Into the Valley of Death-Nick Blake

                In his film Restrepo, Jungers does an outstanding job of accurately depicting the real environment that surrounds war and its soldiers. The American troops stationed up in the Korengal Valley undergo constant fighting and oftentimes horrible living conditions. At one point, they are ordered to go up to enemy hot spot in the middle of the night to begin building an outpost. The next day they alternate fighting and building all day long until OP Restrepo (named after a fallen soldier) is completed. The constant struggles of fighting all day as well as bolstering up defenses is likewise portrayed in the Iliad as the Achaean troops spend whole days fighting the Trojans at battle and eventually are ordered to build a ditch and a wall to protect their tents and ships. As shown by the deaths of Doc Restrepo in the movie and Patroclus, the men at war share close bonds which makes the loss of one another similar to losing a family member. At war they realize that to succeed they must not stay put and simply mourn for their fallen comrades, so they press on by establishing OP Restrepo and executing operation rock avalanche in the movie and by pushing back the Trojans and killing Hector in the Iliad. Although the film does not describe the detailed accounts of how every man is killed in action like the Iliad does, it still communicates the violent dangers present at war and the ways in which some of the men were killed or injured. Both the Iliad and the film Restrepo provide insight to the relationships between soldiers and the violently dangerous environment of war.

Building OP Restrepo