Christian Veterans Use Military Filmmaking Skills to Shine a Light on War and Suffering in Burma * The Gateway Pundit * by Antonio Graceffo

Watch: Why Is There a Civil War in Burma? A documentary by the Peacemaker Coalition featuring The Gateway Pundit author Antonio Graceffo.

Jets fly overhead and drop ordnance. At first, you see the explosions and fires, but the concussions come a few seconds later because sound travels more slowly than light.

Civilians run, most of them barefoot, carrying the few possessions they have. Small children and the elderly have to be helped along. Farmers convert their tractors into makeshift taxis, taking as many people as possible.

The irony is that they are fleeing a place the Burmese military is bombing today, only to take shelter in a place that was bombed last week and may be bombed again next week, or perhaps tomorrow.

This is what life is like for at least half of the country’s people, who live in resistance-controlled areas.

Burma (Myanmar) should be a tranquil nation renowned for its thick jungles, rolling hills, and countless Buddhist temples. It is a land where people used to smile and where the educational level was once the highest in Southeast Asia.

Today, the country is a war zone where the military junta has waged war against ethnic and religious minorities for decades. The conflict erupted into a full-blown civil war after the 2021 military coup, which overturned the popular election and led to the arrest of pro-democracy party members and supporters.

For the past 20 years, I have periodically reported on this conflict, spending weeks at a time inside the country, embedded with resistance forces, ministering to the small minority of Catholic soldiers in Karenni State, and documenting a war that the rest of the world ignores and that even my closest friends and family cannot comprehend.

On battle days, and often on any random day inside Burma, I have felt fear, hope, hatred, anger, encouragement, gratitude, discouragement, and love, sometimes all at once. War is one of the most human of experiences, encompassing the full gamut of emotions. It dates back to the first battle between Cain and Abel, making it almost as old as humanity itself.

On a mission last year, I was asked to speak a few words of encouragement to a class of resistance soldiers attending boot camp. Standing on the parade ground, I told them how my own country had once come together as a band of united militiamen so dedicated that they defeated the British Army, then the most powerful military in the world, and won their independence.

The next day, at the front, I accompanied medics and resistance fighters during a battle, praying with soldiers and photographing the dead and the wounded. But it was in the eyes of the apathetic that I saw the true price of war: the destruction of the human spirit. These were 19-year-old boys whose education had ended at 14 and who would never throw the game-winning touchdown, go to the prom, or graduate from high school.

Their lives consisted of sitting and waiting, punctuated by deadly moments and long hours of drone attacks and airstrikes. They had seen their families displaced, their friends killed, and others lose limbs to land mines. Most had accepted that it was only a matter of time before they would be fitted for a prosthetic or become nothing more than a fading memory in the minds of the men to their left and right in the trenches.

The day after the battle, I went with the priest to administer last rites to the Catholic dead and then attended several funerals. It occurred to me that, in a mere 72 hours, I had witnessed the entire life cycle of a soldier, from boot camp to battle to death. Although the battle was the most dangerous part, the funeral was the hardest.

It was there that I was confronted with a grieving mother who had already lost six children to the war. It was impossible to make people understand what that was like for her, for the survivors, or for me.

The following day, I met three Americans, former U.S. military film specialists who had come to document the war. They thanked me for appearing on camera and talking about the conflict, but they had no idea what those ten minutes of film meant to the soldiers and civilians or to me in Burma. I finally had a short documentary that could help people around me understand what I do and why I do it.

While studying in Rome after a mission to Burma, I met religious from Burma who, in some cases, had lost contact with their families and, in every case, wanted me to tell them about the situation back home. I ended up giving multiple presentations in Italian because many of them could not speak English, and I do not speak Burmese. It seemed absurd to stand before a group of Burmese priests and nuns, speaking Italian to tell them about the war in Burma. But the point of being both a Christian and a journalist is to transmit information and to give a voice to the voiceless.

This is why I was so thrilled when I saw the video produced by the Peacemaker Coalition, the organization the three Americans I met inside Burma belong to. They were able to capture and condense the reality of the war into a format that could be shared around the world, helping bring attention to the crisis and letting the people struggling for freedom in Burma know they had not been forgotten.

With gratitude to them, I sent links to the video back to Burma, America, and Rome, reaching people caught in the conflict zone as well as those living in and working with refugee and diaspora communities across three continents.

On a personal note, the video also helped me explain to my editors at The Gateway Pundit why I disappear from work for weeks at a time and why I am able to provide such strong coverage of Burma.

According to Josh DuRant, videographer and director of the film, this group of Christian military veterans is dedicated to using filmmaking as a ministry to fight injustice and Christian persecution around the world.

“Our mission to Burma was to document what’s happening in order to bring that media back to the Western world and spread the word,” DuRant explained.

Extensive research had helped him understand the complexity of the conflict before the trip. However, he said the research “didn’t even come close to the actual experience of being there and seeing what these people have endured.”

The most inspiring thing about meeting the Karenni people they worked with, DuRant said, was that “they were so cheerful and appreciative of everything, despite having nothing.” Meeting them made him question his own gratitude and count his blessings, he added, noting that “it’s all about perspective.” Their example made him realize how small his own problems were, he said, and left him convinced that people are “incredibly blessed and should be thankful every day.”

Beyond helping the oppressed communicate their story, DuRant noted, the Peacemaker Coalition team conducts reporting training for local people so they would know how to document atrocities and gather evidence that can be submitted to the UN to demand action. The team is expanding its work to other countries, he said, and hopes to reach Nigeria, a place where Christians face persecution concerns.

Theoren Neal, vice president of the Peacemaker Coalition, said Myanmar had been on his mind since he first heard about the conflict back in 2021. He reached out to groups that were already there and read as much as he could find, feeling compelled to help, so much so that he told himself he would show up in person as soon as his Army contract ended. And that is exactly what he did.

Neal explained that realizing the skills he had developed in the military could be used to help people living through conflict was both meaningful and exciting to him. Furthermore, seeing the conflict firsthand while helping bear witness to their suffering had a profound impact on him. Reflecting on the people he met, he said, “They have strong hearts, kind souls, and a sense of gratitude I haven’t witnessed anywhere else.”

Upon arriving in Burma, the team faced delays while trying to reach the war zone, as well as logistical difficulties once they began filming.

“Things weren’t like what we expected,” Neal said.

In their previous lives with the U.S. Army, Peacemaker Coalition team members had never struggled with access, and logistics were planned and handled using the vast resources of the U.S. government. In Burma, however, Neal found that “every person had double-hatted careers and roles within their home, job, and defense.”

His favorite part of being in Myanmar, he said, was interacting with the kids, including playing soccer and other sports with them. He added, “I could never be more blessed in my life than to have gotten to witness a great community such as those in the Karenni.”

The president of the Peacemaker Coalition, James Tolley, was not present in Burma, but he is the man who made the video possible. “Burma is exactly the kind of story Peacemaker Coalition was built for,” Tolley said. “Unfortunately, this is a conflict most of the world has stopped watching, and the people there deserve to be seen and have their voices heard.” Their model, he said, is simple: “We go where the hard stories are, we listen before we film, and we bring what we find home, free to the public, so people can understand what is actually happening.”

Myanmar is something Tolley has tracked since 2015, back when he was in 1st Special Forces Group, so when his team told him they wanted to go, “it was an easy call,” he said. He supported them however he could, but noted that “what our team did over there was all them.” They went self-funded, documented what the Karenni have endured, and then went a step further by training the local media team so the story keeps getting told after their cameras came home, Tolley said, adding that the team still stays in contact with those guys today.

He remains fascinated by what the team pulled off: “A small, self-funded team walked into one of the most underreported conflicts on earth and did work most large organizations would not attempt. That is not common.” It shows how capable veterans are, and how capable they still can be, “when their skills are pointed at purposeful work,” he explained.

“That is mission before self, and that is the standard this organization strives to uphold.” The team came back talking about the resilience of people who have lost almost everything, he added. “You only hear stories like that when you slow down and listen. That is who our guys are, and I could not be more proud of them.”

Looking at the broader conflict, Tolley said the organization is only getting started. “As we build out our program, we will keep training, advising, and assisting local storytellers so we can be a force multiplier for silenced communities around the world,” he said. “Awareness alone will not end a war. But no peace has ever been built without the truth being told first. That is our part of the work, and we will carry it as best we can.”

The war in Burma continues, with attacks displacing and killing civilians every day. Small Christian organizations work alongside ethnic support networks to provide the majority of the aid that reaches those in need. Meanwhile, apart from Burma-specific media outlets, The Gateway Pundit is arguably the only media outlet providing ongoing and frequent, firsthand reporting on the conflict.