Journalism students direct Iraq War documentary

Senior journalism majors Kristy Burkhardt, Liz McAvoy and Julia Pepe, under the direction of journalism professor Robert Hodierne, are developing an hour-long documentary film featuring Marine Sgt. Kenny Lyon, who was injured in Iraq by a mortar.

They hope to complete the film, an independent study project called "A Home for Sgt. Lyon," for a campus screening on April 28.

The documentary focuses on the high-speed construction of a handicapped-accessible house in Fredericksburg., Va., for Lyon by the charity organization Homes for Our Troops.

Lyon, while working with Light Armored Vehicles just before he turned 21, was injured May 1, 2006 near Fallujah, Iraq, when a mortar exploded nine feet behind him. Two other Marines were injured at that time.

"He told us up front that the kill radius for those mortars is probably three times nine feet, if not more," McAvoy said. "So he should have died."

Lyon, who was unconscious for two weeks, had "a left leg above-the-knee amputation, irreversible nerve damage to his left arm and hand, and a shattered jaw," according to the Homes for Our Troops website.

After Lyon's injury and subsequent surgery, he had scars everywhere on his body, a chunk of his skull was removed with shrapnel remaining in his brain and he faced the risk of losing his personality because of brain damage, McAvoy said.

The most inspiring part of Lyon's recovery was when he and his family first realized he was still himself, she said.

"He beat every single odd," she said.

On the weekend of April 1, Lyon watched his four-bedroom, two-bath, 2,600-square-foot house go up in 76 hours and 21 minutes, Hodierne said.

Lyon said: "People came together for a cause they all believed in, and to give of themselves. That is what makes America strong, and as I watched the walls to my house go up I realized my sacrifice made America stronger. I love this country and am proud to have fought for her."

McAvoy said the project had been daunting. "We went into it knowing, 'OK, we're going to meet this young vet, he's got a prosthetic, and it just seemed like this symbolic figure.' But then we met Kenny, and he's 25 years old, and he's been through hell and back. And he's still the most congenial, personable person you'll ever meet.

"And so it was kind of an eye-opening experience because we work so hard in college and everything, but that's not real life. He's been through so much and he's only a couple years older than us."

Hodierne said it had been generous that communities did this project. Lyon's home is the 100th home that Homes for Our Troops has built nationally, he said.

Pepe said: "It's definitely an individual, personal story. It's not a promotion for the Marine Corps, it's not anti-war. ... It's about one person's struggle and recovery, and how an entire community came together to support him."

The documentary met the expectations of a storyline because it incorporated a climax and an element of the unknown, she said.

"This is not a staged movie," Pepe said. "This is what actually happened, and I think that's so much more powerful than anything else."

Hodierne, who was a war photographer in Vietnam, developed the idea for the project when he was contacted by Dawn Settle of Homes for Our Troops to sell one of his photographs, Hodierne said.

Settle wanted his photograph of a healthy, kneeling soldier in Vietnam holding the hand of a dying soldier, with a close-up of the hands, for a house that was being built for a disabled Iraq war veteran, he said.

Hodierne got a call from Settle about a new building project just before Burkhardt, McAvoy and Pepe proposed their project. "It just seemed like all the planets were aligned," he said.

Pepe requested Hodierne's collaboration as the adviser of the project because of the multimedia and documentary expertise he brought to the journalism department in fall 2008, she said.

Hodierne spent the summer of 2010 documenting the experience of a Marine platoon that Obama had sent to Afghanistan, he said. The Homes for Our Troops project film qualified as war reporting, as well, he said.

"War is not just what happens on the battlefield," he said. "What people will see when they watch this film is the long-term impact war has not just on the veterans, but on their families and communities."

Pepe said if the group had not had an experienced journalist who had made documentaries in the past, the project would not have happened. Hodierne lent the women tens of thousands of dollars worth of his own camera equipment, she said.

The women hefted the equipment to Fredericksburg where the bulk of the filming began with the commencement of the construction at 7 a.m. Friday, April 1. They filmed all day and throughout the night on Friday, and all day Saturday, Pepe said. They left Saturday night when most of the remaining construction was being done inside, she said.

But the filming actually began at the beginning of January with Lyon's background story and the Homes for Our Troops construction plans, Pepe said.

Even though the documentary is a true depiction, she said the film still had to have characters in addition to Lyon, the main character. The other characters, chosen because of any effect they may have had on Lyon, included his family -- his mother, GiGi, and his sister Tiffany -- friends who were with him in Iraq, construction volunteers, who did not even know him, and Homes for Our Troops representatives, she said.

The documentary avoids a political angle, Pepe said. "It's so much more personal than that," she said. "I think that regardless of your views of whether we should be in Iraq or not, I think that everyone sort of sees it as, this is a man who risked his life for us."

The documentary also includes a reel of bloopers from the filming process at the end, she said.

Hodierne acknowledged how far America had come since the Vietnam War, when soldiers and Marines would come home and be ignored at best, Pepe said. People did not respect the servicemen because they did not respect the war, she said.

"Regardless of whether or not people respect the war today, I think that everyone does show great respect for our troops," Pepe said. "And, I mean, meeting [Lyon], it's kind of hard not to."

Hodierne said with 600 to 700 volunteers working on the house, the women had been deeply exposed to people they normally would not have come into contact with.

Most of the builders were middle-class people, Hodierne said. "They gave up their time to come out there and help this guy out who's a stranger to them," he said. "They didn't know this guy. They just knew what he had been through."

Burkhardt said Lyon had been accustomed to interview questions ever since he had gotten involved with Homes for Our Troops, but she had been repeatedly taken aback by his honest responses.

"I think he's excited for his house," Burkhardt said. "He's excited for the story too, but I know that he's -- as much as we joke about Kenny loving to be on camera all the time -- I know that he's just been doing it, been helping us out so much for us, not so much for him. So I think he's definitely excited to see it, and see what we've been working on for so long. And I think he's gonna love the blooper part."

But, when Lyon watches the documentary, he will finally hear how his mother and sister felt the whole time that they were trying to put on a mask and stay strong for him, Burkhardt said.

"So I think there will be an element of something new when he sees it," she said. "But I think he's just excited to start getting on with his life, and this is just another step of the process for him. Or another symbol of his independence, and what he's been through, and what everyone has done for him."

McAvoy said the women did not have any unmanageable challenges. "It was mostly just taking on a project this huge and trying to make it work when this is a learning process for all of us, and just trying to find the time to make sure that we did it justice," she said.

Hodierne said the group may try to sell the film to one of the cable channels. He has only told the PBS outlet about the project because he wanted to see how it turned out, he said.

"I told the general manager about this film and he said they'd be very interested in it," Hodierne said.

McAvoy said the final product, which is now in the editing and scripting stage, would include a music score composed by senior music major Patrick Burns.

Hodierne said the filming had concluded on Saturday, April 9, with the key ceremony, when Lyon was officially handed the keys to his house.

The goal is to have a film ready to screen on campus on April 28, he said.

Burkhardt said, "This has been the most meaningful thing I've done in college." She said she looked forward to finally being able to show peers and family what they had been working on and why they had been absent so many weekends.

As for Lyon, she said: "I know that he wants to go back to school, and then after that, he has a very positive attitude. I don't see him spending life alone. I know that he'll find someone or have a friend move in with him or something. Because he just has too much personality to be alone."

This story has been updated to correct the number of Marines injured during the explosion on May 1, 2006.

Contact staff writer Katie Toussaint at katie.toussaint@richmond.edu.