‘Military Diaries’: In the Words of Young Warriors

With all the journalistic firepower aimed at covering the war on terrorism, who would have predicted that the best documentary on the terror, boredom, anger and sadness felt by U.S. sailors and soldiers in the war zone would come from VH1, the rock music channel?

“Military Diaries,” a six-part series that makes its debut tonight, is an extraordinary achievement based on a simple strategy: Let the sailors and soldiers speak for themselves, unfiltered by journalists.

Developed and executive produced by Emmy Award winner R.J. Cutler, “Military Diaries” provided video cameras to selected sailors aboard the carrier John C. Stennis in the Arabian Sea and to Army troops on duty in Kuwait and Afghanistan.

The result is an intimate, compelling look at the young men and women on the front lines of the U.S. war on terrorism. The talk is funny, poignant, candid--an F/A-18 pilot talks of going three months without sex--and very real.

A soldier explains her frustration at seeing hungry Afghan children amid the rubble that is their country. She is learning that even a superpower has its limits.

“That’s really the hardest part,” she says tearfully. “I want desperately to know at the end of the day we have made this place better.”

The thesis of this VH1 series, hit upon lightly, is that this generation of American warriors uses music as a morale booster. A Special Forces captain is a Bob Dylan fan, but while donning his flak jacket and checking his rifle before landing in an enemy-beset area, he cranks up Smashing Pumpkins on his boom-box.

The photography is first-rate, of the Stennis, the desert wastes and snowy peaks of Afghanistan, the U.S. troops, and the Afghan people, old and young. There is no narration, just straight-talk; the cuts are quick but not jerky.

“Diaries” shows that service in a war zone is a mix of the mundane and the terrifying. A major goes into Kabul to buy toilet seats and haggle for rugs. On the drive back to the base on a narrow road, he casually explains one facet of life “in-country.”

“Beware of mines on the side of the road,” he tells the camera. “Just another hazard of the job.”

Some realities not even White Zombie and R.E.M. can change.

*

The first two episodes of “Military Diaries” can be seen today at 10-11 p.m. on VH1.