American Valor Quarterly Issue 1 - Winter 2007 | Page 30

The behavior of government often is a reaction to the
ambient cultural story. The story is often created by the
media. The media often skews the story. For whatever
reason the story is skewed, the behavior or reaction then is
often inappropriate for the reality of the situation. The
‘defense counsel’ in Carry Me Home explained it this way:
There is a politically correct way to think about the Viet Nam
War. There is an academically acceptable perspective from which
to write about the war. There is a socially agreeable position;
and there are media-tolerable project-ibles. These manners,
perspectives, positions and projections have fluctuated over the
years but have swayed only slightly since 1968 when London
Johnson declined to run for a second full term, and when Walter
Cronkite converted and
established an acceptable antiwar
posture for non-radicals. That
these ossified perspectives are
narrow seems to have bothered
few politicians, academics, John
and Jane Does, reporters, editors
or filmmakers. And after nearly
a decade and a half most everyone
is in agreement—and most
everyone, because of the exact
narrowness of the perspective, is
half wrong.

long-time Hollywood military advisor, Marine Corps Captain
(Ret.) Dale Dye, who will direct our first feature length
film, City of Fire. We will leave it to more traditional
Hollywood types to seek out and tell the stories of the worst
of the American military. Without whitewash, we will tell
the stories of the best, of the heroic, of the inspiring—
stories that are poignant and thrilling, that accurately portray
the guts and sacrifices of our men and women in uniform.
We hope viewers will leave the theater desiring to emulate
these heroes—heroes that have inspired us. Below is a
portion of our mission statement:
In large measure America is a nation of empathetic, goodhearted people who care about the suffering of others around
the world. We oppose
injustice, and hate tyranny and
despotism. We send our
fighting men and women to
the far corners of the earth to
assist those in dire need, and
to do battle in the global war
on terrorism.

Despite being inundated via
radio, television, newspapers,
magazines and movies, we
seldom see our nation or its