Story of Benghazi attack hits the big, big screen | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

John “Tig” Tiegen and Mark “Oz” Geist aren’t thrilled about what has happened with the story of Benghazi.

The Sept. 11, 2012, incident — in which four Americans died when terrorists attacked the U.S. State Department Special Mission Compound in Libya — has become the source of endless political posturing.

“Seems like all we get now are people twisting the story to fit their own agendas, whether it’s for the right or the left, instead of honoring the four Americans who sacrificed their lives,” Tiegen says.

Tiegen and Geist were there that night. They were members of the six-man Annex Security Team that valiantly defended the compound and its personnel.

If they hadn’t been on the scene — and if they hadn’t taken the initiative to step in, despite being ordered to stand down and to wait for air support that didn’t come — there would have been many more casualties.

Isn’t their story of heroism — instead of blame-game finger-pointing rhetoric — more worthy of everyone’s attention?

Perhaps 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, a movie directed by Michael Bay and distributed by Paramount Pictures, is the remedy.

The film will make its world premiere here in North Texas at 8 p.m. Tuesday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

The screening will be preceded by red-carpet arrivals by Bay, cast members (who include James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Pablo Schreiber and Toby Stephens) and real-life members of the security team. 13 Hours opens in theaters Jan. 15.

“In a day and age when we have so many movies about superheroes, almost too many, it’s nice to be telling a story about true heroes,” Krasinski says.

“I think the true heroes often don’t get enough play in the movies, so I’m honored to be part of this.”

No politics

True to the title, the film focuses on the 13 hours of fierce fighting that took place in Benghazi on the 11th anniversary of 9-11.

One member of the Annex Security Team, Tyrone “Rone” Woods, was among the four Americans killed. The others were J. Christopher Stevens, U.S. ambassador to Libya; Sean Smith, a State Department communications officer, and Glen Doherty, a security contractor who flew in from Tripoli to join the fight.

The partisan politics that followed the attack will not be found in this movie.

The film is adapted from the 2014 book 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi, written by Mitchell Zuckoff and the five surviving members of the security team, who worked on the movie as technical advisers.

Geist says that Bay, who is better known for over-the-top blockbusters such as Transformers and Armageddon, went to great pains to make an exciting action picture that was still faithful to the true story.

“They only took theatrical liberties where it was necessary to condense 13 hours into a two-hour movie,” he says.

Geist says the team decided to share their story in the book, and now the movie, only after Benghazi became “a political thing.”

During their years of service, first as Marines and then as private security contractors, Geist and Tiegen have found themselves in other situations that were just as perilous as Benghazi, but those incidents never got the kind of attention that the Benghazi battle received.

“And if it wasn’t for the ambassador getting killed,” Geist says, “the world wouldn’t have known about this.”

Getting recognition

Tiegen says he believes the film will help the American public view Benghazi in a different way.

“Hopefully, the movie will move it away from being a politics story — forget what the right or the left has to say — and will bring it back to honoring the four Americans who died,” he says.

Geist adds that it would nice to give a nod of recognition to the legions of private military contractors who put their lives on the line serving our country.

“Since 2001, there have been more than 3,500 private military contractors killed in 80 different countries,” he says. “That’s almost as many soldiers as have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And there have been more than 30,000 injured.

“That’s another thing I hope this movie brings light to. So people don’t forget them.”