The 'Girls Next Door'
(April 11, 2011) |
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| BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (4/7/2011) – Thinking of all
the places she thought' she'd be while growing up, the last
place filmmaker JulieHera DeStefano said she would have
imagined finding herself was in a combat zone in
Afghanistan. |
JulieHera DeStefano,
filmmaker, poses with Spc. Stephanie Daniels of
the 101st Sustainment Brigade on top of an MATV
vehicle on March 28, 2011. DeStefano spent three
months in Afghanistan working on a documentary
focusing on female soldiers in combat and how
they deal with deployments and returning home. |
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Here is dust and debris, severe weather,
unforgiving terrain, and constant traveling to
remote areas in Regional Command East. Here is
also missing the creature comforts of walking
barefoot to the bathroom in her home, as opposed
to putting on shoes and walking out of her B-Hut
across the sharp aggregate in the dead of night
just to get to the female latrines.
But
here DeStefano is, a civilian among soldiers and
other service members, living as they live, and
roughing it out in the harsh, nearly primitive
environment that is Afghanistan. There's a story
here she wants to tell: a story about our female
veterans. She seeks to follow their experiences
in a combat environment, and the adjustments
they make to life back home after their
re-deployment. |
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The project is titled, “Female Veterans on the
Long Journey Home: A Documentary.” DeStefano, a
Pittsburg, Pa., native who lives in New York
City and was there during 9/11, said the
experience has opened her eyes to what military
culture is all about. |
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“I've started to understand the type of family bonds that
develop here. I think it's profound on how strong and close
and wonderful they are,” she said. “Just like your family
back home, there are days you fight and don't like each
other. It's never perfect, but it's kind of wonderful in its
imperfections.”
This is DeStefano's first foray into
documentary filmmaking. A Carnegie-Mellon University
graduate, she moved to New York City 16 years ago, where she
worked on off-Broadway as an actor, theater manager, and
producer. She's also managed a film and photography studio.
She arrived in Afghanistan in December 2010, and has
spent most of the winter here among the troops. DeStefano
traveled primarily through RC-East, and has interviewed a
variety of servicemembers, including female pilots, medics,
and the sole female member of an all-male Personal Security
Detachment convoy team.
The journey itself started
for her nearly two years ago, when she and her partners
Karen Gravelle and John McDermott were looking for projects
to undertake.
An episode on the ‘Oprah Winfrey' show
- featuring women who had served in combat in Iraq, telling
their stories about what it was like to serve overseas and
what it was like to come home- set the events in motion.
“There was one young woman who told a story that struck
me. Her young daughter asked her to make her a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich. She went into the kitchen to make her
the sandwich, but realized she couldn't make it the same way
she had before because she had lost an arm,” DeStefano said.
Life had changed for that woman in that instant, she
said. “I got to thinking about how we talk very little about
anyone's experience in a combat zone is, especially women,
and even less about when we come home,” DeStefano said.
DeStefano said she, Gravelle and McDermott spent a year
gathering data and researching the topic of their
documentary. They decided the premise of their film would
focus on women as emotional leaders in a family, and how or
if a combat deployment affects that role.
“We wanted
to know how did that dynamic changed if you've witnessed
some of the things people are oftentimes witnessing over
here, even if it's a totally positive experience of being
part of something large and powerful like the military,” she
said.
“Doing things that are very fulfilling to
people ... how do you go back to being a mom, a wife, a
sister, or a daughter with the assumption that deployment is
a life changing experience. Good or bad, it's different, and
how do you integrate this experience into the person you
were once before?”
Sgt. Velma Robinson, a supply
noncommissioned officer with the 277th Support Maintenance
Company, 17th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 101st
Sustainment Brigade, was interviewed as part of the film
project. She has deployed three times and said the
transition back home has been different each time.
“It can change a person for the good or the bad,” she said.
“It's a lot for people back home to deal with. You have to
take it as a day-by-day thing.”
Another interviewee,
Spc. Dierdre' Taylor-Scales, an automated logistics
specialist at Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 17th CSSB,
said she felt she was a different person when she went home
on Rest and Relaxation leave.
“Everything is
different when you come home. My own husband had a different
view of me,” she said. “We've had the experience of living
in a different environment and having to carry a weapon all
the time. We are different after that experience and people
will look at you differently.”
DeStefano said she has
talked to a variety of female service members about their
experience of being deployed. Some have multiple deployments
under their belts, others are first-timers.
“One
particular company commander I interviewed sort of embodied
that image of patriotism that I wish a lot of us had in our
everyday lives,” she said. “She's the soldier who ‘bleeds
green, but happens to be a woman and doesn't have to change
who she is to be a strong leader' type.”
“I've also
talked to a lot of women who are struggling with an internal
conflict that I think most of us don't acknowledge. They
love what they and believe in the causes that bring them
here, but there's this guilt they're putting themselves
through. It's a really powerful thing to see and a real
struggle for them to say, ‘I want to follow my career, but
I'm concerned about the impact it will have on my children.'
”
DeStefano described an interview she conducted with
one such servicemember who experienced that exact conflict.
“I had one woman I talked to ... strong, powerful... and I
asked her what would she most like her son to know about her
time deployed, and she put her head in her hands and burst
into tears. And she said, ‘I want him to know how much I
want to be home with him. I want him to forgive me for not
being there,'” she said.
“We're quick to forget that.
Even if your deployment is beautifully uneventful, and hope
that it is, you're still away from home. You're away for a
year, and it's a sense of being in this Groundhog Day for a
year, and everything is still moving forward,” DeStefano
said. “You've missed that progression at home because you
chose to this very noble thing with your life.”
Staff
Sgt. Shalanda Banks, a Human Resources non-commissioned
officer for the 109th Quartermaster Company, 17th CSSB, also
took part in the project. She said she believes many people
also tend to forget that soldiers are also part of the
general community.
“We want to be able to take off
the uniform, sit back and not worry about having to put it
back on and going across the world,” she said. “We want the
same pleasures in life like everyone else.”
DeStefano
said she has come to understand how complex the conflict in
Afghanistan is, particularly for women. She said she want to
position the film as a “call to action” in the community in
creating positive solutions for these transitioning troops.
“We want to open a dialogue with the community about the
sacrifices you make for us,” she said. “We're allowed to
benefit everyday back home from what you do here whatever
your job is. So we have an obligation to step up the plate
and supporting you in your return.”
DeStefano said
she is in talks with the Pittsburgh Public Broadcasting
Station about airing the film. She also said she's received
an offer from the Army Office of Chief of Public Affairs to
look into the possibility of airing the documentary on HBO.
One of the promises she's made to the service members is
that they are allowed to preview the finished product before
it is aired and distributed.
“This is their story,
and we don't politics or anything else to get in the way of
this being a vehicle for their voice,” she said. “We have to
make sure those promises are kept going forward with any
producing partner.”
“It's a very rare glimpse into
this world. Not many people are given that opportunity and
it's something that I will not take lightly.” |
Article and photo by Army SFC Peter Mayes
101st
Sustainment Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (AA) Public
Affairs
Copyright 2011 | |
Provided
through DVIDS
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