Fox News special follows 'Lt. Dan' as he visits the troops in Iraq

“CSI: NY” star Gary Sinise can be seen in a new time slot this weekend.

The actor will be featured in “On the Road in Iraq with Our Troops and Gary Sinise,” a documentary airing on Fox News at 6 p.m. PST Saturday. Culled from 26 hours of footage taken of a trip Sinise made to Iraq in July, the hour-long special traces his encounters with American soldiers across the country.

It was the fourth trip to the war zone for Sinise, who started traveling to U.S. bases with the USO after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He said he agreed to let his friend filmmaker Jonathan Flora shoot footage of his trip last year to put a spotlight on the thousands of troops who remain in combat.

“Iraq is off the front page now and has been replaced with other things, so unless you are personally attached or involved with someone who has sacrificed, who is serving in the military, then you’re probably not too aware,” Sinise said in an interview.

“I have great respect for these volunteers who go out and defend this country. Showing some of what I see might help people understand them. Hopefully they’ll come away with a new perspective of who the folks are in the military. A lot of people have this strange perspective that anyone who joins the military either can’t get another job or is not educated, that they have no other options.”

Perhaps it would be different if the war in Iraq was more like World War II, he said, “where every single family in America was affected in some way.”

“Folks were having to really make sacrifices, we were rationing things,” he said. “But it’s still a distant thing.”

While plenty of soldiers in the field ask Sinise about “CSI,” he said he is most often recognized as Lt. Dan Taylor, the wounded Vietnam veteran he played in “Forrest Gump.”

“You’ve got to think, a lot of these service members, when ‘Forrest Gump' came out,’ they were 9 or 10 years old,” he said. “So they just call me that.”

When he’s shooting “CSI” during the year, Sinise often spends weekends flying to bases around the country to perform with his band -- dubbed the Lt. Dan Band.

-- Matea Gold

Comments

[Singalong]

This special botherd me. I wanted to turn it off after 5 minutes. And I like this kind of stuff. I'm a conservative and a big supportor of the war. But I just can't stand to watch people use this kind of thing to help their own careers. Gosh o my! How many times do we have to hear Gary Sinise tell us about how wonderful he is? Maybe better to concentrate these types of shows on the troops and not the celebraties who do them.

[Jonas]

I watched the special last night. Times have changed. There's no way Bob Hope would of had a camera team follow him around and then put it on TV. All of those clips of Bob Hope back in the 40's thru 80's were pictures taken by the media. He NEVER drew attention to himself. Hollywood and their charity in the 2000's. How many hollywood stars do things like this and then not tell anyone about it?