Fort Benning troops: Documentary shows raw emotion of ‘Baker Boys’

The Iraq war comes home in “Baker Boys: Inside the Surge,” a four-hour documentary on a Fort Benning-based unit of the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division.

Army Maj. Richard Thompson, who was a captain commanding the soldiers, said the film is unique, showing the soldier’s story.

“It shows raw emotion of soldiers on any given day,” he said. “It shows what the soldier has done and what they feel.”

Filmmaker Jon Steele spent three months with 135 soldiers from Baker Company before leaving Iraq with about 120 hours of interviews with the soldiers and other images of the Iraq war.

“I got a chance to rediscover my own country in their eyes,” said Steele, a native of Montana who now lives in France and Switzerland. “I was quite proud of these soldiers. I was proud of them as men and women, individuals who were sacrificing and giving so much of themselves to defend us back home.”

The first two parts of the four-hour film were screened Wednesday at the National Infantry Museum & Soldier Center’s IMAX Theatre. The other two hours will be featured at 7 p.m. today.

Released Jan. 4, the film focuses on Baker Company during the 2007-2008 surge, when then-President George W. Bush ordered the deployment of nearly 30,000 soldiers into Iraq to gain control of the war. Although Baker Company spent 14 months in Iraq, the documentary centered on three months, from February to April 2008, when the soldiers were assigned security detail in an area just east of Baghdad along the Tigris River.

Each day, soldiers from Baker Company went on patrol for three to four hours. Sometimes, the soldiers would be on foot, when their armored Humvees or Bradley Fighting Vehicles were too wide to travel on narrow streets.

“We walked a lot,” Thomas said. “Walking and patrolling was the best security. It created a sense of security around us. We had a set of eyes in all directions at all times. People were watching us. They didn’t know we had eyes on them.”

In putting the film together, director Kern Konwiser said there’s one moment that’s heartbreaking when soldiers detain three al-Qaida insurgents.

They are blindfolded, handcuffed and lined up.

The men may have thought soldiers would send them off to prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but they get a speech from senior intelligence officer, Matt Barwick.

“The senior officer gives them a speech that says we are going to send you home, we want you to tell your mothers, fathers and cousins that we are here to help and the time for fighting is done and the time for loving is starting now,” Konwiser said. “We want to meet you again under other circumstances and try to love together and be friends together.”

The look on the captives faces told a story.

“They realized this is what’s going to be done for them,” Konwiser said. “It breaks your heart in half. They have never heard those kind of words come from an Army officer before.”

The insurgents were paroled into the hands of village elders, Thompson said.

“We decided to put some responsibility on the leaders in the area,” he said.

If you don’t get a chance to see the rest of the documentary today, the DVD is available at the post exchange. On March 15, it will be available at Blockbuster, Walmart and other stores.

Staying with the soldiers allowed Steele to see the great responsibility placed in the hands of young soldiers, he said.

“You could see the weight of the world on these kids’ shoulders,” he said. “So much depends on them, a 19-year-old kid who can make the wrong decision and it’s a disaster.”

This story was originally published January 20, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Fort Benning troops: Documentary shows raw emotion of ‘Baker Boys’."