Product Description

Studio: Kino International Release Date: 10/17/2006 Run time: 452 minutes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #89057 in DVD
• Brand: Kino Video
• Released on: 2006-10-17
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 452 minutes

Amazon.com
So you're, say, a turkey farmer in Clarksville, Arkansas. You sign up for the National Guard, thinking it'll be a fairly cushy gig, a chance to make a little extra cash and hang out with your pals on the occasional weekend. Next thing you know, you're on your way to Iraq, where it's about as cushy as a stone bed and every single day you stand a good chance of getting your rear end blown off. That's exactly what happened to the men who appear in Off to War -- From Rural Arkansas to Iraq, a four-disc, ten-episode 2005 documentary directed by Brent and Craig Renaud. Of the 2800 Arkansas National Guardsman called up in 2004, 57 were from Clarksville, and it's their stories that we follow most closely, from before they leave until after they return. These are plain, blue collar folks, mostly young, many with wives and families, whose 18-month deployment includes a full year in Iraq. At first, a few see it as "an opportunity." Others think it'll be "fun." Another says simply, "I love to fight." But they also face losing their jobs, their businesses, perhaps even their mariages, to say nothing of their lives. And once they actually get to Iraq, things change in a hurry, as the notion of winning hearts and minds turns to "It's not worth it" and "Why am I here?" Their equipment is ancient and appallingly inadequate. Their training is insufficient, to say the least ("They say you should train for the worst and hope for the best," says one. "We trained for the best, and the worst happened"). The irony of the U.S. Army rebuilding homes that they destroyed in the first place isn't lost on these soldiers; neither is the fact that many of the people they're there to "liberate" genuinely hate them and wish them dead (and some do in fact die). And while some remain committed to their duty and ideals, even if they're not sure what that means, most simply want to survive and go home. Meanwhile, the filmmakers also spend a good deal of time with the families the men left back in Arkansas as they do their best to cope in the absence of their principal breadwinners, wondering if their husbands and sons will come home alive and if it makes sense to vote for George W. Bush in November. All of this is presented in without artificial drama; there's no narration, just the voices of the men, women, and kids whose quotidian lives are being filmed. As a result, Off to War can get a little tedious over the course of its seven and a half hours. But so can life, and this program is about as real as reality TV gets. Extra features include commentary (by directors and soldiers) on some episodes, photos, extra scenes, and more. --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews

Excellent
This series is very well done, fair, sympathetic, appropriately journalistic, and it shows what happens when an army unit of average quality--some great soldiers, some less so--is sent to Iraq with sub-standard equipement, a poorly defined mission, mediocre officers, and a lack of training in basic counterinsurgency principles. They do their best; they act honorably and bravely; but you get a sense they're just moving around in cirlces and not accomplishing very much to make a real victory come about. It's also very telling how much the soldiers change. They become harsh, jaded, less patient with Iraqis, and less enthralled with the various patriotic cliches they and their families uttered before their departure. From what we can tell, most do not reenlist and view war and the army very differently from the way they did before they left.

The movie does a very good job of showing the interaction of war and the homefront. Frankly, the homefront appears to really demotivate some of the soldiers, some of whose wives fall apart in their absence. In other cases, these country women and families show real strength in the absence of their husbands and loved ones.

This is the real thing. The real Army and the real Iraq. It's not a bunch of spit and polish parades, but real troops, none of whom embarrass the military, but it's not exactly the 5th Special Forces Group either. They're average. And they're from the kind of economically depressed and average communities that so often send their best into the military.

off to real war
The reviewer who was unhappy that no happy times were shown most likely never served. I spent a year in a different war zone with a different kind of soldier (draftees). While our experience was different, I thought this film captured the tedium and fright of the real thing. Military recruiters won't like this film but high schoolers contemplating enlistment would do well to watch this. And PS: very few citizen soldiers (as opposed to happy killers) find war much fun. Being in combat may have its moments of exhileration - survival or winning a fire fight - but it is not a happy experience.

Inside look
I have greatly appreciated these DVDs. It has been very interesting, and surely moving (as far as I'm concerned) to take an inside look at the lives of these soldiers from Arkansas. The war in Iraq is not well understood here in Italy and it is hard to find such documents, excerpts from real life. I wish the Italian media would buy and write about what America really is and fights for.
Thanks