For Martha Raddatz, This is a Deeply Unique Story to Tell | The Long Road Home

I have, you know, been in the back seat of an F-15 on a combat mission. I've been in the streets of Baghdad. I've been a moderator at presidential debates. There is nothing that has been more meaningful in my career than this.

When I first met all these soldiers, and then later their spouses, and sat them down for interviews—and I'd heard the story. I was not in the battle. And the reporters were all so caught up in covering policy, or covering where were the WMDs, where was this, that we'd forgotten there was a war going on. We were so busy covering the effects of going into war, when I heard those stories about this battle, I said, we have to do it.

Americans have become used to hearing about casualties. They've become used to mass casualties with our military. But this was one of the first times this had happened to us as Americans. If you—you have to think back what that was like. These soldiers had no clue they were going to end up in combat. No clue at all. They were fathers, husbands. Their wives—that emotional goodbye. They thought they were going to keep the peace over there. If they had really known what would happen, that would have been a much, much, more difficult scene.

I think I was also surprised because even though all the actors talk about finding the essence of the character—they don't want to be exactly what the real people were like—I was surprised how close they came to those characters and the soldiers and the wives that I know. They really did capture who those people are. You cannot look at them recreate those scenes and recreate those characters and not think of the real soldiers and the real families and what they went through.

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