{"id":33,"date":"2011-08-05T15:05:41","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T15:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/americainuniform\/?p=33"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:06:32","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T15:06:32","slug":"the-documentary-soldiers-watch-before-deploying-to-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/the-documentary-soldiers-watch-before-deploying-to-afghanistan.html","title":{"rendered":"The Documentary Soldiers Watch Before Deploying to Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/americainuniform\/files\/2011\/08\/restrepo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-36\" title=\"Restrepo\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/293\/2011\/08\/restrepo-207x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"145\" height=\"210\" \/><\/a>KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan \u2013 Less than six months ago, U.S. Army Pfc. William A. Swaray&#8217;s drill sergeant at Fort Benning, Ga., gathered soon-to-be infantry men in a small room.<\/p>\n<p>The drill sergeant wanted the young soldiers to watch the movie &#8220;Restrepo.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He said, &#8216;OK, this is what you guys have gotten in to, so watch it and see,'&#8221; said Swaray, now assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, Task Force No Fear, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, TF Bronco.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When we watched the movie, some of us became afraid,&#8221; Swaray said. &#8220;We started to see reality from that day on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;Restrepo&quot; Trailer\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-DjqR6OucBc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>Now, Swaray, a native of Monrovia, Liberia, is living at an observation post outside of Combat Outpost Monti in eastern Afghanistan&#8217;s Kunar Province. The reality is he is not far from where the documentary &#8216;Restrepo&#8217; took place.<\/p>\n<p>Not only is he a few miles from the Pech River Valley, but his team leader is U.S. Army Sgt. Misha Pemble-Belkin.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Surprisingly, when I came to this unit, the very guy that was in the movie is in the same platoon and my team leader,&#8221; Swaray said. &#8220;I remember him in the movie shooting the MK-19 (automatic grenade launcher), and I remember him when he was being interviewed by the reporter. He&#8217;s like a hero, man.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For the rest of this story,<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.blackfive.net\/main\/2011\/05\/restrepo-soldier-leads-in-afghanistan.html\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Provided courtesy of\u00a0Blackfive.net<br \/>\n(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.blackfive.net\/\">http:\/\/www.Blackfive.net<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan \u2013 Less than six months ago, U.S. Army Pfc. William A. Swaray&#8217;s drill sergeant at Fort Benning, Ga., gathered soon-to-be infantry men in a small room. The drill sergeant wanted the young soldiers to watch the movie &#8220;Restrepo.&#8221; &#8220;He said, &#8216;OK, this is what you guys have gotten in to, so watch&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heroes","category-videos"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Documentary Soldiers Watch Before Deploying to Afghanistan - America in Uniform<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/the-documentary-soldiers-watch-before-deploying-to-afghanistan.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Documentary Soldiers Watch Before Deploying to Afghanistan - America in Uniform\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan \u2013 Less than six months ago, U.S. Army Pfc. William A. Swaray&#8217;s drill sergeant at Fort Benning, Ga., gathered soon-to-be infantry men in a small room. The drill sergeant wanted the young soldiers to watch the movie &#8220;Restrepo.&#8221; &#8220;He said, &#8216;OK, this is what you guys have gotten in to, so watch&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/the-documentary-soldiers-watch-before-deploying-to-afghanistan.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"America in Uniform\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-05T15:05:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-05T15:06:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/americainuniform\/files\/2011\/08\/restrepo-207x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Evan Derrick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Documentary Soldiers Watch Before Deploying to Afghanistan - America in Uniform","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/the-documentary-soldiers-watch-before-deploying-to-afghanistan.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Documentary Soldiers Watch Before Deploying to Afghanistan - America in Uniform","og_description":"KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan \u2013 Less than six months ago, U.S. Army Pfc. 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The drill sergeant wanted the young soldiers to watch the movie &#8220;Restrepo.&#8221; &#8220;He said, &#8216;OK, this is what you guys have gotten in to, so watch&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/the-documentary-soldiers-watch-before-deploying-to-afghanistan.html","og_site_name":"America in Uniform","article_published_time":"2011-08-05T15:05:41+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-08-05T15:06:32+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/americainuniform\/files\/2011\/08\/restrepo-207x300.jpg"}],"author":"Evan Derrick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/the-documentary-soldiers-watch-before-deploying-to-afghanistan.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/08\/the-documentary-soldiers-watch-before-deploying-to-afghanistan.html","name":"The Documentary Soldiers Watch Before Deploying to Afghanistan - 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