3/31/2023 0 Comments The long road home martha raddatz![]() ![]() I think there’s always an assumption that they’re never the same-that they’re all screwed up-but some of them, they’re more interesting, more responsible. Bob is a fabulous journalist, but that moment he was hurt and it became very real.īob Woodruff: They are never the same-but there are some that are better. I don’t know how many movies or films portray people who are still on active duty. What’s fascinating, too, is you still have so many active-duty guys. We did the 10-year reunion out here with everybody, and the bond does not go away. They were not the same guys in the minivans, they were not the same guys the day before. That moment when the shock of war hits, from that day on they were all different. When it really happens to you, it’s a whole lot different. Within a week, Troy Denomy’s driving around his newborn baby, and then he’s a bazillion miles away, facing bullets and death. I always say, it’s like the minivan to the Humvee. But they never expected to be in battle and they had not been in combat. Raddatz: And to me the most compelling thing when I started is, “Wow, these guys, a week ago, had never been in battle.” You can train and train and train. You can’t just make it a pure hero kind of movie. Every year, Bob and I have a hard time at our “ Stand up for Heroes” thing-because you don’t want the audience to look at them and say, “Oh, there’s a cliché.”Īlanne: There’s good sides and bad sides to all the people in this book, in the places like this. But he has the material because of who these people are and because of who these families are and because of the stories that are so genuine. ![]() Mikko tells a great story, a compelling story, in this television series. Americans sometimes cliché our military-they’re heroes or they’re not heroes or they’re this or they’re that.” And I think one thing-I know one thing-is one thing Mikko knows is that they are all human beings, just like us. Raddatz: One of the things that Mikko has done, which Bob and I know, is these guys are not cliches. To that end, this is a television show, and with that comes the inherent requirement to “entertain.” Can you talk about the process of trusting that these soldiers, these families and their stories would be represented in this series in a way that would honor them the way that your book did so beautifully-i.e., a rending character study in the worst of settings? Related Michael Kelly on Nat Geo's 'The Long Road Home': 'I'll Carry This for the Rest of My Life' Is there any way the guy who plays me in there can have a patch of sergeant, because it meant a lot?” And Mikko immediately changes it. He texted me and said, “Martha, you know in the book you had me as a specialist, but I’ve just been promoted to sergeant. To me, I just knew not just me, not just the book, but my guys and my families were in good hands. I mean, he got to know some of these guys better than I did! I’ll read stories in the script and say, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know that!” He’s done such a beautiful job.Īnd what you say about caring about them, Mikko’s heart was in this from the beginning, too, and he cared about everybody and knows them all so well. Martha Raddatz: You betcha! But one thing Mikko’s done, that is so amazing-and we’ve been together nine years-is through different iterations and different ideas, he not only wrote a beautiful screenplay, but he also expanded on the information. ![]() Did you feel protective as this series began to take shape? This is a story, subject matter and characters that are extraordinarily close to your heart. We asked the award-winning journalist more about watching her story and her “guys'” stories take shape for the television audience, and also gained insights from Woodruff and Alanne. “Bob has done more with these soldiers than any of us here ever, ever, ever, and knows more soldiers and Marines and military personnel and families and what they go through,” Raddatz says, beaming at her longtime ABC News colleague. Though Woodruff isn’t an official part of the project, his companions agree his perspective is vital. Sitting on the Long Road set in Texas on a stifling early June night, Raddatz is flanked by Alanne and her fellow journalist Bob Woodruff, who was critically injured while embedded with troops near Baghdad in January 2006. ![]()
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