Films to see before you die. No. 1.

9th Company. Think Russian version of “Full Metal Jacket”, set in Afghanistan. Same format, bunch of recruits followed through training and into action, this time in Afghanistan, only done with rather more humanity, and illustrates the hopelessness of the war in Afghanistan*.

In some respects this film is the Russians saying “that place finished us, it’ll finish you”. The (professional) soldiers know how to win the conflict, but the politicians can’t (or won’t) provide them with the resources, and the conscripts just can’t grasp what is required in time. At least the British Army doesn’t (yet) have to employ conscripts.

* My cousin has (so far) survived two tours, but I know of several people who haven’t survived. By a staggering co-incidence, his brother (and therefore also, my cousin) appears in “Full Metal Jacket” (surname misspelled) as an extra, in the training scenes. If things had turned out differently for me I could have ended up out there, probably launching UAV’s.