Heroes of the Long Road Home with Martha Raddatz

Release Date: 2017

Watch Date: May 4 – May 12, 2025

“For more than a decade, war reporter Martha Raddatz has tracked the twists and turns of the journey home from combat of the soldiers of the 2-5 Cav. From the meeting in Iraq, to the families back home, to the latest reunions Martha takes us inside the challenges they’ve faced, the bonds they’ve forged and the hopes they’ve shared.”

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Maybe I’m just in a bad mood because of global events and current North American politics. But this entire situation, and maybe the book is different but this specific special, felt like a person trying to take credit for brave men who went through a hard thing. How well she captured their stories or how whether or not she could help them heal.

And I don’t think that was maybe her intention. I’m going to hope it wasn’t her intention. I’m going to hope instead it’s that she was doing her journalistic duty, and she wrote about an important event and she got close to these men and that maybe it’s just not coming off the way it was meant to because she’s awkward on the camera or they’re awkward. But like…did they get paid profits from the show that was based on the book that was written about them? Did they get paid profits from the book? I mean, a news article is one thing, but a whole book, with what I presume was a press tour and interviews and a bit of money for the act of publishing and sales, did that go to them? And why do I care about Martha Radditz? Just have her happen to be the lady that wrote it and tell me about the actual men.

Maybe I’m reading it all wrong, that’s perfectly possible. But it just gave me the ick. Sorry.