Last night we picked a movie from Netflix.
We watched half.
We were confidant in our choice. Called Brothers its about two brothers one a Marine Captain and the other an screw-up recently released from prison for bank robbery.
It starred Spiderman and the other guy from Brokeback Mountain.
It was nominated for a slew of awards so it had to be good right?
And it was good until it got to the part when the Marine was captured by the Taliban and ordered at gun point to bash the head in of another Marine.
He did and we turned the movie off.
We don’t mind watching blood or gore but we do mind and we mind it deeply when we are asked to believe the unbelievable.
We know Marines indeed we know a lot of men who served in the armed forces and we know as sure as the sun rises that when given the option of execution or being executed they would chose their own death.
It is a simple thing called honor something Hollywood seems incapable of understand let alone recognizing.
In the past even the recent we have written about the great American divide between those who have served and those who couldn’t be bothered.
As appalled we were at this obviously fictional portrayal of “real life” we were astounded that not one movie critic took this film to task for its obscene insult to the military.
Indeed all of them to a man or a woman seemed to be unaware an insult had even been delivered.
And therein is the divide that separates us from them.
For them the tale of a Marine killing one of his own to avoid his own death is completely believable. For us it is inconceivable.
What is more we also know the jihadis and there is no way they would let the precious commodity of an American Marine be wasted or give up the pleasure of killing an infidel to another infidel.
But we do understand why the movie was made.
After all if one wants to persuade that there is a moral equivalency between a hero and a thief the real world offers very few proofs, so sometimes one has to just make it up.
But if we need help and our choice is between a Hollywood screen writer and a Marine, we are calling on the Marines, the real ones.
And on this Fourth Of July we salute them and all who wear the uniform.