I get the feeling I could spend a week interviewing Henry Hughes and still come away thinking I had left scads on the table yet to discuss. Mr. Hughes is a combat veteran who made a movie about his war experience. From an interesting and surprising perspective. Read this article to find out more. It will be worth your time. I know that I'm going to watch his Academy Award nominated movie - simply because the guy is so thought provoking.
The movie focuses on the female American-Muslim who was an interpreter for his combat unit. Here's a couple short quotes from his interview about the movie. Please don't grab either snippet below and blast ahead with them to bolster a particular view that you believe the short passages imply. Remember, all is not what it seems. Just my way of saying, read the entire article for the context in which they present themselves.
"Sitting here armchair quarterbacking it, I want to say that we should only be willing to go wars wherein we don’t care if one individual makes it back."
And then there is this beaut (emphasis is mine):
"I mean I totally think that in terms of courage, it takes a lot more courage to be her as a Muslim American woman surrounded by a bunch of infantrymen in Afghanistan than it is to storm up some sort of hill in combat. That’s sort of, intestinal fortitude.
You have to be from such a harsh starting point that she’s from to be able to find your own integrity and your own moral compass against … I was awarded so many times along the way with little Ranger tabs and Airborne wings and atta-boys.
She had none of that shit, man. She had to figure it out on her own what she thought was right. That’s courageous. Growing up your entire life thinking you’re going to be a soldier and risk your life, that’s not courageous, that’s just fulfilling what you were supposed to do, on some level. It takes a little bit of courage, don’t get me wrong, but nothing compared to finding your own way in the world and succeeding at it, with basically no one telling you what right is or that you’re doing a good job. In fact, most people are telling you that you’re an infidel and a traitor and females can’t do this. The best part about it is she was never in your face about it or aggressive, although I’m sure she felt cornered for a large part of her life. She didn’t wear that on her sleeve at all, and that is insane to walk through life like that so elegantly. That’s one thing I find a little bit distasteful about a lot of the war picture stuff. It’s easy to aggrandize and glorify combat. It’s trying to find the real things that are tough in life and I think this is one of them."
Provocative. And I hope it sparks your interest in reading the article.