HEADS UP: HBO debuts 'Taking Chance' tonight at 8 pm ET

Taking Chance is based on the true story of LTC Michael Strobl who escorted the body of Marine Chance Phelps, killed in Iraq in 2004, back to his family in Wyoming. Kevin Bacon plays LTC Strobl and he was on Jay Leno this week describing the moving experience it was just to film this story.

good so far.

I can't. I guess I am a wimp or a coward, but I know this story would weigh on me for days.

My husband is a military historian and has interviewed countless soldiers' families, and soldiers who are in Walter Reed. It is difficult for him to watch, but I think he feels he owes it to the memories of the fallen and those they left behind. :cry:

I cried like a baby! Great film and I highly recommend it. The great sacrifice endured by the men and women in uniform, and their families back home, must not be in vain!

but I'm gonna have Kleenex close at hand.

Don't know who Chance was... he may have been a saint or an asshole, but he was a brother Marine.

Whoever and whatever he was, this country pissed his life away for nothing!

But will bite my tongue.:grr:

I been there. You got nothing to say to me.

I've got friends and brother Marines in the ground for 40 years... for nothing, same as Chance.

We just gotta quit filling those body bags to satisfy some lame-ass urge to have an Empire.

An excellent film thus far, and very moving about a fallen young hero.

Evil bastards.

Very moving and powerful. I hope it comes out on DVD so that those that don't get HBO get a chance to see this powerful film.

I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

stamped signature.

:mad:

Humvees lacking armored protection became an easy target to IUDs.

the flak jacket fund for our troops?

HBO website has a lot of stuff about the film and the real life characters. I am sure you remember when Kevin Bacon said these very words toward the end, they are the words in the first paragraph of LTC Strobl's piece:

Taking Chance

Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn't know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him.


http://www.hbo.com/films/takingchance/article/index.html

More here:

http://www.chancephelps.org/chance.html

in the motel room. It was difficult to watch it the first time.

of a soldier who dies is amazing. From the transportation to the actual cleaning and dressing of these soldiers, it's a process I've never understood or experienced. I thought Kevin Bacon was very good in his role. An overall excellent movie and one that should be released on DVD or online for a much more broad audience to view. An emotion and kleenex packed hour and fifteen mins.

If you've got the HBO, this is one to watch.

Taking Chance by Lt. Colonel Michael Strobl

Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn't know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him.

Over a year ago, I volunteered to escort the remains of Marines killed in Iraq should the need arise. The military provides a uniformed escort for all casualties to ensure they are delivered safely to the next of kin and are treated with dignity and respect along the way.

<snip>

I was wondering about Chance Phelps. I didn't know anything about him; not even what he looked like. I wondered about his family and what it would be like to meet them. I did pushups in my room until I couldn't do any more.

On Thursday morning I reported back to the mortuary. This time there was a new group of Army escorts and a couple of the Marines who had been there Wednesday. There was also an Air Force captain there to escort his brother home to San Diego.

We received a brief covering our duties, the proper handling of the remains, the procedures for draping a flag over a casket, and of course, the paperwork attendant to our task. We were shown pictures of the shipping container and told that each one contained, in addition to the casket, a flag. I was given an extra flag since Phelps's parents were divorced. This way they would each get one. I didn't like the idea of stuffing the flag into my luggage but I couldn't see carrying a large flag, folded for presentation to the next of kin, through an airport while in my Alpha uniform. It barely fit into my suitcase.

It turned out that I was the last escort to leave on Thursday. This meant that I repeatedly got to participate in the small ceremonies that mark all departures from the Dover AFB mortuary.

Most of the remains are taken from Dover AFB by hearse to the airport in Philadelphia for air transport to their final destination. When the remains of a service member are loaded onto a hearse and ready to leave the Dover mortuary, there is an announcement made over the building's intercom system. With the announcement, all service members working at the mortuary, regardless of service branch, stop work and form up along the driveway to render a slow ceremonial salute as the hearse departs. Escorts also participated in each formation until it was their time to leave.

http://www.hbo.com/films/takingchance/article/index.html

Chance Phelps Foundation

http://www.chancephelps.org/index.html

My two youngest (12 and 7) watched it with us. I was very surprised they didn't bail since their dad is getting deployed in June. He was shot last year and everyone is still recovering from the aftershocks of that. I'm not sure if they're just resilient or used to it or in denial or what.

I think it was especially important for my 12yo to see it. My hubby has done funeral detail in the past so they talked quite a bit about the procedure and respect and dignity and why these guys keep doing it. Sticking with the military even if they hate the war because they love their fellow soldiers and want to take care of them. I know a lot of DUers will have an issue with that, but my kids need to know why we keep doing this. It isn't about ideology. It's about not trusting anyone else to take care of his soldiers the way he can. In a way, this Marine really kind of exemplified that.

All this said, I'm a real hard a$$ former Army MP. I'd suggest you have some tissues to watch this lol. Especially the part with the brothers. There was a whole lot of conversation in my living room about that and both of my kids who were in the room said they would insist on doing the same thing. Gives me hope, actually, that I'm raising kids who care about each other.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

-- General Dwight Eisenhower

The soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

-- General Douglas MacArthur

But I grew up hearing an old family story. My dad and uncle were both in Vietnam at the same time, but the Army 'lost' my dad. It took my uncle about 4 months to track him down and when he did it was at a hospital in Japan. Everyone had thought the worst of course. Communication wasn't the same then. He would have brought him home though, if that was necessary. Woulda hated it, but I can't see him letting anyone else do it, ya know? I really felt for this brother in the movie and was damned glad my kids did too. They're usually at each other's throats! They harass the hell out of each other, but they won't let anyone else in on that action.

I could identify with the colonel when he was outside the VFW hall, his remarks about not being over there in the thick of things, hanging back at a desk job. I served in the U.S. Navy between 75-79. Time of peace back then, Jimmy was pres and CIC, Russians were are no. 1 threat, the south east Asian war was over and I was stationed in Hawaii. When I was released from active duty, no one thanked me for my service, a lot of indifference to the military back then. I remember the guys I flew with as part of an aircrew on a p-3 Orion sub hunter aircraft, the Zimmer brothers, George from Jersey, John Rawls, Ensign Perlmutter and some crazy ass pilots. I never gave a pound of flesh for my country, but would not hesitate to help a man I served with even after 30 years. I am glad to see today, that the idea that it's not the soldiers fault for fighting in a war he did not start and recognition of his service is honored once more. I was 17 when I went in, seems like yesterday. Once in awhile, conversation turns to the military and I tell that person I served, back then, I get 'Thank you for your service to our country, wish I had done that". I say thanks, never to late I guess.

I watched it last night, and was awed by it. The scenes at Dover AFB, when they were preparing Chance's body, touched me deeply. And later in the movie, when Bacon's character was inspecting Chance's uniform......he said he knew and the Dover people knew, that Chance's body would not be viewed at the funeral, but they had made sure the uniform was perfect. That's when the tears really started for me.

And the respect shown to Chance all along the way was beautiful.

I, too, hope this comes out on DVD, so anyone who doesn't have HBO has a chance to see it.