We
expect a lot of our regular army. Lately, we have asked even more of our National
Guardsmen. Only provided thirty-nine days of training per year, National Guard
units have been frequently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan on a long-term
basis. Yet many members of Oklahoma’s 45th Infantry Brigade Combat
Team, a.k.a. “The Thunderbirds,” apparently expected the assignment and in some
cases knowingly signed up with such service in mind. David Salzberg &
Christian Tureaud, the co-directors of The Hornet’s Nest, follow the Oklahoma Guardsmen during their deployment in Citizen Soldier (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
The
way Sgt. Eran Harrill and his comrades talk about Lt. Damon Leehan and Sgt.
Mycal Prince in the past tense certainly gives the viewer a sense of foreboding
during the introductory sequences. Tragically, they will indeed sacrifice their
lives during the course of events documented in Citizen. Ironically, their rugged corner of Afghanistan was
relatively quiet during their first months in-country. However, that would
change drastically.
We
witness the lethal force of IED attacks in brutally close proximity. Salzberg
& Tureaud capture all the confusion of warfighting as well as the unique
challenges of the mountainous terrain. Frequently, the film resembles Cliffhanger or The Eiger Sanction as the men of the 45th struggle to
descend impossibly steep mountain faces, just so they can reinforce their brothers
pinned down in a fire fight.
Salzberg,
Tureaud, and war correspondent-executive producer Boettcher (the subject of Hornet’s Nest) truly set the gold
standard for embedded documentary filmmaking. Once again, they chronicle some
dramatic boots-on-the-ground action (although probably not quite as adrenaline
charged as that seen in Nest), but
their battery of editors cut it together into a remarkably clear narrative form.
Viewers will always get what is happening on screen and understand the
implications well enough. Salzberg & Tureaud also convey a vivid sense of
at least a half dozen of the Guardsmen, maybe more.