Documenting the Wartime Experience

Tonight at 9PM Eastern, the National Geographic Channel debuts Restrepo, the winner of the 2010 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and Oscar-contender for Best Documentary. Restrepo follows a platoon from Battle Company 2/503 of the 173rd Airborne Division during its fifteen month tour in Afghanistan in 2007. As many readers will recognize, Restrepo features the company of a particular soldier-Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, a recent recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Korengal Valley.  Watch the trailer here.

Restrepo is among a great crop of documentaries released this year that deal with active duty service members and Veterans. Here are a few others:

Wartorn: 1861-2010

Wartorn: 1861-2010 has a simple thesis: PTSD has always existed in war, and it reveals itself to be a wound just like a gunshot or a missing limb. The HBO-produced documentary examines cases of suicide and post-traumatic stress from The Civil War to Iraq and Afghanistan. Watch the trailer here, and then check out the joint DOD/VA panel discussion on post-traumatic stress disorder.

In Their Boots

Five Veterans were given a chance to create a documentary about their experiences coming home from the current wars. In Their Boots is the end product. The stories range from a Marine dealing with survivor’s guilt to two Iraq Veterans managing the difficulty of going back to school after experiencing war. Watch the trailer here.

While we’re on the subject of war and Veteran documentaries, has anyone seen good docs of past eras? Frozen Chosin, a doc about the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War, opened this year to strong reviews.