Taken along the route of Operation Strong Eagle 3, three soldiers who were killed in action and two who were wounded are missing from this photo.
Sara Natividad
Special to Mustang News
ABC News war correspondent Carlos Boettcher — the younger of a father-son reporter duo from the front lines of Afghanistan — will introduce the film “The Hornet’s Nest” to Cal Poly on Tuesday Jan. 14.
“People see movies on the war all the time; it’s all fake,” said Cal Poly senior military instructor Timothy Malmin, whose unit is featured in the film. “It’s telling a real story but at the end of the day it’s all Hollywood. This film has reporters behind the camera, and at the end of the day it’s real, live footage.”
Malmin was involved in Operation Strong Eagle 3, one of the operations the Boettchers featured in their films for ABC News. The Boettchers accompanied Malmin’s unit and traveled across mountainous terrain from one mud hut to the next for nine consecutive days, defending their unit and their lives one day at a time.
The mud was the only defense against the constant barrage of bullets, Malmin said.
“The mud huts were our safest places during those nine days,” he said. “We would occupy it and then we would defend it. We would defend through the windows and built a perimeter instead of just being out in the open and walking through the forest.”
“But the only safety the huts provided was their walls,” Malmin said.
Malmin saw “The Hornet’s Nest” in Los Angeles approximately five months ago, he said.
“Don’t go to this film if you want to be entertained, it isn’t for that,” Malmin said. “But you will be educated. You’re going to see a lot of heroic guys who did some pretty amazing stuff that really sheds light on the American soldier and what we’re doing for the country.”
Before the showing of the film, Boettcher will visit different Cal Poly classes to discuss his experience as a war reporter.
The film will play at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday in Spanos Auditorium.