(CNSNews.com) - In his new documentary "Outside the Wire '07," former Marine and filmmaker J.D. Johannes documents firefights between U.S. troops and al Qaeda, and the troop surge in Baghdad. One segment of the film, "Anbar Awakens," tells how the surge's new strategy of putting troops in villages - and outside of the Green Zone - has resulted in Iraqis turning against insurgents.

"Through a great series of events and the blessings of God, I got to go over and see this war firsthand, watch history unfold and record it on videotape," Johannes told Cybercast News Service at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., where he screened the "Anbar Awakens" portion of his documentary.

The documentary is a stark and sometimes disturbing look at the brutal conditions faced by troops, their resilience, and the shift of the Iraqi religious leaders, military, police and general population from opposing the coalition to helping it defeat al Qaeda in Iraq, one village at a time. The continued unrest and uncertainty in Baghdad also is explored in the film.

"I'm ideologically biased," Johannes said. "I want to finish the job (in Iraq), and I think victory is important, but I tried to be fair and even-handed."

In fact, the reporting Johannes said he got from most media outlets was what inspired him to go back to the battlefield years after being honorably discharged from the Marines.

"I got so mad at the news coverage," Johannes, 35, told Cybercast News Service.

Johannes joined the Marines after graduating from a high school in Kansas that was so small there was no campus newspaper, but his entry test results landed him a job in the Marines' journalism program.

During his eight years in the Marines, Johannes learned all aspects of television production, a skill that would prove his ticket for being embedded with his old platoon when it deployed to Iraq in spring 2005.

Johannes convinced both the military and local television stations that he could provide not only accurate reporting but more meaningful stories than the usual "unit gets deployed, boy gets hurt or killed, wife gets screwed by the mortgage company, unit returns" coverage, he said.

Lee Gordon, station and program manager with KRCG-TV in Jefferson City, Mo., told Cybercast News Service that Johannes' reporting resonated with viewers, because many of the soldiers were from the area. Gordon said Johannes sent stories each week, mainly interviews with the Marines, who gave firsthand accounts of the war.

"At the time, they certainly were (supportive of the war)," Gordon said. "No one likes to be there, but they were supportive of their mission."

After six months of reporting from Iraq for television stations in Missouri and Kansas, Johannes compiled his work for his first documentary about the war, "Outside the Wire: Call Sign Vengeance," in January 2007. That film followed his former platoon through its deployment in Fallujah.

When John Ulhmann of Kansas City, Mo., found out about Johannes' work, he was impressed and signed on as executive producer for the new "Outside the Wire" film. Johannes spent four more months in Iraq last spring and summer getting footage for the documentary.

"I have personal experience with the frustration and hurt that negative, misleading, anti-American war reporting does to our brave soldiers," Ulhmann, who served in Vietnam, told Cybercast News Service. "J.D. wanted to document what was actually happening."

Johannes hopes to get his film out to a wider audience so that Americans can better understand the complexity of the war and the successes of the men and women waging it.

"I want people to see what I saw through the lenses of my camera," Johannes said.

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