On Veterans Day, HBO aired an original film “Taking Chance”, directed by Ross Katz, about Marine Lt. Col. Michael Strobl (Kevin Bacon, very much cleaned up) who volunteers for a detail to escort the remains of PFC Chance Phelps back to Wyoming. The screenplay is supposed to be based on actual true events in 2004. HBO’s webpage for the film is this.
Strobl has a desk job in the Pentagon, analyzing force levels overseas in Iraq and elsewhere, and finds he is not taken seriously by his peers who have served on actual combat deployments. In the course of his escort, he meets and talks to many people in all kinds of situations. At one point, a Northwest Airlines pilot asks the passengers to endure some inconvenience as his detail is removed from the plane. Then he must learn the story of Phelps’s death in combat, and, moreover, his unique personality, which survived basic training intact to an unusual degree. If more young men in the world we like Phelps, we wouldn’t need a Marine Corps; we would be at peace.
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