Product Details

• Actors: Matt Hertlein, Tommy Erp, Ronald Jackson, Joe Betts, Curtis Rohrscheib
• Directors: Brent Renaud, Craig Renaud
• Producers: Brent Renaud, Craig Renaud, Bill Smee, Diana Sperrazza, Jon Alpert
• Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Kino Video
• DVD Release Date: October 17, 2006
• Run Time: 452 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000HC2LTY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,292 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Off to War - From Rural Arkansas to Iraq" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

OFF TO WAR - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, September 16, 2006

By 

Mansizedtarget.com (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Off to War - From Rural Arkansas to Iraq (DVD)

This series is very well done, fair, sympathetic, appropriately journalistic, and it shows what happens when an army unit of average quality--some great soldiers, some less so--is sent to Iraq with sub-standard equipement, a poorly defined mission, mediocre officers, and a lack of training in basic counterinsurgency principles. They do their best; they act honorably and bravely; but you get a sense they're just moving around in cirlces and not accomplishing very much to make a real victory come about. It's also very telling how much the soldiers change. They become harsh, jaded, less patient with Iraqis, and less enthralled with the various patriotic cliches they and their families uttered before their departure. From what we can tell, most do not reenlist and view war and the army very differently from the way they did before they left.

The movie does a very good job of showing the interaction of war and the homefront. Frankly, the homefront appears to really demotivate some of the soldiers, some of whose wives fall apart in their absence. In other cases, these country women and families show real strength in the absence of their husbands and loved ones.

This is the real thing. The real Army and the real Iraq. It's not a bunch of spit and polish parades, but real troops, none of whom embarrass the military, but it's not exactly the 5th Special Forces Group either. They're average. And they're from the kind of economically depressed and average communities that so often send their best into the military.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars off to real war, July 28, 2008

By 

Paul M. Bulger "bman" (Santa Rosa, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Off to War - From Rural Arkansas to Iraq (DVD)

The reviewer who was unhappy that no happy times were shown most likely never served. I spent a year in a different war zone with a different kind of soldier (draftees). While our experience was different, I thought this film captured the tedium and fright of the real thing. Military recruiters won't like this film but high schoolers contemplating enlistment would do well to watch this. And PS: very few citizen soldiers (as opposed to happy killers) find war much fun. Being in combat may have its moments of exhileration - survival or winning a fire fight - but it is not a happy experience.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inside look, January 7, 2008

By 

Roberto Pratico' (Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Off to War - From Rural Arkansas to Iraq (DVD)

I have greatly appreciated these DVDs. It has been very interesting, and surely moving (as far as I'm concerned) to take an inside look at the lives of these soldiers from Arkansas. The war in Iraq is not well understood here in Italy and it is hard to find such documents, excerpts from real life. I wish the Italian media would buy and write about what America really is and fights for.
Thanks