Michael Pack - The 600 Meters

PBS to Air Acclaimed Iraq War Documentary The Last 600 Meters on the Eve of Veterans Day

 

Washington,D.C. – September 30, 2025 – The Last 600 Meters, a powerful 90-minute documentary chronicling two of the Iraq War’s deadliest battles, will be broadcast nationally on PBS on Monday, November 10, 2025 at 10:00 PM (check local listings), on the eve of Veterans Day.

 

The Last 600 Meters was produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker Michael Pack (Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words; Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power; Rediscovering George Washington; God and the Inner City).

 

“The way to honor veterans is to remember what they did in battle, serving the country,” says producer-director Michael Pack.  “The Last 600 Meters tells the story of America’s biggest battles since Vietnam, Fallujah and Najaf, in Iraq in 2004, in the words and images of those who fought there: the ground truth.  Americans should knowwhat happened in these battles, as we do at Gettysburg or Iwo Jima.”

 

Former Secretary of Defense General Mattis, who was in command for the first battle of Fallujah, put it this way: “The Last 600 Meters reveals the infantry's world as it has seldom been seen by those who have not experienced it.  This film, uncaptured by politics orideology, is a classic, unique in its approach and unique in what it reveals.”

 

The Last 600 Meters is also an exciting action movie full of drama:murdered Black water contractors hanged from a bridge, hand to hand combat in an ancient underground cemetery, Special Forces breaking into Shiite strong man Muqtada al Sadr’s bedroom to find photos of American action movie stars, and heroic marines crossing a kill zone four times to rescue comrades in the deathtrap called Hell House.

 

Those on the ground, doing the fighting,also have to cope with decisions made far away in Washington.  Marines attack Fallujah only to be told to pull back.  US forces and Afghan commandoes are about to seize the grand mosque of Najaf until the Shiite leader Sistani comes to town.  Fallujah is finally cleared of terrorists but the leaders have all fled to nearby Ramadi. In the end, a sniper in the film put it, “Foreign policy, I don’t make it, I just deliver the last 600 meters of it.”