The Valley of Death – Doc puts audience on the front lines of Afghanistan in ‘Restrepo’

Misha Pemble is startled by the sound of gunfire during a firefight across the valley with insurgents at the Restrepo outpost in the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Below, Pemble, left, and Murphy, right, from the Second Platoon, enjoy a joke. At bottom, clothes hang out to dry as rain clouds gather over the Restrepo bunker.
Misha Pemble is startled by the sound of gunfire during a firefight across the valley with insurgents at the Restrepo outpost in the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Below, Pemble, left, and Murphy, right, from the Second Platoon, enjoy a joke. At bottom, clothes hang out to dry as rain clouds gather over the Restrepo bunker.

You don’t need a Wikileaks account to know that things aren’t going well for America in Afghanistan; you just need to watch the gripping two-hour documentary “Restrepo.”

Embedded within a small company in Northern Afghanistan, filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger stayed with U.S. soldiers for a 15-month tour of duty. The company has been ordered to build an outpost that overlooks one of the deadliest areas in Afghanistan, the Korengal Valley. The mountaintop is in the “middle of nowhere,” and though they can see the larger base camp from on high and watch as helicopters land and take off, they may as well be in another country, as one soldier says.

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