Taking Chance is an HBO film starring Kevin Bacon. Based on the claim of "real events" the film follows the story of a military officer who volunteers to escort the body of the young soldier Chance back to his hometown for the funeral. From the very beginning, this dark toned, shadow filled film felt like one prolonged moment of grief. The score was overwhelmingly sentimental and contributed to the Hallmark commercial aesthetic. However, probably like most of America, I was ready to grieve. I was ready to be sad about Iraq and the young people dying there. I think people are ready to mourn, in preparation for the war to end- a hopeful grief, if ever it existed. Because this country is at war, and that cannot be forgotten. And no matter how you think about the war, everyone can mourn the losses. I don't want people to die- that's why I don't want them at war! Taking Chance really portrayed all the honorable and touching aspects of yang masculinity. To watch all these military characters get choked up, to see the imagined dream of a united America (in grief) was like being transported to the days right after 9/11.
What I liked about Taking Chance was a conversation that came near the end of the film. The military escort has just heard the story of young Chance's death and tells an old Vietnam vet that he should have gone to Iraq instead of staying home with his family. The vet gives him hell and tells him that his family needs him and that he has served his country by being witness to Chance's life and death. Now here was the complexity I was seeking. Is "honor" served by staying at home with the family you helped to create and need to support or by dying in a foreign country for your country? Or both? Can't the desire not to fight be just as right as the desire to fight? It was the question that made the film worth watching and saved it from being utter schlock, if effective (yes I teared up a bit).
I'm moved by the response you've had to this film. For the past few days I have been on the verge of tears many times, and all of them because I've been made aware - by the TV, or a friend's story, or something I hear on the radio - of what level of hardship we are all facing here at home and certainly in Iraq and Afghanistan. It feels like a "we" now, except for Wall Street fat cats. That, alone, is poignant. Thanks for letting yourself get tears in your eyes, and admitting it to us.
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