Free Burma Rangers (2020)

After recounting Dave's youth as a missionary kid in Thailand, we see him join the US Special Forces as an officer with the elite Rangers. As he courted Karen his father was contacted by tribal leaders in Burma (now Myanmar) who'd seen photos of his son in uniform.

The tribesmen, who have suffered for decades under the oppressive and sometimes genocidal brutality of the Burmese military government, wanted Dave to help them. Once in Thailand, Dave drove blindly towards the Burmese border as refugees streamed away from the fighting, equipped only with packs of medicine and a few dollars. Along the way he met Eliya, a tribal medic/guerrilla, emerging from the jungle. "I see the white guy, I think he want to help, or something. " In that meeting the Free Burma Rangers was born. Recruiting others to carry the medicine, the duo headed into the fighting, treating hundreds of wounded innocents along the way. Others joined them, and soon tribes around the Burmese frontier (all long under attack from the central military government that exploits and enslaves them) sent trainees to Dave. FBR teams became established in scores of locations, bringing medical aid, food, and critical supplies to thousands under fire where no conventional humanitarian organization can reach. During the quieter period of partial civilian rule a few years ago FBR expanded its work in the Sudan, and then into Iraq/Kurdistan and Syria as ISIS and the Syrian civil war raged. The 9-month battle for the huge city of Mosul, the scene of the most intense urban warfare since Stalingrad in WWII, forms the focus of the latter portion of the film. Dave, his family and an FBR team arrive to help civilians fleeing the fighting. They are cautiously welcomed by an Iraqi armored brigade commander, who comes to love and value FBR for their life-saving work among his people. Soon FBR is in the thick of intense combat, rescuing civilians gunned down by heartless ISIS defenders as they attempt to flee and sometimes needing rescue themselves after ISIS gunners disable their armored vehicle with a badly wounded girl and her father inside. Their Yazidi friend and translator Shaheen is gunned down trying to hitch it to a rescuing tow vehicle; Mohammed, an Iraqi solder embedded with the team is shot many times carrying him out of the fire; Mohammed survives, recounting a dream encounter with Jesus that his sister had as he lay in the hospital; Shaheen succumbs to his injuries and is lost, to the grief of the team. In another scene the FBR team meets a farming family on the outskirts of Mosul, just liberated from ISIS rule. Little children shyly come out and make friends with the team, some hugging Dave's leg. "Ameriki, Ameriki!" The family, for the first time in years, piles onto their tractor to drive off to visit relatives. Before they get 400 yards an explosion rips through the air and sends the FBR team scrambling towards the tractor. It has hit a land mine left by departing ISIS forces. Dazed children walk back towards their house as the team runs past. At the shattered tractor a boy cries in grief as bloodied family members are treated. But there is nothing the medics can do to save the life of one little girl lying in the dust. An enraged Dave cries vengeance against ISIS as the video captures it live. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay" says the Lord as Dave reads his Bible that night, and has to walk back his emotional but ungodly cry for revenge. Committed to saving lives and souls, Dave is forced to take lives after three ISIS soldiers ambush him and an Iraqi officer in the street; the officer is badly wounded and credits Dave with saving his life. Dave is slightly wounded in the exchange but kills all three attackers in close-range combat. (In another encounter not mentioned in the film, Dave kills three ISIS fighters in the trenches surrounding the city rather than letting them shoot it out with poorly trained Peshmerga irregulars manning the trenches. )At one point Dave's wife organizes a Good Life program, sort of a VBS for children in warzones. Iraqi families stream into a walled school near the front lines with their children as FBR female volunteers check for suicide vests. But the program is cut short as an ISIS counter-attack drives toward the school. Families quickly disperse, T-shirts, bracelets and other goodies in hand, as the gunfire grows nearer. "Not your normal exit" remarks Dave, as he and other armed FBR volunteers cover the departure of non-combatants. In the climactic scenes of the movie, huge numbers of often-wounded civilians are fleeing an area dominated by a hospital complex fortified by veteran Chechen warriors heavily armed with machine guns, anti-aircraft and anti-tank systems. In his book Do This for Love, Eubanks recounts how several Iraqi armored assaults and a night assault were thrown back with heavy loss by the Chechens. A US airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan a few weeks earlier had resulted in heavy civilian casualties and a huge international outcry, making a similar airstrike in Mosul out of the question. So hundreds of fleeing Iraqi civilians were mowed down around the hospital as Iraqi forces watched helplessly. Finally, amidst the massacre FBR notices a few survivors in the distance; mostly little children sticking by the corpses of their parents. One by one they are picked off. But one little girl sits under her dead mothers' burkha near a couple wounded men. Dave begs for an Iraqi armored force to cover his men while they rescue the survivors. He arranges for the Americans to drop a curtain of smoke on their position to cover the rescue. At last the Iraqi commander approves one tank for the rescue attempt. It lumbers across the shattered landscape past dead bodies in the street as the FBR volunteers dash behind it. Several young volunteers (Sky, a Marine, and Ephraim, a SEAL veteran) lay down covering fire as Dave dashes out and pulls the little girl, Demoa, to safety behind the tank; the trio then drag two wounded men to safety as well. But the retreat, keeping ahead of the tank just feet behind them, is harrowing. They have no good way to carry the men; when one slides off a makeshift stretcher all they can do is roll him to narrowly avoid the tank treads, but then watch as ISIS gunfire finishes him off. Moments later Ephraim takes a step too far from the protective shadow of the tank; a bullet rips through his calf. He goes down, then bounces up, limping ahead of the crushing treads of the tank. Dave's eldest, teenage daughter helps drive the party back to a CCP (casualty collection point); the little girl guzzles six bottles of water after days in the sun. Demoa falls asleep huddled in the arms of Dave's wife Karen. Later we see General Mustafa, the Iraqi armored commander, holding Demoa and weeping softly. Back at the battlefront there are other wounded survivors needing rescue. In a soda factory next to Demoa's rescue site a woman shot in the legs has seen the rescue through a crack in the wall. She calls her brother on her cell phone, who puts her in touch with Iraqi troops. She reports a handful of other survivors, amidst 150 dead bodies in the no-man's land of the ruins of the factory. In his book Dave recounts how the Iraqi soldiers begged for the chance to rescue the survivors; too dangerous, their officers informed them. But they persisted, until an officer gave them 8 hours leave. They were free to attempt the suicidal rescue. The soldiers, along with Dave and other FBR volunteers, climbed a wall into the factory complex. Seeking to avoid detection by ISIS defenders they could hear adjacent to the factory, they were confronted with a room they had to cross, filled up to three feet deep with discarded soda cans. How can they cross that quietly?!? With prayer they can, and they do. Soon they are finding survivors amidst the corpses, terrified that the rescuers are an ISIS execution squad. A man shot through the knee. A catatonic little girl. And in a little building between the soda factory and the hospital complex, the woman who placed the life-saving call, with her crippled son. The team prepares to withdraw when movement is noticed amidst the rubble outside. A wounded woman lifts her hand and cries weakly for help. She is 30 yards away behind a car, which has saved her from the Chechen gunners in the hospital across the street. Dave's heart sinks. How can they save her without bringing overwhelming force down on them and annihilating them all? They assess the situation. A low stone wall shelters those in the yard outside, but only if you lie completely prone. It seems hopeless, and Dave considers leaving her, but he prays. As he does so an Iraqi soldier, Zuhair, notices wiring on the walls of the building. Quickly they cut and gather the wire. Zuhair whispers in Arabic to the little girl they have rescued; she takes one end of the wire and dashes into the yard as a few shots ring past. It is her mother she is rescuing. She throws the wire to her mother, who, after lying wounded for three days with no water, is able to fasten it securely to her wrist. The team pulls her to safety and makes their retreat. Five more lives saved. (Zuhair, and Mohammed above, are two of the four recipients of the FBR Medal of Honor, their highest award. )In the closing scenes of the film we see Dave's family returning to Mosul after the city has been liberated. They play with Demoa as her grandmother testifies that she was ready to kill herself until she learned a granddaughter had survived the slaughter. They meet the girl shot in the eye and her father, who had endured the ISIS ambush in which Shaheen was killed. We see Suriya, the little girl who saved her mother's life, with a medal on her chest, with her mother and the rest of her family who all survived. A playground paid for by FBR supporters is dedicated as a crowd of children look on. Stenciled on the sides of the equipment in Arabic is a dedication to Shaheen, the persecuted Yazidi translator who gave his life helping save those in need.