going to get bad everyone was kind of in their own head. And there was a real sense of dread. In a way those were the worst hours. And when we went to interview the guys after the deployment in Italy. The guys were very emotional and really raw. It was completely exhausting and emotionally draining. I would have to point to that as one of the most emotionally intense moments. In combat you just shut down. There you didn’t have to. You were safe, so it was pretty difficult.” Why do you think many soldiers miss combat when they return home? Hetherington: “It’s hard when soldiers come back and they miss combat. Films like The Hurt Locker suggest that. If you’re 18 to 20 years old and you’re in the Korengal Valley your life has significance. You have your place in the world. And then you come home and it’s not the same, 18 years old is like the bottom rung back here. And there’s no better high than being shot at… It’s more than adrenaline.” Were you two reporters the oldest guys in the group? Hetherington: “Absolutely. We were twice the age of all the guys in the group. But you watch these 18 to 24-year-olds change when they’re out there in a tough environment. They kind of develop this gravitas past their age. It’s incredible.” Junger: “Any new guy came in as a civilian. There was a guy named Vaughn who was 18 and he was like your kid brother. But he wasn’t young when he left. He was one of the guys.” What made you decide to become a war reporter? Hetherington: “As a journalist it’s what drives you for a story. It’s gratifying to be in the middle of an event, to be there to record history. We were doing a study of men in war in a place where a fifth of all the fighting was going on. It’s also responsibility as a journalist, in getting the right story and using your skills to do that.” Junger: “I’ve been a war reporter since 1993. It seemed exciting and meaningful and gratifying. At the time I was waiting tables at Cambridge and I wanted something different and meaningful… Liberia was pretty brutal. I was there during the civil war in 2003. I was on the government side. Tim was on with the rebels. I didn’t know him then though. The government had accused me of being a spy and I was very worried when they found out I hadn’t left. Well, leaving was impossible, but eventually the U.S. embassy got me out.” What were the Afghan civilians’ attitudes toward the American soldiers? Hetherington: “Were the Americans seen as an occupational force in the Korengal Valley? Yes, they were. But counterinsurgency is not about giving people bear hugs and high fives. Those people know if they give us security and information they’ll get their heads cut off by the Taliban. If one wants to succeed in a place, then offer them a deal. They’re just looking for the best deal, they’re practical people. When we first went into Afghanistan they knew we were there to help. Then we changed course and went to Iraq. What does that look like to them [in regards to] where our priorities are?” Junger: “They seemed pretty excepting of them… They’re pretty pragmatic people. It was what was a better practical choice for them — being neutral or siding with the Americans or with the Taliban. [In the movie] we chose the meetings where there were more conflicts, but it’s not entirely representative of every meeting.” How many innocent local Afghans did you see killed compared to Taliban? Junger: “We never saw the Taliban. They were always able to carry their casualties off because they were usually shot from all the way across the Valley. It would take so long to walk there so they didn’t ever really do a battleground assessment. Tim saw civilian casualties on Rock Avalanche. The guys that were killed it’s hard to know if they’re civilians or not because they don’t wear uniforms.” How often did locals actually give up reliable information? Junger: “I wasn’t privy to intel that was coming in. I know there were tips — some good, some bad. The local politics were extremely complicated in the Valley. There was a local mafia that ran the timber operations. They basically set up an underground economy. So the timber mafia was armed groups that smuggled timber with the help of the Taliban. The farmers were not part of that, but they harbored them sometimes. The village elders were all different. Some were with the Taliban and some not.” Did the soldiers ever talk about politics? Hetherington: “There’s a difference between carrying out orders and talking about politics. Did you talk about politics when you were 18? On the whole they didn’t talk about politics, because you’re there doing a job. So why would you question how to do your job? You just do it and try not to get killed.” Do you think this film will have an effect on the Afghan war or its outcome? Hetherington: “Take it back to Wikileaks. It’s all about Wikileaks right now, but that’s all material we already know. Some of those transcripts are in the film… This film is a distillation of what happened there. The American Army has a system of embedding reporters where they physically put you with a unit. After time [the soldiers] saw that we slept where they sleep and ate their food and we became emotionally embedded, which is very different than being journalistically embedded. I think we did, in the end, something that wasn’t meant to be. Journalists were never meant to live with soldiers.” Junger: “No. War is the result of very large geo-political forces. The experiences of the individual soldiers never determine if nations go to war or not. The outcome will be determined by the political will of the NATO-Allied nations versus the political will of the Taliban. If the movie could bring an end to the war that would be great. If you mean will it make people rise up against the war, I don’t think so. One person might look at it and say, ‘Well, they’ll never win,’ and someone else might say, ‘Well, look what they did with that small company. If they had a battalion what could we do?’ And you can take truth from either.” PHOTO COURTESY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ENTERTAINMENT