Carol Dysinger's film Camp Victory, Afghanistan – which had its World Premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX – provides a fascinating look inside the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Dysinger embedded with the American military for 3 years in order to capture their war effort over an extended period of time. She was there so long that she outlasted the American National Guard units which were only on 1-year rotations. This approach allowed her to build trust and on-going relationships with both the American and Afghan leadership so that she could film their internal conversations and document their efforts over an extended period of time. This film shows what few others have: The American effort to train a rag-tag Afghan Army.
This film brings home how difficult that is when the Afghan soldiers are mostly illiterate, poorly compensated, unfamiliar with democratic government, and used to corruption. We often hear the work of soldiers described as heroic, but the effort by these soldiers to mentor a war-torn country and Army that we see here truly is just that. Dysinger's effort to bring this mostly untold story home to the American people who really haven't seen this story is also heroic. The story of our efforts to build an Army in one of the most isolated corners of the world and revive a failed state needs to be told and I hope Camp Victory gains a wider audience so that Americans can gain a better understanding of the real human beings behind this often misunderstood and distant war. Unfortunately, this type of realistic war story rarely has a simple or happy ending.
This film brings home how difficult that is when the Afghan soldiers are mostly illiterate, poorly compensated, unfamiliar with democratic government, and used to corruption. We often hear the work of soldiers described as heroic, but the effort by these soldiers to mentor a war-torn country and Army that we see here truly is just that. Dysinger's effort to bring this mostly untold story home to the American people who really haven't seen this story is also heroic. The story of our efforts to build an Army in one of the most isolated corners of the world and revive a failed state needs to be told and I hope Camp Victory gains a wider audience so that Americans can gain a better understanding of the real human beings behind this often misunderstood and distant war. Unfortunately, this type of realistic war story rarely has a simple or happy ending.