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Soldiers honor deceased in videos

Jan-30-2006 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

First reported here on 1/27, this article has now been reprinted in the Baltimore Sun. The story mentions SSG Juan Solorio, MSG Brian Mack, SGT Christopher Pusateri, and SSG Zachary Wobler

Link to Full Article
By Dionne Searcey, The Wall Street Journal

Electronic records create a powerful, raw new wave of war memorials

The night his buddy was killed by insurgent gunfire in Iraq last March, Army Spc. Mitchell Bass hopped out of his bunk and grabbed his laptop. He searched his computer for every digital photo he could find of the friend, Staff Sgt. Juan Solorio, and then wandered around the camp in Mosul with his portable hard drive asking other soldiers whether they had any photos or video clips.

They gave him shots of Solorio sporting a newly shaved head and leaning against a burned-out truck on an Iraqi roadside. They found footage of Solorio reaching for his pistol, dropping it in the mud and laughing. Bass strung all the images together into a video and added a soundtrack, "The Night That the Lights Went Out in NYC" by punk band the Ataris. Then he played it at a memorial service in Iraq. [...]

A dusty tent in Mosul served as Army Capt. Kevin Latham's studio, where he made videos to honor the four soldiers in his unit who had died just before Christmas 2004 when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in the camp's mess hall. Mortars boomed in the distance as he worked long past midnight to carefully select music to go with the videos. [...]

In another memorial video, Army Master Sgt. Brian Mack, who died in Mosul a year ago this month, is shown in photos riding in a Blackhawk helicopter and in a short video clip rushing a stationary target during gun practice, shooting repeatedly while friends laugh. It's set to the melancholy song "Clocks" by Coldplay.

"Every time someone was killed, we put together a little thing like that," said Sgt. Emmet Cullen, a sniper who fought alongside Mack. "It helps the grieving process putting them together. Talking about them, seeing them with a big goofy smile on -- it helps." [...]

Lt. Col. Christopher Gibson, who has completed two tours in Iraq as commander of an 82nd Airborne battalion, said he watched the videos for two of his troopers -- Sgt. Christopher Pusateri and Staff Sgt. Zachary Wobler -- several times in advance of their memorial services "so I could keep myself together when I delivered my remarks," he said.

When Pusateri was shot to death last winter, Gibson turned to members of his communications team to make his memorial video because they were familiar with computer equipment. One of them was Capt. Jerrold Castro, who met with fellow troopers and laid out a storyboard of sorts, to select the order of the photos and video clips. On his laptop, he used Microsoft's Movie Maker to fiddle with the photos, changing some to a sepia tint and adding special effects. [...]


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