PHOTO PROVIDED BY SCOTT HALE
Gary Cole, Gary Sinise, Jason Hale and Jonathan Flora are featured at an event promoting “Lt. Dan Band: For the Common Good.”
ROCKFORD — A 1995 graduate of Christian Life High School is directing a documentary about the work and home lives of members of the Army National Guard unit he’s serving with in Afghanistan.
Sgt. Jason Hale, a sniper, will tell the journey of Charlie Troop, attached to the 1-126th Calvary of the Michigan National Guard. The documentary is entitled “Citizen Soldiers: The Real Life Stories of the Boys of Charlie Troop.” It is expected to be released in late 2013.
Hale moved to the Detroit suburbs in 2004 to work as a fundraiser for charitable giving. He enlisted in the National Guard in 2006 for a six-year commitment.
Hale asked to direct the documentary after he was interviewed and became part of the story of the documentary, “Lt. Dan Band: For the Common Good.” That documentary featured the travels of Academy Award-nominated actor Gary Sinise as he and his band traveled around the world entertaining troops.
“During several of the screenings we had for ‘Lt. Dan Band: For the Common Good,’ including the Capitol Building and across the U.S., Jason would be part of our question and answers sessions following the screening,” said Jonathan Flora, director and producer of the “Lt. Dan Band” film. He made his comments in an email interview.
Hale explained to Flora differences been a National Guard unit preparing to deploy as compared with Army soldiers. He asked Flora if that might be a good documentary and told him he’d like to direct such a film. Flora liked the idea and asked him to direct. Flora’s company, Lamplight Entertainment of Northridge, Calif., is backing the National Guard documentary.
“Jason is a storyteller who gets it, lives it and knows how to express it,” Flora said.
“Too often, there is no distinction in the minds of the general public as to the differences,” Flora said. “Or they may feel the Guard stays here at home and assists primarily during national disasters, etc.
But since 9/11, more than 200,000 Guard soldiers have been mobilized for active duty overseas. At one point in 2005, half the combat brigades in Iraq were Army Guard units, Flora said.
Flora said individuals in the regular Army are “pretty much military 24-7.” On the other hand, a Guard member is military one weekend a month and two weeks every summer. “If a person is single and a homeowner, who takes care of their home while they are deployed? If a small business owner, who runs the shop? And like the regular Army, who takes care of their families, and how will their wives handle being a single parent for such a long period of time.”
Many National Guard members serve extended duty for a year to 18 months at a time. Hale left for Afghanistan in December last year. “It is normal today to say (Guard) soldiers with a six-year commitment will see at least two war-type deployments,” Hale said in an email interview.
In his sniper job, Hale goes ahead of troops and searches out the enemy.
Because of his work with Sinise and Flora in Iraq on the “Lt. Dan Band” movie and his desire to document the Afghanistan deployment, Hale has worked with the military to get the OK to photograph and interview soldiers and their families before, during and after the soldiers’ return.
“I always have my camera at the ready and notebook to write down what I am seeing live, on the spot,” he said. “But my job is to perform as a senior sniper, and all else is secondary.”
Hale spent several hundred hours filming Charlie Troop members before they left for Afghanistan. Spouses, girlfriends, parents, siblings, friends were interviewed. He filmed weddings and talked with soldiers about the babies that would be born while they were away.
He has filmed Afghanistan soldiers, citizens and children. And he appreciates the supplies, clothes, candy, gifts and musical recorders groups and families back home have sent.
When Hale returns, he will interview again all those he’d talked to before the soldiers left for Afghanistan.
“For some, it will be hard, because for those that have been injured and even lost limbs, their lives and their families’ lives will have been changed forever.
“It will be time to readjust back to civilian life, and I will try to document how that is doing.”
Georgette Braun is a GO columnist for the Rockford Register Star. Contact her at gbraun@rrstar.com or 815-987-1331.
I had the great honor of meeting Jason Hale at the screening of "Lt. Dan Band: For the Common Good" at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis in Oct 2010.
Profile: Jason Hale
Born: 1977 in Arlington Heights
High school: Christian Life High School, Rockford, 1995
Career: After high school, received degree from World Harvest Bible College in Columbus, Ohio, and traveled with a friend doing evangelism work with youth; returned to Rockford and was a window washer, owned his own business and in fall of 2004 moved to Detroit area to work as a fundraiser for charitable giving.
Military career: Joined the Army National Guard in 2006. Worked as a gunner on a Humvee and with Iraqi government officials to improve relations in Iraq in summer of 2007. His unit’s shift were 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with special missions added on. “We provided supplies and many items for the children and schools,” Hale said. “I knew there was a different story that was not reaching back to America, and I yearned in my heart to tell the good that was being done.” Hale returned to the U.S. in late summer 2008 and continued with his job in planned giving in eastern Michigan and doing military training weekends and annual summer training with the Guard. He left for Afghanistan with his Guard unit in December last year and was promoted from corporal to sergeant.
Parents: Father, Scott Hale, who grew up in Michigan and moved to Chicago in 1969 and then to Rockford in 1979. He worked as an insurance sales agent and manager for 29 years for Liberty Mutual Insurance; stepmother, Carol, a Rockford elementary school music teacher. Mother Barbara Hale Ruggerio, and stepfather, Rich Ruggerio, live in Michigan. Scott Hale served in the Army. His home on North Mulford Road near Spring Creek Road has a large flag, Statue of Liberty replica and a banner stating “God Bless America.”
High school: Christian Life High School, Rockford, 1995
Career: After high school, received degree from World Harvest Bible College in Columbus, Ohio, and traveled with a friend doing evangelism work with youth; returned to Rockford and was a window washer, owned his own business and in fall of 2004 moved to Detroit area to work as a fundraiser for charitable giving.
Military career: Joined the Army National Guard in 2006. Worked as a gunner on a Humvee and with Iraqi government officials to improve relations in Iraq in summer of 2007. His unit’s shift were 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with special missions added on. “We provided supplies and many items for the children and schools,” Hale said. “I knew there was a different story that was not reaching back to America, and I yearned in my heart to tell the good that was being done.” Hale returned to the U.S. in late summer 2008 and continued with his job in planned giving in eastern Michigan and doing military training weekends and annual summer training with the Guard. He left for Afghanistan with his Guard unit in December last year and was promoted from corporal to sergeant.
Parents: Father, Scott Hale, who grew up in Michigan and moved to Chicago in 1969 and then to Rockford in 1979. He worked as an insurance sales agent and manager for 29 years for Liberty Mutual Insurance; stepmother, Carol, a Rockford elementary school music teacher. Mother Barbara Hale Ruggerio, and stepfather, Rich Ruggerio, live in Michigan. Scott Hale served in the Army. His home on North Mulford Road near Spring Creek Road has a large flag, Statue of Liberty replica and a banner stating “God Bless America.”
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