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A Grunt's Life Season 2: Sardonic war comedy or foreboding case study?
SAN DIEGO, Calif., August 17, 2021 - VET Tv founder Donny O'Malley and I paced manically across the living room of his California home. It was two days after Kabul fell to the Taliban and just weeks before we drove into the desert to film A Grunt's Life Season 2 - a ten part series that follows a Marine Infantry platoon in 2008 Afghanistan.
SAN DIEGO, Calif., August 17, 2021 - VET Tv founder Donny O'Malley and I paced manically across the living room of his California home. It was two days after Kabul fell to the Taliban and just weeks before we drove into the desert to film A Grunt's Life Season 2 - a ten part series that follows a Marine Infantry platoon in 2008 Afghanistan.
We thought we had all of our story lines wrapped up, all of our pain points identified, and all of our scenes carefully mapped out. The plot was finalized and the script was mostly locked. The day prior we scouted every location at which we'd be filming and blocked and choreographed every battle scene in the series.
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Then POTUS came on the television to address America's immediate withdraw from Afghanistan. "Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation building," he declared. "It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy." Donny and I were literally stunned.
On the set of A Grunt’s Life 2 – cast films a scene depicting a botched raid on the home of a high value person of interest. (photo credit: Nick Betts)
“Well that’s weird!” Donny exploded, “Cuz that’s exactly what I was told we were doing when I was over there! What?”
Suddenly, the completed script we had been writing together for half a year was only half done. We had written a screen play about an ongoing conflict with no end in sight. Yet we we were about to film a production about a 20-year war that ended more abruptly and catastrophically than any war in American history.
Well, now what?
Naturally, Donny took to social media to address VET Tv’s fan base. “Stand by for some wretched comedy,” Donny promised. “[A Grunt’s Life] 2 is literally dissecting how this shit failed.” And dissect the abortion of a withdrawal we did.
The rest of that day, and for all of the next, we fixated on Afghan war documentaries and watched as many interviews as possible with Taliban Commanders, Afghan Police Chiefs, and US service members. The more we heard those involved speak, the more clear it became that we had to include their narrative in the story of A Grunt’s Life 2.
Fabian Rock and Jake Howarth on the set of A Grunt’s Life 2 (photo credit: Nick Betts)
A number of scenes were re-written to foreshadow the fall of Kabul. Dialogue was added to elude to the resolve of the Taliban and the hubris of the United States government. The ending was reimagined to accurately reflect the cycle of corruption, indifference, and governmental negligence that allowed the Afghan war to resolve as it did.
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Part One of A Grunt’s Life season 2 is now available on VET Tv. Aside from picking apart the comedy of errors that was the war in Afghanistan, the story of AGL2 celebrates the warrior culture while challenging some of its more toxic and harmful norms.
The characters and their story arcs highlight the damage that can be done to a warrior’s soul in the line of duty. The series endears the viewers to absurd characters, asks the viewer to relate to them, and then challenges the viewer to similar flaws in themselves. Most importantly, the story shows that there is light at the end of even the darkest tunnel.
Matiyas Kinker on the set of A Grunt’s Life season 2. (photo credit: Nick Betts)
A Grunt’s Life season 2 was written, directed, acted in, produced, filmed, edited, and created by combat veterans. There is no production in existence that paints a picture of the grunt life in as comedic, tragic, relatable, celebratory, and accurate manner.
