CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Two veterans, seniors at West Virginia State University, no longer wanted the American casualties of The War on Terror to be just numbers so they did something about it.
The film, “37 Fallen: The Story of West Virginia’s Heroes In The War on Terror”, premieres this week. The first showing Tuesday night in Charleston.
Filmmakers Tyler Miller said he and Calvin Grimm, both communications majors, were spending an evening together last year when they noticed a newspaper article that listed just a number when reporting the latest American death in the Middle East.
“It didn’t have a picture, it didn’t have a name, it just had a number,” Miller recalled Tuesday during an appearance on MetroNews Talkline. “That bothered us and we decided we wanted to tell the story, let people know who these people are.”
Miller and Grimm narrowed their project to 37 West Virginians killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2011.
“The first casualty from West Virginia was Sgt. Gene Arden Vance in 2002 just months after 9/11and our last casualty is Sgt. Nicholas Null from 2011,” Grimm said.
Over the past year, with the help of two grants, Miller and Grimm have visited, photographed and filmed nearly three dozen grave sites and spoken with family members of more than 20 of the heroes. They’ve traveled to 16 different states and traveled 10,000 miles.
“Each family has a different outlook. Each individual member of each family has a different outlook on who these heroes were. You get a lot of different perspectives,” Miller said.
The interviews have been very emotional according to Grimm.
“We didn’t get through any one interview without everybody in the room needing Kleenex, taking breaks,” Grimm said. “The same thing with editing the footage, having to go back and look at the footage again was tough.”
Both Grimm and Tyler said Tuesday they continue to make contact with family members of the 37 and hope to keep adding to the work. It’s currently an 88-minute long film.
Grimm said the film includes a lot of beautiful photography of West Virginia and “a lot of footage from the front lines donated by veterans.”
Miller said he has no regrets.
“I think it’s a real good tribute to our heroes,” Miller said.
The first showing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Capitol Center Theatre on Summers Street in downtown Charleston. Admission is free and open to the public.