What's it like to watch the movie '12 Strong' with a bunch of real life Green Berets? Secure, for one thing

If you want to feel supremely safe at a movie, try sitting in a theater full of Green Berets.

I discovered this comfortable sensation a couple weeks back, when I moderated a Q&A session after a screening of the new movie 12 Strong (now showing).

The film tells the story of the first Special Forces  on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11. They rode horses through the mountains of Afghanistan, which is why the book on which the movie is based is called Horse Soldiers.  Two of those soldiers, Major Mark D. Nutsch and CW4 Bob Pennington (played in the movie by Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon), sat next to me. Several of their colleagues sat in the audience.

As Nutsch and Pennington took questions from the packed house, I kept thinking: On the off chance someone executed an attack on this theater, that someone wouldn't stand a chance. I said this at one point, and Nutsch and Pennington both laughed. They couldn't have been more gracious, and as I sat there, I felt a surge of gratitude. As we finished, I said five words that I probably haven't said enough in my life: Thank you for your service.