I Watched My War Story Become a Movie

At War

Scott Eastwood, right, in a scene from "The Outpost." The film tells the story of the 2009 Battle of Kamdesh in Afghanistan. Credit...Screen Media, via Associated Press

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When I learned that my U.S. Army cavalry troop's war story was being made into a major motion picture, I worried that a Hollywood account of the battle would be inaccurate. My soldiers and I had been sharing stories since Oct. 3, 2009, when our 53 cavalry scouts fought off more than 300 Taliban fighters bent on overrunning Combat Outpost Keating in Nuristan, Afghanistan. By all quantifiable metrics, my unit won the fight, but at a devastating cost: Eight soldiers died, 22 were wounded and our camp burned to the ground.

Over the years, I have learned that sharing the experience allowed many of us to put our emotions into words. That process helped us heal, but a bad rendering of the battle would leave us talking about what the movie got wrong instead of what actually happened. I reached out to the film's director, Rod Lurie, to vent my concerns. Lurie, a West Point graduate and Army veteran, listened to what I had to say and agreed to let me visit the set. In 2018, I flew on my own dime to Sofia, Bulgaria, to witness the making of the film based on Jake Tapper's book "The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor." Chris Cordova, an old friend and another veteran of the battle, came with me.

When Cordova and I arrived on set, both of us were astounded. It looked just like our outpost on the day of the battle. As we walked into the replica aid station, I looked at Cordova. Tears were streaming down his face. Nine years earlier, Cordova and his medics toiled away in the aid station to treat the wounded and save the dying. One of the casualties was a bright young specialist named Stephan Mace, whom Cordova kept alive for nine hours by transfusing fresh blood from other soldiers, himself included. The transfusion was a radical move that brought Mace back to consciousness. Mace survived long enough to be evacuated to a nearby medical facility. It was one of many reasons Cordova was later awarded the Silver Star. We were all crushed when, later that night, we found out that Mace succumbed to his wounds while undergoing surgery.

On the day of our visit, the cast and crew were filming the scene when Mace finally arrives at the aid station. As they filmed one take after another, Cordova clenched his jaw and swallowed back tears, reliving the most traumatic day of his life. Between each take, the director and actors paused and turned to Cordova, who offered feedback to make the scene match his memory. Everything was so realistic that had the cameras not been there I would have thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I stood silently in the corner and watched a rendition of the story I previously told through sympathy letters to the families of the fallen, in award write-ups for my soldiers and during lectures for military leaders. But I never told the story from my own perspective.

I was not on the outpost when the battle kicked off. Years later, I still feel guilty for not getting there until nightfall, even if the circumstances were out of my control. Two days before the attack, I was en route to a mountaintop observation post when the helicopter I was flying in was hit by enemy fire. The pilots landed at a nearby base and then limped the aircraft to an airfield for repairs, separating me and a small contingent of soldiers from the outpost. On Oct. 3, while Cordova was in the aid station keeping Mace alive, I was fighting to get back with a company of reinforcements. As I neared the camp that evening, Cordova's voice crackled through my radio and asked for more blood donors.

I have my own war stories from that day, but watching one of my best friends relive his on set was the closest I could come to fully understanding his heartache and pain. It was only then that I truly appreciated how important the listener's role is in the healing process. In "Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming," Jonathan Shay calls this form of catharsis the communalization of grief, in which trauma survivors tell their stories and listeners can "listen, believe and remember." This is when the circle of healing is complete.

In my moment of being the listener to a war story I previously told, I realized that "The Outpost" was as honest as any war story. Understandable discrepancies emerge when a book that covers four years at a remote mountain outpost is compressed into a two-hour production, but the film unquestionably captures the essence of the soldiers' sacrifices, as well as the love we feel and the sorrow we share. So if you see the film when it comes out over the Fourth of July weekend, know that you are not just watching a war movie. By allowing soldiers to tell their story, by hearing their story, you are also part of the healing.

Stoney Portis, an officer in the Army and a Ph.D. candidate at Duke University, is a guest contributor to the At War newsletter. He was the last commander of Combat Outpost Keating.