The War Comes Home In popular culture, Iraq isn't Vietnam.

[darrels joy]

The War Comes Home
In popular culture, Iraq isn't Vietnam.

BY JAMES S. ROBBINS
Friday, August 12, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Wars produce stories that reflect the popular understanding of a conflict, how it was fought and what it means. Naturally, war stories tend to exaggerate the cultural emblems of the period, whether or not they are historically accurate. Soldiers in Vietnam are portrayed as drugged-out losers or homicidal maniacs in films like "Platoon" and "Apocalypse Now." This particular notion has become so ingrained in the popular imagination that the fairly straightforward depiction of fighting men circa 1965 in Mel Gibson's "We Were Soldiers" was criticized for being unrealistic.

And what about Iraq's war stories? We have had, so far, many memoirs from ex-soldiers and from reporters who covered the early parts of the war. These often riveting accounts vary in their themes and points of view, but generally they attempt the equivalent of documentary verisimilitude. No novels have yet come from the war, though no doubt they will. (It took a long while for Vietnam novels to appear.)

So "Over There," the latest television drama from producer Steven Bochco, is the first major fictional version of the Iraq War. It follows a squad from the Third Infantry Division through their tour in the contemporary theater of conflict. As it happens, the war is getting another popular treatment at the moment, too--from Marvel Comics. Here, too, we see American soldiers in a real-life settings confronting the brutal insurgency we read about every day in the newspaper.





The Bochco show has attracted a certain amount of criticism for giving the Hollywood treatment to a war in which real people--fellow citizens--are dying daily. And it is true that the show does not routinely cast its soldier-characters in a heroic light, and it is graphic in its depiction of battle and blood, images bound to be disturbing to anyone who has a son or daughter serving in Iraq.
But neither does the show fall into the trap of recycling clich?s from the 1960s. In fact, "Over There" marks a significant departure from the Vietnam-era pessimism that has dominated the war-story genre in recent years. The series has much to recommend it, comparing favorably with the World War II action drama "Combat!" and offering more compelling story lines than the prime-time soap "China Beach," about Army nurses in Vietnam.

Mr. Bochco has said that the show is consciously nonpolitical, and in fact there is a refreshing lack of moralizing. Nevertheless, the members of the squad have marked differences of opinion about the conflict. Of particular note is Private Frank "Dim" Dumphy (Luke MacFarlane), a Cornell dropout whose personal life is a shambles and whose semi-liberal philosophical musings and impulsive behavior may be intended to endear him to the viewer but in fact confirm that book smarts can be a liability in a firefight. At the other end of the scale is squad leader Chris "Sgt. Scream" Silas (Erik Palladino), a hardened veteran who displays his political consciousness when he runs into battle shouting: "We didn't come for your oil, we came to kick your ass!"

Luckily, the series doesn't succumb to grandstanding in the way it handles prisoner interrogations. A promo for a recent episode stated: "An American officer conducts a brutal interrogation of an Iraqi prisoner." One naturally expected a polemic against Abu Ghraib-style misconduct. Instead, the interrogator is portrayed as a sophisticated professional who extracts information by exploiting the terrorist's emotional weaknesses rather than resorting to torture. Ultimately he succeeds, earning the respect of the squad members and demonstrating that it is possible to make compelling television by showing people under extreme pressure doing the right thing.

Which is not easy these days. In the pilot episode, the squad comes under fire from an enemy position but cannot launch an assault because the terrorists are holed up in a mosque and have an al-Jazeera correspondent with them televising the battle. They must take cover while officers in the rear debate the public-relations fallout. Ultimately, the terrorist leader is captured and gives a live interview while being hauled away.

"Over There" shows us the many complexities and tragedies of war but does not use them as an excuse to retreat into defeatism and cynicism. In the Vietnam era, the prevailing ethos was mistrust--enlisted men scorned their officers, who in turn doubted their superiors; politicians were heartless liars; and civilians spat on troops coming home. These cleavages became the basis for countless scripts. But "Over There" is not an indictment of the war, the president, the chain of command or the individual soldiers; it is a character study of Americans at war that maintains a sense of optimism, largely abandoned by the previous generation's creative writers.





Marvel Comics' "Combat Zone: True Tales of GIs in Iraq" offers a similar though more patriotic take on the conflict. This new graphic novel portrays a month in the life of soldiers in the 82nd Airborne division during major combat operations in the spring of 2003, as penned by former embed and American Enterprise editor-in-chief Karl Zinsmeister. All the characters depicted in the story have names except the embed, who is known simply as "Reporter," a nice antidote to the media celebrity cult.
In some respects, the tough, well-trained soldiers follow in the mold of classic comic-book characters like the 1950s Sgt. Rock but without some of the more cartoonish aspects of the genre. "Combat Zone" is closer to the somewhat propagandistic comics produced during World War II that also depicted actual battles. It is scrupulously realistic, with meticulously drawn vehicles and equipment and command situations taken from real life.

The comic lacks the "superhero" genre's emphasis on one or a few indestructible characters saving the world; here every soldier plays a role, and the emphasis is on teamwork, bravery and self-sacrifice.

They soldiers are not perfect but benefit greatly by comparison with their benighted enemy. The fedayeen in "Combat Zone" (and in real life) use children as human shields, set up sniper posts in hospitals and mosques, and exploit flags of truce and ambulances to mount surprise attacks. Faced with this criminal behavior, the Captain reminds his men: "We're Americans. We don't shoot women and children....We don't shoot people who are trying to surrender."





In most post-Vietnam stories, a speech like this would be the setup for some kind of atrocity committed by Americans; but in "Combat Zone" the U.S. troops fight by the rules and win. It says a lot about our culture when a comic book offers greater moral clarity than most American universities.
Recent opinion polls indicate that young people today are less pessimistic than their elders, more willing to derive satisfaction from service and able to find meaning in efforts greater than themselves. "Over There" and "Combat Zone" might disappoint those weaned on the post-Vietnam despair who will keep waiting for man's inherent corruption to emerge. Story lines about fragging, drug use, desertion, suicide, bigotry and sexual harassment will probably appear soon enough. But for now it is heartening to see soldiers that are not drawn from the world according to baby boomers.

Mr. Robbins is senior fellow in national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council.

[Jerry D]

Great Article Thanks, BTW we enjoy watching "Over There" the episode I got a kick out of showed an Al Quaida terrorist hiding in the Trunk of a car going thru a Ck Point and was given away by his own Cell Phone ringing (LOL) and his first words spoken were "Geneva Convention" this coming from a terrorist riding in the trunk of a car and him with NO uniform or flag of Country! Bet he can't come up with a suitable Name ,Rank, and Service Number per said Geneva Convention "Hmmmm" kinda hard to have Prisoner exchanges or to take someone at their word when they aren't fighting under the rules of the convention But, Expect everyone else to!