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HBO premieres Arlington documentary

It isn’t likely to bring home the sorts of ratings “The Sopranos” scored for HBO.

So one must give the cable network kudos for putting the money, time and effort into producing a documentary with the decidedly noncommercial focus of the cemetery plot in Arlington, Va., where some of the nation’s war dead are buried, and where their families and friends come to mourn them.

“Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery” premiered nationally on Monday, Oct. 13, and will re-air frequently through Nov. 29.

Section 60 is the final resting place for hundreds of troops who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the film’s focus is not on the troops themselves, per se, but on the impact of their deaths on those they left behind.

Those who knew them best were the honored guests Sunday night at a private premiere of the hourlong film, held in Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Navy Memorial.

Afterward, a call by one family member for a round of applause for the filmmakers drew a sustained standing ovation.

The film, produced by the same team that produced the acclaimed documentary “Baghdad ER,” eschews voiceovers and melodramatic music, and isn’t judgmental. Instead, the viewer is essentially the camera, wandering from one mourner to another — wife, husband, mother, father, sister, brother, child — opening very private doors in a very public place.

The camera lingers, although it never stays too long — although some viewers may take exception.

“I doubt that it will be particularly popular,” said Mary Neiberger, whose son, Army Spc. Christopher Neiberger, was killed in Baghdad on Aug. 5, 2007. Neiberger said the film was well-done but added, “It’s too close to real ... and I don’t think many people feel very comfortable or very entertained by that.”

But the film, although at times an overwhelmingly sad glimpse into the devastating hole left when death unexpectedly takes a loved one, also underscores how shared loss can turn a stranger’s shoulder into the comforting embrace of a friend.

At one point, for instance, two mourners see a man who’s been sleeping next to a grave for a couple of hours. Concerned, one woman takes him a bottle of water, which he gratefully accepts. A man who pines for his fiancée offers comforting words to a young woman at her husband’s grave.

“It was very powerful,” said Laura Cowherd, whose brother Leonard, an Army second lieutenant, was killed May 16, 2004 in Karbala, Iraq. “Sort of what we go through every day. The tears. The emotion. I think they did a good job.”

Every day, the film remembers to note, can be every bit if not more difficult than coping with the graveside visits.

“The person made a good point of what goes on after the death,” said Kimberly Hazelgrove, whose husband, Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Brian Hazelgrove, was killed returning from a combat mission near Mosul nearly five years ago. “We’re raising young children. We’re working full-time jobs. We’re trying to live.”

Hazelgrove and her children, now 5, 7, 14 and 16, make their home in the D.C. area, although Brian isn’t buried at Arlington but back home in Edinburgh, Ind., near his parents. Marine Lt. Col. Joseph T. McCloud does rest at Arlington, where his wife Maggie said he asked to be buried “if anything should ever happen.”

“I love the phrase, ‘Arlington is where valor rests,’” she said. “It is. He’s surrounded by the best of the best. People that willingly gave their life for their country. We live here. I like being close by.”

But her young children, now 4, 7 and 9, do not care to visit the grave of their father, who died nearly two years ago in a helicopter crash in Anbar province, she said. “Still too fresh,” she said. “And I respect and honor that.”

In the film, some kids do come. Children put flowers at a grave. Another colors as her mother makes a rubbing of her husband’s tombstone. Yet another places candy canes at the graves and, standing at her father’s, says, “Merry Christmas, Daddy.”

The mourners include mothers and fathers, as well.

“Sixteen killed in Afghanistan,” one father recalled the headline on his computer screen. His wife, he said, had replied, “You know what that means, right? It means there’s going to be 16 mothers crying tonight.”

He added somberly, standing with his wife at their son’s grave, “She did not know she was gonna be one of them.”

The film’s unrelenting sadness is leavened by a visitor to Neiberger’s grave.

“Chris and I are going to share a beer,” says his brother-in-law, Rick Miller, who plops down on the grass with two Samuel Adams Oktoberfest beers. “We’ll open a couple, and he can have one, and I can have one.” He proceeds to take a swig, and pours the equivalent out of the other bottle onto Chris’s grave, drawing chuckles from the premiere audience.

But more often, the camera finds heartbreak. The young woman over her husband’s grave, mouthing, “I love you.” Another telling a friend, “I wish I could have one more conversation with him.” Yet another: “Next week would have been our 20th wedding anniversary.”

“A lot of graves,” one woman remarks near the film’s end. “And I’m sure there’ll be a lot more down here before this war’s through.”