Before deploying in Iraq, some U.S.
soldiers stop off in the Mojave Desert for a three-week simulation of the
conditions they'll face overseas, set in a makeshift complex of villages
populated by Iraqi-Americans. The civilians have been given a complex set of
instructions for the game. Some are meant to be sympathetic to the American
cause, while others are fed up with the occupation. Some have recently lost
family; others have joined the police force. The complex has restaurateurs and
governmental officials, and even an American cable-news reporter who files
stories that run on the TVs back at the base. It's like Laser Tag crossed with "How
To Host A Murder," on a monumental scale. And just as with "How To Host A
Murder," a lot of the elaborate role-playing devolves into people trying to
complete the objectives on their cards as fast as they can, without paying
enough attention to the other people in the room. (Any similarities between
this and actual wartime conditions is… coincidental?)
Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss'
documentary Full Battle Rattle follows one whole training session from start to finish,
capturing the Army's earnest efforts to make sure our troops understand the
consequences of being culturally insensitive or lax on details. If a soldier
accidentally kills a civilian, insurgent activity increases, and soon the
trainees are holding simulated funerals for their fallen comrades. Full
Battle Rattle works
just fine as a two-fisted combat story, with unexpected bursts of violence
peppering that old universal message that war is hell. But the added layer of
pretense pushes the movie to another level. From the Iraqi villagers getting
praised for their realistic kidnapping-and-beheading videos to the soldiers
carrying "casualty cards" that tell them what wound to fake for the medics,
Gerber and Moss lead the audience through the looking glass. And when the man
who plays the deputy mayor complains that he never gets promoted to mayor,
or when one of the "insurgents" (played by an American soldier back from two
tours of duty in Baghdad) admits that he has a hard time sharing downtime with
the Iraqis, it's clear that the emotions this exercise stirs up are far from
pretend.