Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good

"Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good" is an exceptional full-length documentary movie that rallies all who experience it around our flag, our nation, and the men and women who selflessly serve our country and daily place themselves in harm's way. At this time in our nation's history, when partisan wrangling and vitriol, media bias, and political grandstanding dominate the culture and airwaves, this movie rallies everyone who watches it around what really matters - those who throughout history, but especially today, voluntarily put their lives on the line to defend us and our enduring freedoms.Actor Gary Sinise created the role of Lt. Dan Taylor in Robert Zemeckis' award-winning landmark 1994 movie "Forrest Gump." In this role, Lt. Dan himself becomes a role model for so many - a soldier from a long line of military men who have died in battle, only to be fortuitously, yet reluctantly saved on the battlefield, being left wheelchair-bound as a cripple. Lt. Dan falls on deeply hard times, but then rebounds with a vengeance when he and Forrest build the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, ultimately becoming very wealthy and getting a set of space-age prosthetic legs to boot. Sinise had performed on TV and in film in various roles prior to that, but the endearing character of Lt. Dan made him a favorite of moviegoers and Americans at large. His success in that role propelled him to further great acting roles, including leads in "Apollo 13," "The Green Mile," "Mission to Mars," but most recently and prominently as Detective Mac Taylor (Taylor - a coincidence?) on the popular member of TV's CSI franchise, "CSI: New York." One of his most triumphant and exemplary roles may indeed be as himself, as leader and bassist of the Lt. Dan Band.One part of Sinise's life that few know is his devotion to support our men and women in uniform in the military and as first responders, by traveling to war zones, army bases, and other key locations worldwide, most often in the relative discomfort of military transport aircraft and vehicles, performing with his rock group, the Lt. Dan Band. "Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good" is a masterpiece of documentary filmmaking produced and directed by the very talented filmmaker Jonathan Flora and his wife Deborah, taking the viewer along with Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band as they travel the globe, often into active war zones, entertaining and effusively demonstrating support for our men and women stationed around the world. The film shows those men and women typically moved to tears by the love and support of Sinise and his team.Jonathan Flora is a staff producer with Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, but he and Deborah also lead their own production company, Lamplight Entertainment. But Jonathan is also a veteran of the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division, having served over a decade in the armed forces, and is much beloved by his own following of former and current soldiers. As a masterful filmmaker, Flora is intimate and illustrative with his style, and we feel as though we are right there traveling with Sinise and his colleagues, interviewing those he meets along the way, as well as various celebrities whose attention Sinise has captured, including veteran actors Robert Duvall and Jon Voight."Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good" will warm your heart and restore your appreciation of and gratitude to our military, regardless of your political persuasion. If only there were more cultural luminaries in our society with the devotion, dedication, sincerity, and talent combined as Sinise and the Floras.I wholeheartedly recommend "Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good" to every American and fan of Gary Sinise worldwide. It is a wonderful, entertaining, impressive patriotic piece of documentary filmmaking.

"Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good" isn't a film made by Gary Sinise. Rather, through diverse interviews and video footage of band tours and personal appearances, it details the journey of Mr. Sinise and his compatriots into their dedicated service to active and veteran members of the United States armed services and their families, to the first responders of 911 and their families, as well as to the families of those servicemen and servicewomen and first responders who have given their lives to preserve the way the rest of us in the free world, especially in the United States of America, [should] live ours.While "Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good" is a film about service, it has, as its foundation, gratitude. In fact, gratitude pervades its every frame as we learn that it is the catalyst leading to service "for the common good" by the Lt. Dan Band. And it reminds us that the common factor at the core of our military personnel's and first responders' voluntary willingness to lay down their lives "for the common good," is developed from the gratitude they feel for the gift of freedom. After viewing "Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good," don't expect to ever again think of gratitude without associating it with service. Do expect to understand that service isn't always glamorous and it isn't necessarily "tireless." On the contrary, people in service, especially our military and first responders are human and they get tired, very tired; they get wet, soaked to the bone; they get cold, chilled to the core; they hunger and they thirst, and they know loneliness intimately. The difference is that they push through such discomforts, secure in their self-abnegation. When we, as civilian citizens, push through such discomforts we may encounter while in service to these heroes and their families, we come through better friends, better neighbors, better people, better Americans.On the evening that my wife and I sat down together to watch "Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good," we knew that we were in for something that would touch our hearts; what we didn't expect was the way it would touch our lives. We've always felt blessed to be able to give through monetary donations, and we'll continue to give in this way, but this film motivated us to do more; to get out and serve, in whatever capacity we are needed, to those who serve us and to their families who also sacrifice so much. To do so will be both an expression of our gratitude to our heroes as well as service "for the common good."

This DVD was very well done. But before I bought this DVD, I bought tickets for a fundraising concert for Juan Dominguez, Marine, a triple amputee, as a result of a bomb in Afghanistan. The Gary Sinise Foundation was raising funds to build a Smart home for Juan in Temecula, CA. When I heard Juan's story I just broke down and started crying! He was in a coma at Walter Reed Hospital and when he woke up, he noticed the vacant look on his nurse's face and he told her, "Don't be sad...I would do it all again for my country." I made up my mind I was going to this concert, no matter what! Of course the band playing was Gary Sinise's Lt. Dan Band! What an incredible group of musicians...this was an awesome concert! This was an outdoor concert, and two days before they added an additional 1,000 seats!When I got home from the concert, I went onto Amazon to see if they had any CDs' or DVDs' on the Lt. Dan Band and I found, "Lt. Dan Band: For The Common Good." The DVD opens with footage from 9-11 and then later, Gary surveying the devastation at Ground Zero. He explains how he got involved after 9-11, how he wanted to give something back...to our FDNY firemen and our Military fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He goes into details how the Lt. Dan Band came to be...how they became a perfect fit. There is a lot of footage of the band playing at Military bases when he got involved with the USO. The Lt. Dan Band is constantly doing fundraisers to raise money for Smart homes for other triple and quad amputees...16 others that I know of. He also raises money for Wounded Warriors, and the Stephen Siller, Tunnel to Towers Foundation, to name two.You won't be able to view this DVD without a box of kleenex! Since I bought the first DVD, I have since purchased two more to lend out to friends! Very well done...I highly recommend it!