Reporter's Notebook

The soldiers of “This is War” react to the film

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I spoke with a few of the soldiers featured in “This is War,” two of whom I had noticed laughing through much of the movie. Why that reaction?

Looking back, things that weren’t funny at the time are now “freaking hilarious,” Staff Sgt. Kris Peterson told me. For instance, there’s a scene where Peterson bitterly laments how his unit made four arrests during a raid, but had been forced to release the men by “higher.” Twice during the scene, Peterson stops to accept a peanut-butter cracker and munches happily, which he and Staff Sgt. Jeremy Turner both found wildy funny to see on film.

 One very interesting aspect of the documentary is that director Gary Mortensen didn’t send the soldiers out on a mission to document their deployment with the intent of making a film afterwards. Mortensen, a military history buff, approached the troops after their return and cobbled their impromptu footage together with interviews to make the movie. This makes the video the soldiers brought back appear all the more raw — at the time they were shooting it, they weren’t thinking about the public reaction.

 Thus, there was some reluctance to take part in the film.

 ”At first, I was very skeptical. I was like, I don’t know if I want to do this,” said Sgt. 1st Class Vince Jacques. But Jacques’ colonel said it was OK, and Jacques decided to take part after meeting with Mortensen.

He wants “our side of the story,” Jacques said. ”Fox News and CNN, both of those, they have their own agendas. They’re going to twist it in their own way. What you saw in there is not twisted, it’s what happened.”

“He’s not really getting anything out of it, he’s just archiving history,” Turner said.

So, as for why the troops shot such vivid and raw footage during their deployment, they said they wanted to be able to help their families understand their experiences.

“Whenever I have kids somewhere down the road, it’s something that I can show to them: ‘This is what Dad did in the war,’” Peterson said.

From left, Maj. Michael Warrenton, SFC Vince Jacques, and SSG Kris Peterson.