Childhood friends return from the war

One lost four fingers, another had his skull shattered in almost 500 places. A third walks with a cane. Now they’re back home, in upstate Glens Falls, N.Y., shooting pool, wiling away the days, the nights. “You know what we should do tomorrow?” says one, uninjured from his time in Iraq and pulling at a bottle of Labatt Blue in a neighborhood bar. “Keep drinking.”

They are soldiers from the New York Army National Guard -- childhood friends who went off to war and whose return to everyday life is depicted in “Tom Brokaw Reports: To War and Back,” airing at 8 p.m. Sunday on NBC.

It’s a fairly affecting hour, as specials trying to bring home the war in Iraq go, coming at the end of a week when star anchors went back over there to cover parliamentary elections, and President Bush gave a series of speeches trumpeting Iraq policy and the cause of war, providing new snapshots of its conflicted present.

Astride the flickering images of Iraqis voting, astride the president, pressed to estimate Iraqi casualties, saying “30,000, more or less” (he put U.S. casualties at about 2,140), Brokaw, author of “The Greatest Generation,” semiretired broadcasting lion, here brings it all back to a homily about seven buddies from the same hometown who experienced war together.

The guys themselves are mostly drained of any bravado, the kinds of ball cap-wearing kids Matt Damon would play in the movie.

“One of the things I’ve been really concerned about for the last couple of years, especially since we’ve been at war, is the disconnect in this country between the civilian population for the most part and those people in uniform,” Brokaw said this week on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” promoting the special.

It’s a division, to a certain extent, of class, unlike in previous wars, when the entire cross-section of American life was draft-eligible. And so here is a personal look at some of the kids who are volunteering. Much of the footage from Iraq comes from the friends’ homemade videos. “Right now we’re parked outside of the Samarra High boys soccer field,” one narrates in deadpan over footage of a rubble-strewn field. “They’re 11-0 this season, having a great year.”

The seven of the Nighthawk Platoon, Brokaw tells us, expected to be in support roles in Iraq but quickly found themselves in a hot spot, in Samarra, sweeping a part of the city for insurgents in an open-air, five-ton truck. Nathan Brown, one of the friends, is killed instantly when a rocket-propelled grenade hits the vehicle.

Much of “To War and Back” is concerned with the aftermath -- that idea of picking up where life left off, the war a world away now. Several, after spending time at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, deal with red tape and technicalities that delay their disability benefits, while Nathan Brown’s mother begins pressuring the government over the issue of unarmored vehicles like the one in which her son was riding.

But politics here reside on a parallel track from these guys and their experiences and their post-war reactions. “I loved my five years in the Army,” Rob says. “It was the best five years of my life. I guarantee you everyone at this table feels the same way.”

We see him trying to pick up the guitar again despite the limitations of his hands now. Andy, who served as a medic, announces that he’s quitting medicine; Ken, still bearing the vicious scars from his skull fractures, says he’s begun to get a full night’s sleep and decides to become a cop. In his deep-toned, gentle-voiced way, and over their protestations, Brokaw makes them heroes -- of their own recent pasts as much as of a war.

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‘Tom Brokaw Reports: To War and Back’

Where: NBC

When: 8 p.m. Sunday

Ratings: Not rated

Tom Brokaw...Reporter

Executive producer, Marc Rosenwasser.