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鈥淲hen you look at any significant period in American history, the question is: What stories do we tell ourselves about this event and its point in time?鈥� said Pastel, who joined the BC faculty in 2020. 鈥淎 good way to go about that is to examine the various forms of popular media and what narratives they offer, and which of these seem to resonate with people and why.

鈥淭he American public was simultaneously fascinated by the War on Terror, yet also very disassociated from it, and in many respects we鈥檝e had difficulty dealing with the legacy of the war. In the book, I鈥檓 suggesting that the repeated narratives centering these four figures helped to mask the fracturing of a sense of unified American national identity鈥攆racturing exacerbated by the dramatic cultural shifts created in the exponential growth of Internet access.鈥�

Pastel examines how documentaries like 鈥淐ontrol Room,鈥� miniseries like 鈥淕eneration Kill,鈥� and the feature film 鈥�1,000 Times Good Night鈥濃�攁ll released during the first decade of the war鈥攅xplored but did not necessarily resolve questions around the United States government鈥檚 policy of embedding journalists in fighting units. This new practice might, in theory, give reporters access they鈥檇 lacked in previous wars, she explains, but it also blurred the line between traditional journalistic objectivity and documentary subjectivity.

At the same time, Pastel notes, the expansion of digital and social media meant soldiers could assume the role of journalist-documentarian and offer their own perspectives on the war, alongside those given by traditional or entertainment media. Yet the leap forward in war-related technology鈥攕uch as drones and mine-defusing robots鈥攐ften provided a disjointed, incomplete view of soldiers鈥� experiences as did scenes of their downtime activities, like reenacting or lip-synching to popular music videos, which they shared on social media. Still, in portraying soldiers fighting the War on Terror, some films and TV shows continued to rely on familiar dramatic tropes.

The combat veteran鈥檚 reintegration into civilian and family life has been a longtime staple of popular films, such as 鈥淭he Best Years of Our Lives鈥� and 鈥淐oming Home,鈥� and TV shows and commercials, says Pastel. But as awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and moral injury has grown, this narrative has likewise become more complex, she adds: Being home may not provide the feelings of safety and comfort for some veterans. Yet the abundance of videos on YouTube and other platforms showing War on Terror veterans reuniting with their loved ones (including pets) created a genre unto itself, she notes鈥攁ll following the traditional melodramatic model of a safe return to home and hearth. 聽

The active-duty soldier鈥檚 family has historically been portrayed (such as on the 鈥淎rmy Wives鈥� TV series) as brave, loyal, and steadfast, says Pastel, and ideally supported by friends, neighbors, and the community at large. Unlike a potentially emotionally-distanced public, however, such families also tend to stay as fully informed as possible on the war in which their loved one is fighting, she adds, and in doing so 鈥渙ccupies the gap鈥� between the military and the civilian population鈥攚hich can add to their stress, especially if a war is unpopular, as the War on Terror turned out to be.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not that there was an absence of thoughtful, informative media coverage of the War on Terror per se,鈥� said Pastel. 鈥淏ut to a great extent, the inclination was to package the war for future cultural memory even as the conflicts continued.

鈥淪eptember 11 was such a flashpoint of trauma, both national and personal, and 25 years ago still seems so immediate to many of us. But it鈥檚 in the history books now, and I have students in my classes who weren鈥檛 even born yet in 2001. So, I feel it鈥檚 very important for Americans to look deeply into the period following 9/11, to think about what we believed about ourselves and what we told ourselves鈥攁nd how we told it.鈥�