Husband-and-wife directors Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein just train their cameras on the soldiers of the Army's 2/3 Field Artillery, known as the Gunners, and let them rip. Their base is Baghdad's Azimiya Palace, built by Saddam Hussein for his son Uday to enjoy the pool, the putting green, the hookers. "We dropped a bomb on it, now we party in it," says one soldier. But for every dip in the pool, the Gunners must launch dozens of raids on Baghdad homes, looking for Improvised Explosive Devices and unseen enemies. Despite Dubya's declaration of the end of major combat, eight Gunners died during the period of filming, which ended a year ago.

The soldiers, many still in their teens, speak of duty and fear; one even raps, "I seen more than your average man in his fifties." Gunner Palace is a riveting and indispensable record of the war in Iraq because it comes from the men who lived it.

“My President”

Young Jeezy teams up with Nas on this track, in which he compare his own success with the idea of an African-American winning the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election. "When I pulled up in my car, that s--- was unbelievable to people in my neighborhood because they were like, 'We grew up with him. How the hell did he accomplish this?'" he told Rolling Stone. "I feel like it was the same way with Obama. I grew up all this time, but I've never seen a black man this close to running this country."