Taking Chance

[x Baldwin Motion]

The attached link describes a HBO made for TV movie scheduled for broadcast next month. For natives of Sag Harbor it is a theme very close to home. I am sure this effects many of us.

Saturday Feb 21st 2009 8pm HBO

Movie Preview
Taking Chance is, without question, one of the most powerful and vital films ever made about Iraq—or, for that matter, the military—and yet its potency comes not from melodramatic or political statements but simply from its reality and execution.The true story of a Marine who volunteers to escort the remains of a 19-year-old killed in Iraq to his family in a small Wyoming town.. More

[sYc]

Very moving indeed, and really depicts the way it happens. Our funeral home in Arkansas was in charge for one of the first casualties of the Iraq war, a member of the National Guard. I made the trip to Memphis to pick up his remains and was met there by such an escort. Very large service, with many high ranking officers and elected officials.

This was not the first time I have handled the arrngements for a soldier killer in combat. Here at Alton we had a local boy, a highly decorated Green Beret, lose his life in South America, involved in a misson even his family was not to know about. Every time I hear the song, the Ballad of the Green Beret, I think of this young man, as that is what was played before and after his service.


Because I have seen first hand the sacrifices our young men and women are willing to make, I have the upmost respect for them.