The soldiers were deployed around the hospital where their informant assured them the Prisoner, their captured comrade in arms, had been taken. They knew that enemy soldiers had been stationed in the hospital, and expected a fierce fight, but they knew they had to go in. Rule number one of combat: leave no soldier behind.
“Go! Go! Go!” the Sergeant barked into his headset. The soldiers advanced on the hospital.
[And entered it without resistance. Once inside, they found a typically efficiently run hospital (if you discount the shortage of supplies, like bandages and painkilling drugs, trained staff and electricity to run medical equipment). “What the hell?” the Sergeant said under his breath.
“Cut!” the Director yelled. “Halt!” the Sergeant said into his headphones. The soldiers alertly stood their ground as the Director and the Sergeant conferred in a quiet corner. Members of the medical staff that remained glanced sideways at the American soldiers with curiosity before speeding about with their business.
“Where is the enemy?” the Director angrily asked.
“They must have left before we got here,” the Sergeant mused.
“Well, that just won’t do,” the Director flatly stated. “It makes for a lousy story.” He suggested to the Sergeant that the troops leave the hospital so that they could reenter it with their guns blazing. The Sergeant balked at shooting live rounds upon a civilian facility containing no enemy troops. As a sop to the Sergeant’s sensitivities, the Director suggested that they use blanks.
So, the Sergeant ordered his men to leave the hospital and fill their guns with blank ammo. Then, they advanced on the hospital again.]
“Was that enemy fire?” somebody shouted.
“Defend yourselves!” the Sergeant commanded. The soldiers entered the hospital with guns blazing. [The Director exulted.]
“Where is the American prisoner?” the Sergeant barked at a nurse who was cringing against a wall. She pointed down a hall. “Come on!” the Sergeant ordered his men, who obediently followed him down the hall.
At the end of the hall, they found the Prisoner fitfully sleeping on a bed in a ward [for recovering patients]. The Sergeant demanded to know who had taken care of her. A native Doctor hesitantly stepped forward.
“Has she…been shot?” the Sergeant demanded to know.
[“Of course not,” the Doctor stated. “She has deep bruises that, in my opinion, are consistent with a fall from a jeep or other moving vehicle.”
The Sergeant looked at the Director, who shook his head. Bad narrative. Not exciting. The Doctor saw the Sergeant looking at the Director shaking his head.]
The Doctor shrugged.
“Was she tortured?” somebody asked.
[“I do not believe so,” the Doctor replied. Again, the Director shook his head. This time, the Doctor immediately noticed the Director’s response.]
“Anything is possible,” the Doctor [philosophically] answered.
“Bastards!” somebody said under his breath.
The Prisoner stirred. “Umm…where am I?” she asked.
“It’s okay,” the Sergeant told her. “You’re with friends. Can you…can you tell us what happened?”
“It’s all very hazy…” the Prisoner stated. “We were driving down the highway – there was an explosion and some gunfire. [I was captured and brought here -“
“Were you tortured?” the Director asked.
“No.”
“Sergeant…” the Director ordered.
The Sergeant gently explained to the Prisoner that, in the interests of a story that would go over well back home, it was necessary that she suffer at the hands of the enemy. The Prisoner insisted that she could not recall being abused in any way. The Director suggested that maybe her imagination was faulty; when she hesitated, the Sergeant ordered her to have a faulty memory.]
“I don’t remember much more than that,” the Prisoner, a little frightened, added. “The next thing I clearly remember is…waking up in this bed.”
“It must have been a very traumatic experience for you,” somebody commented.
“Come on,” the Sergeant smiled. “It’s time to get you home.”
The troops slowly made their way out of the hospital. “Is that a sniper on the roof?” somebody shouted. A few of the Americans opened fire, giving their troops cover under which they returned to their vehicles and sped away.
[That evening, the Director looked at the rushes. They were uneven; some of the shots were gripping, others barely held one’s interest. But, the Director knew that he would be able to fulfill his goal of giving his commander-in-chief a heroic rescue mission that would divert the public’s attention from the awkward questions that they were beginning to ask about the war. He would simply do what he always did: fix the film in the editing.]
Thus are tales of military heroics born.