Arlington National Cemetery's Section 60—the tract of land where veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are buried—is often described as "the saddest acre in America." In Section 60, tonight's compelling new HBO documentary, it's also called "one of the [country's] most honorable places" by Ami Nieberger-Miller, sister of a deceased army specialist. It's tough not to agree with both assessments, as I discovered this past weekend, walking the grounds with an old college buddy-turned-Marine. In Uncle Sam's words, he's being "involuntarily ordered" back to Iraq or Afghanistan next month, and, as we examined the graveyard's log book, he helped bring the conflict home. "Fuck, when did he get killed?" he asked, reading aloud the name of a staff sergeant he'd served with in Iraq.

When it comes to contextualizing the conflict, Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill's doc (their third to address the war, after Baghdad ER and Alive Day Memories) is equally effective. Whether it's a father sleeping beside his son's headstone (while tourists snap photos of him), a guy sharing a beer with his deceased brother-in-law's grave, or a bus full of schoolchildren leaving mementos on the plots of fallen veterans, the film is a powerful and refreshingly apolitical meditation on the tolls the conflicts have exacted on military families. In one of the more affecting scenes, a woman named Patricia Genevie is shown using Windex to polish her son's stone, then matter-of-factly says to the camera, "There will be lots more." I can only wish she were wrong.
9 p.m., HBO