Ross Kemp in Afghanistan
Recently I watched (in another back-to-back sit down) the recent series aired on Sky, ‘Ross Kemp In Afghanistan’. I’m a huge fan of the various other programs he has done in his ‘Ross Kemp On Gangs’ series, mainly due to my strange fascination with street gangs and all that. Knowing how great a show that is I decided to check this one out and was not disappointed!
The mini series is all about a British infantry regiment as they prepare, go, and come home from a six month tour in Afghanistan. Ross Kemp tags along during parts of all three of these occasions, interviewing the soldiers, families etc and providing a report on his experiences as he goes.
What is striking and great about this series is Ross’s hands on approach, I have seen it in his Gangs program but this takes it to a new level. He actually goes out on missions with the infantry soldiers as they come under fire on missions and lives in the same conditions they do.
Apart from being a great documentary and a chance to see tanks and guns and explosions for real, it really sheds a light on the whole Afghanistan situation that you don’t get from normal media coverage. You really get an idea of what it is ‘actually’ like over there for a normal solider and how they cope with the day to day strife of modern warfare.
It seems in the normal media that Afghanistan is just a war of finding targets and bombing them to fuck with planes and when a soldier is killed he just gets a mention then onto the weather report. The truth of the situation is that these really are people you could meet down the pub and they’re fighting battles often at close quarters with bayonets fixed!
I think Ross Kemp did an astounding job on this series and its a real eye opener to see a true picture of what it is like over there and I urge everyone to go grab a copy of it.
