Soldiers Swim, Rap and Rock at `Gunner Palace'
Rick Warner, Bloomberg
March 4 (Bloomberg) -- War is hell, even when you're living in a former palace with a swimming pool, a putting green and a fishing pond following the end of ``major combat'' in Iraq.
That's the message of ``Gunner Palace,'' a funny yet harrowing documentary about U.S. soldiers encamped at one of Uday Hussein's Hefner-like mansions in Baghdad in late 2003. While one commander half-jokingly calls it an ``adult's paradise,'' life outside the palace is anything but heavenly.
When they're not wearing Hawaiian shirts, playing electric guitar, performing rap songs or drinking Snapple while floating on inner tubes in the pool, soldiers of the 2/3 Field Artillery are patrolling the dangerous streets of Baghdad. There, every abandoned bag is regarded as a potential bomb, children hurl rocks at them and explosions are as ubiquitous as mosques.
Even deciphering friend from foe is a tricky proposition, especially for inexperienced soldiers trained to fight traditional wars against uniform-clad enemies.
``They wave at us, then shoot at us,'' one Army grunt explains. ``They don't care too much about you. They will take your life.''
During the year husband-and-wife team Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein spent working on the film, eight members of the unit were killed in Iraq, including two the day after the troop was featured on a Time magazine cover saluting the U.S. soldier as ``Person of the Year.'' And, remember, this was months after President George W. Bush declared the end of ``major combat operations'' while standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego on May 1, 2003.
MASH-Like Announcements
The disconnect between the optimistic government proclamations and the reality faced by troops on the ground is humorously highlighted by a series of MASH-like pronouncements from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sprinkled throughout the 85-minute movie. While Rumsfeld talks glowingly about progress in Iraq, the soldiers see a far gloomier picture: growing hatred of U.S. occupation, Humvees protected only with scrap metal, poorly trained Iraqi troops and often-futile nighttime raids of suspected insurgent hideouts.
If Bush and Rumsfeld had hung out with the 2/3 Field Artillery back then, maybe they would have noticed the ticking time-bomb of insurrection in a place that initially greeted U.S. troops like conquering heroes. Then again, as the soldiers remind us, government leaders rarely are in touch with the day-to-day conditions endured by the working-class people who fight the wars they start.
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``Gunner Palace'' can be schizophrenic, just like war itself. It's scary one minute, comic the next. Along with scenes showing a soldier trying to explain SpongeBob SquarePants to an Iraqi child and a ``Gunnerpalooza'' party where troops dance in the pool to the tune of ``My Girl,'' there's disturbing footage of terrified Iraqi families watching their homes being searched and officers getting a radio message about a critically wounded soldier.
Tucker, a 38-year-old American who lives in Berlin with his German wife, was able to capture these telling scenes with his handheld camera because local commanders gave him unfettered access to the soldiers. He lived with them, ate with them and went on patrol with them during two separate one-month stints in Baghdad. He gained their trust, and they reciprocated with an inside, unvarnished look at a war that's just too easy to forget.
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Rick Warner, Bloomberg
