War Stories

My partner, "Beau" and I don't watch a lot of television. We're not the sort of people who turn it on for noise and let it screech and rumble in an empty room while we go about our lives. When we sit down to watch something, it's usually planned, recorded on the DVR, and we make a point to sit down and give the show our attention. A few weeks ago, Beau heard about HBO's miniseries "Generation Kill," and decided he wanted to watch it.

Over the next few days, he watched all of the previous episodes available via digital download, and he enjoyed the show. I watched a few episodes with him, and overall, thought it was time well spent. Six episodes in, and he's now chomping at the bit to see the next.

Thursday evening, we sat down and he called up the list of "Generation Kill" episodes hoping to find the newest posted. It was not. He was disappointed, so I took over the remote and took a look through HBO's available documentaries. One of them was "Baghdad Hospital: Inside the Red Zone." I selected this for viewing.

"Is there anything else on?" He asked.

"I think this looks interesting," I replied.

He hesitated and mumbled something.

"Hey," I said, "This is a documentary. This is real. This is a guy with a camcorder in Baghdad. This is the war through his eyes."

Beau replied that "Generation Kill" was adapted from a book written by the Rolling Stone reporter portrayed in the series so it was also real. I pointed out that the series was a TV show, all of those people were actors, the blood was fake and the gunshots were squibs, and it had certainly been idealized at some point in the process. "This is as close to real as we'll get," I said, pointing at the television. "If you're going to be entertained by war, then sit down, watch this, and be entertained."

It was an engrossing documentary, humanizing the daily reports of market-bombings and militia violence. It showed the faces of doctors who are trying to do everything with nothing. It showed people who are living at the hospital because they have no safe place to go. When the credits rolled, we sat together and talked about what we'd seen.

I have no doubt we'll continue watching "Generation Kill." But at least in my case, I'll be watching it with the images from Omer Madhi's video camera still fresh in my memory.

At first, I was taken aback at how quickly the media scoops up war stories and churns out American heroes with a side dish of patriotism. I cringe at what feels like exploitation of soldiers and civilians alike. But on second thought, cloaking war in entertainment is universal human nature.We know the names and exploits of centuries-old kings and heroes, knights and generals, warlords and invaders. We are still entertained by their legends. We aren't the first civilization to be entertained by war stories, and will certainly not be the last.