Today was a first for me.  I saw my own DVD collection on the shelf at Barnes & Noble .





It is a bargain box set, all five of my Iraq War documentaries on one disc .

Also available at Target and of course, Amazon .

In 2005 when I quit my job in the Kansas Attorney General's office, bought a TV camera and ran off to Fallujah, Iraq with my old Marine Corps unit, I never thought it would turn out like this.

I knew there was more to the story than was being told in the Mainstream Media.  If I didn't tell that story, I doubted anyone else would.  I also spotted a gap in the market.  Local TV affiliates didn't have coverage of local service members fighting the war.  My first trip to Iraq was as a one-man TV news syndicator and blogger.

At the time I thought it was probably a one shot deal.  I produced my first documentary, Outside The Wire:  Call Sign Vengeance, from those months with the Marines operating around Fallujah.

Then in 2007 I got an offer to go shoot video for CBS Productions for TV shows it was producing.  When their exclusivity window on the video license expired, I released a trilogy of documentaries.  Danger Close, about Al Qaida's attempt to overrun a small outpost of paratroopers; Anbar Awakens, the story of how the tribes of Anbar joined the Marines to rout Al Qaida; and Baghdad Surge which follows an Army infantry company commander through a non-stop day on the streets.

In 2008 I released Baghdad Happens, the story of a wild, crazy and successful daytime raid to capture a Jaish al Mahdi cell leader.

With the success of the Surge and interest in Iraq waning, I shifted focus to Afghanistan.  My focus also shifted from making movies to doing in-depth studies and observation work for the McCormick Foundation and the Cantigny Museum, reporting for TIME and National Review and lower profile work for other clients.

The Iraq War was winding down and the movies seemed to have run their course until I got an email from a company that stocks DVD collections in big box stores.  The retailers were looking for straight down the middle documentaries.  I was the only person with five, straight, a-political enough Iraq documentaries available for licensing.  Early on my business partner and co-producer David Chavarria and I decided that the movies would be pro-soldier, but show the war exactly as I saw it through a camera lens.  We didn't know it at the time, but this would be what retailers and documentary DVD buyers would be looking for at the end of the war.

Andrew Breitbart frequently says, be the media.  I set out to be the media, but would not have amounted to much without all the bloggers who linked to me and everyone who who bought DVDs over the years.  Thank you to everyone who over the years bought a DVD, hit the tip jar or posted a link.

With the end of the US presence in Iraq, I hope these documentaries show viewers what it was like to be a Marine in Anbar province in 2005, a Soldier in Baghdad during the Surge, a paratrooper just rocked by a thousand pound suicide truck bomb.

I also anticipate they will stand the test of time.  The understanding of the Iraq War's place in History is years, if not decades away, but these documentaries capture the reality of what it was like for Soldiers and Marines on the ground as it happened, preserving their stories forever.

What comes next?  I've teamed up with a Russian production company to produce a documentary on Afghanistan with the most unique point of view, I have a library of footage and probably 300 pages worth of stories to tell.

In a few days I will be taking off for Afghanistan again, my ninth trip to the wars.  A tenth trip is already scheduled on the calendar.  As a production team we now operate under a simple motto:  History.  Capture the History while it is happening.

That is what I will do for as long as I can.

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I'll be on Sound off Connecticut with Jim Vicevich on WTIC AM 1080 at 9:35 10:35 eastern Tuesday March 31st. Updated.

In a previous life--the one in which I was a political operative--New Years Eve was always a busy a stressful day as I furiously raced around collecting the last contributions that had been pledged to the campaign.

A tradition developed between myself and one a key donor in which I had to physically track him down, make a few social and business calls with him, then go to his office get the checks (which were already made out) then have an early evening dinner with his family.

I then raced to the last bank branch open and made the deposit.

A new holiday tradition has developed to replace that. 

For the past three years, in early December, I drive out to Home Office in Ottawa County, KS and drop off a large hard drive with the new documentary digitally encoded on it.

My friend and business partner David Chavarria then cleans up the audio, graphics and does a bunch of other things I swear are magic to turn it into the final DVD.

Here's a little snippet of the new movie, which is unlike any Iraq documentary ever made:

As for predictions, I am a horrible prognosticator, but a few of these are dead certain, which will bring up my average:

--I will release another documentary

--I'm going to publish a book that has its roots in my work in Iraq, but is actually about something else entirely

--Michael Yon will find himself in the most precarious situations imaginable and live to blog about them

--The SOFA agreement with Iraq will be broadly interpreted to keep US Forces in most Joint Security Stations

--I will finally beat 'Redacted'

--Glenn Reynolds will use the term "heh"

--Uncle Jimbo of Blackfive will not get married

--More media companies, especially newspapers will flounder

--Advertisers will discover that most advertising does not convert to sales, which, when combined with the recession, will be death of many media companies

--In the cattle markets Steers and Heifers will bottom out at sixty-five cents

--Oil will creep up to $65/barrel

--Kansas State, under the leadership of the returning Bill Snyder, will make it to the Alamo Bowl

--Leftwing groups like ANSWER, MoveOn, CodePink, etc., flush with electoral success and without an enemy will suffer mass psychosis

--I will not get shot at in Iraq, but I will get shot at in Afghanistan

--Blackfive actual will declare that I am nuts

--In December 2009 I will drive out to Ottawa County and drop off a hard drive that contains what will be my last documentary

A disturbing clip from the upcoming movie....

Well, maybe more amusing than disturbing.
Hoepfully I'll be back in Iraq or Afghanistan when this movie is released.

This will be my 5th documentary about Iraq.  (The other 4 are here.)

Not bad for a one-man band.  The only people beating me in volume are CNN, BBC and PBS/Frontline.
 

'Danger Close', the documentary that grew from my filming of a fire-fight between U.S. Army Paratroopers and Al Qaida is having its film festival debut this Friday in Washington, D.C. 

The GI Film Festival, at the Carnegie Institute, will screen 'Danger Close' at 3:30pm Friday . 

David and I will be there to take part in a discussion after the screening. 

Be warned, 'Danger Close' is not for the faint of heart.  It is real live combat that I filmed--the bullets, blood and bad guys are all real.

I will be a guest on the Dennis Miller radio show Monday morning during the second half of the second hour.

You can find your local station here .