Insanely profound and powerful footage coming out of the earliest days of the Syrian Civil War captures Rebel Fighters forcing Syrian Soldiers to call their families in order to determine their fate.

Over the years of working at Funker530 I've seen all manners of content centered on war. I've seen enough combat footage that an FBI field agent has showed up at my office. I've watched thousands of hours of Islamic State and al-Qaeda propaganda. I've seen hundreds of civilians line up for an execution before their bodies were pushed into the Euphrates River. Footage of Russian contractors brutalizing a civilian that someone accused of being a member of the Islamic State has been on my desk. If you can think of a piece of combat footage, I've probably watched it and made the decision with my co-workers here at 530 to determine if it had historical value or not, and if it was something we needed to shine a spotlight on.

Out of all that footage, I think this piece of footage is one that sticks out the most to me. For context, this was recorded early on in the Syrian Civil War, most likely between 2011 and 2014. It shows two captured Syrian Soldiers being forced to call their families back home, and those family members essentially deciding the fate of their loved ones based on their responses to how the Soldiers should act with their own detainees.

Probably between one and five years before this video was filmed, these guys were all part of one Syrian nation. There's a chance these guys could have passed each other on the street, and never have even second guessed the intentions of the other. They may have ate at the same restaurants, gone to the same concerts, or even worshipped in the same mosque. Political division and rebellion however, drove a wedge so deep that these men found each other on the opposite side of gun barrels staring each other down, and acting like this towards one another.

The most important line in this video is said by the second caller's lifeline. "Aren't they Humans?"