If
you were embarking on a dangerous mission, you would much prefer to have
embedded journalist Alex Quade with you than a lot of our so-called allies. You
could count on her to keep her head and make the right decisions during times of
crisis. For her, the U.S. Special Forces soldiers are not just a subject to
file and forget. They are the people she shared foxholes with. Quade does their
stories justice in Christian Tureaud & David Salzberg’s documentary, Danger Close (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
Danger Close is the third film
in Tureaud & Salzberg’s trilogy (so far), documenting both the day-to-day
and extreme warfighting conditions experienced by American troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan, following The Hornet’s Nest and
Citizen Soldier. Quade is highly simpatico
with their approach. She never takes positions on the missions themselves, but
she feels a duty to truthfully report the dangers and challenges the U.S.
Special Forces and conventional military personnel face.
This
is particularly true in the case of the late Green Beret Staff Sgt. Rob
Pirelli. The chief engineer of his detachment, Pirelli built their combat
outpost almost single-handedly from scratch. In appreciation of his labor, the
men of ODA-072 christened it Combat Outpost Pirelli. After Pirelli was killed
in action, his family took great pride in the honor Pirelli’s comrades bestowed
on him. The Combat Outpost Pirelli insignia emblazoned on its fortified walls
became particularly meaningful to them, so they asked Quade to verify that Camp
Pirelli wall still stands proud. Obviously, an embed cannot just race off to a
remote corner of the embattled Diyala province on her own accord. Yet, Quade
slowly but tenaciously started working her way across the country to uphold her
promise.
Clearly,
Quade formed a bond with Pirelli’s family, but her personal mission ran deeper
than that. In the opening minutes of DC,
we see the Chinook helicopter Quade very nearly boarded get blown out of the
sky by a shoulder-launched projectile. The concern the Special Forces
rank-and-file show for her well-being, despite the fact she is merely a
journalist, is decidedly not lost on her.
Taken
together, Tureaud & Salzberg’s three films form an extraordinary record of
the boots-on-the-ground combat experience. The marketer inside us would
recommend a special gift edition box set for the holidays. Each one has moments
of white knuckle tension and emotionally devastating sequences that bring home the
human cost of war in no uncertain terms.
This
time around, Tureaud & Salzberg had the advantage of all the amazing
footage Quade shot, often when she was under fire. You can easily see why the
military personnel she covered believed she had earned her spurs. Yet, she also
handles the Pirelli family with the respect and sensitivity they are due.
