Michael Kelly on set of The Long Road Home at U.S. Military post, Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas. (Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)
I look at Col. Gary Volesky (Michael Kelly), a man of deep spiritual conviction. In flashback, we see he and his family share a mealtime blessing before he’s deployed. In Iraq, he carries a Bible that holds a picture of his wife and son. His wife shares his convictions. She reassures a worried spouse that her husband will be in “Good hands with Gary, and the Lord never gives us more than we can handle.”
But that confidence in not being tried beyond our endurance seems to lead to a different sort of confidence, at least initially: Volesky initially seems to feel that he and his men are under a blanket of protection from the Almighty—confidently promising parents that their kids will make it back alive and safe. It’s a point of pride for him that, over 20 years, he’s never lost anyone under his command.
Until now.
When he learns of Chen’s death, he’s quite sad, of course, but there’s more: He’s shocked—shocked, perhaps, that God’s blanket of protection was not quite what he assumed it would be. “I promised Chen’s parents I’d get him home safe,” he says. “I promised all of them.”
Maybe a lot of us have a moment like that—when the blood and grief of the world stains our hands, hands that we trusted would always stay clean. It is shocking to find that God doesn’t always operate in the ways that we’d like Him to. But with God’s help, we find a way to mourn, regroup and move on. And so Volesky does.
“Bless them for their sacrifice,” he prays for Chen and another man before leading a convoy to rescue the rest of Chen’s unit, “and let them be the last to fall in this battle.”
They won’t be. April 4, 2004 in Sadr City—Black Sunday, Palm Sunday—was a bloody day indeed. What these soldiers see and hear and feel in this miniseries could shake the faith of many a man.
But the fact that National Geographic brought faith into the picture at all is something I’m grateful for.
The Long Road Home airs at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, 8 p.m. Central, Nov. 7 on the National Geographic Channel
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