SSG Ham's Army Films - ’07-’10 (Part 1 of 3)

Telling The Soldiers’ Story

Welcome back to my blog and thanks for your continued support. For this next post I would like to share with you the stories behind the films I made while I was in the Army as a combat videographer, public affairs specialist. I had never thought about joining the military until September 11th, 2001 happened. That horrible morning changed the trajectory of all of our lives and set in me the desire to serve my country. However at that time I had turned 18 and had started my undergraduate degree in film, was starting to date my late-wife Melanie and was not ready. Fast forward 2007 our country is at the height of violence in Iraq as our forces start a new surge and I decided to join the military in order to “tell the soldiers’ story from the front lines.” Subsequently I have become the most award winning military combat videographer in the post 9/11 era.

This is the reel I made as I was exiting the military, 2013.

This photo was taken after a long 48 hour+ mission where we raided a couple of villages and arrested an unknown amount of “bad dudes,” photo taken by Pvt. Andrya Hill, 2009.

Road To Ramadi - My Road To The Military

My intention with this post is to share the evolution of my work. The first films I made are nothing spectacular but I have found it humbling to go back to my roots and see how far I’ve come, so don’t judge too harshly ha! My first interaction with the military was when myself and a team of filmmakers made a scripted film called Road To Ramadi for the 168 hour film festival, a competition where you are to create a short film in one week. If you want to see the cringiest behind the scenes of pre-military Robert check out the video below hahaha. It feels a lifetime ago that we made this film and it’s surreal to think about how much I’ve changed and how naive I was but I was 22! While making this film I met several veterans that partnered with us and this was the impetus for me to start looking at the military as an option for my future. When we finished and showed this film, despite it getting a few nominations and into a couple of festivals, it completely fell flat on authenticity and I knew that. I was kind of ashamed that I didn’t understand enough of what was going on in the Middle East and our Armed Forces to deliver something good and that was the beginning spark for me to join.

I can’t even watch this the whole way through, so cringey but I was also so passionate and ambitious about filmmaking at 22, 2005.

Another still, we shot this in Canyon Country, 2005.

The gentleman on the right is Lew Knopp a former Navy SEAL, helped fund and star in the film, 2005.

Joining the U.S. Army

When I first walked into that recruiter’s officer back in 2007 they threw a ton at me; recruiting videos, bonus options, dozens of job opportunities and the G.I. Bill. At that time recruiting was at an all time low so a guy like me walking in saying “I’d like to serve because of 9/11” was an easy day for them. When my recruiter told me I could be on the front lines filming videos I was sold and I have to thank that recruiter because he got me everything I wanted; a bonus for Airborne school, Broadcast Journalist MOS (Military Occupation Specialty), a huge “quick ship” bonus” and I was getting in as an E-4/Specialist because I had a degree. My late-wife Melanie and I made this decision quite isolated from the world; I had no friends or family that had joined (other then Melanie’s step-father Larry who had served in Iraq and gave me good advise) and we felt alone in this decision, particularly because Melanie didn’t really want to do this either but she went along with me because she believed in what I was trying to do. When I held my right hand up and swore to defend this country against enemies foreign and domestic it was one of the proudest and scariest things I’d ever done.

Prior to me leaving for basic Mel and I did a photo shoot where I thought it was cool to wear an old Vietnam era Army shirt. Let me just say that hair is way out of regulation, 2007.

So young, so naive, so patriotic, so ambitious, and still a boy in many ways, 2007.

Basic Training

Basic Training is one of the most fascinating experiences of my life. When I showed up to the base at Ft. Knox it felt like prison and in many respects it was. The first couple weeks is survivor mode and you try to find your clan. Interestingly it’s usually race-based but of course that dissipates quickly when you realize that to get through basic you needed people that had high character and were capable irregardless of their race, ethnicity, religion or any other factor other than being a good soldier. I think the hardest part of basic was being away from Melanie and the rest of my family. I wrote Mel letters every day and I only had 30 minutes of free time every night and that’s what I did with it. I think I got two or three phone calls the whole time I was there and it was only for guys that were the top ten in the physical training tests so I always worked as hard as possible to make the cut.

I was very proud of my locker, absolutely impeccable, 2007.

Me and my battle buddy Pvt. Harelson, great guy whom I haven’t seen since then, 2007.

Boyhood To A New Man

Basic was a challenging time but I gained some valuable tools about leadership, trusting yourself and your battle buddy, and working hard through stress. I also realized I was a pretty damn good shot, I was one of two in my platoon who shot expert and they rewarded me with firing the rocket launcher AT-4 and a phone call :) My last thought about basic is it was a time in which the Army indoctrinates you into how they operate and want you to think. In many ways it helped tie my destiny to that of my country and gave me a new found patriotism, while also built in me a bitterness of those that haven’t gone through this experience. It’s also hard to shed the intensity of military life and can be a big struggle for veterans afterward, as it was for me.

Graduation day was on my birthday Dec. 19, 2007. I was pumped to be moving on.

Melanie and I arriving back to Los Angeles after being gone for months, 2007.

DINFOS Trained Killer - Advanced Individual Training (AIT)

Defense Information School (DINFOS) at Ft. Meade, Maryland (next to the NSA) is the school where all military media related jobs are trained. If you've seen the movie Good Morning Vietnam, Adrian Cronauer played by Robin Williams, was based on a real character who went to DINFOS and became well-known in Vietnam for his unorthodox radio show. All video and radio shows that are produced for the Armed Forces Network or the Pentagon Channel came out of DINFOS. So for me, I couldn't wait to get out of basic training and get into my advanced individual training portion. However, considering I already had a bachelor's degree in film, the program academically was easy but the strict military school rules still sucked. Overall I had a really good time, I made some life-long friends and grew a ton in my story telling abilities but I couldn't wait to finish and move on to my unit. After going through several phases, I graduated as an Army combat correspondent/videographer and in our program we called ourselves “DINFOS Trained Killers.” I made the videos below during my time there and the “AIT” video explains the whole school process. Both of these videos below are super cringe, so you're welcome.

This video was for a group assignment. In my class we joked because I was the highest rank, E-4 which really meant nothing in this environment, we thought we were hilarious, 2008.

I made this video in my free time for my class cohort in order to explain the whole schooling process. No one had ever made one about this before. I also was a true believer in our causes as you see in the cringey stuff at the end, 2008.

Airborne School

The next phase of my military time was U.S. Army Airborne School at Ft. Benning (now Ft. Moore) Georgia. This course definitely scared the shit out of me because I never really thought about jumping out of planes before this. This was the hardest of my military training thus far. It's a rigorous course, where you train how to jump out of a perfectly good airplane and crash safely. Lots of running, lots of pull ups, lots of physical training and then you have to jump out of an airplane five times. I remember graduating and my right arm and shoulder were purple and black because I kept hitting the side of the C-130. But by the end of it, I had my maroon beret and it was definitely a proud moment. It was now time to join my unit. Airborne All The Way!

I made this during my station at Ft. Richardson where I ended up doing alot of Airborne jumps and was able to film them, 2008.

Visiting our family in Los Angeles and Melanie was pregnant, 2008.

This photo make me laugh so hard now. It’s like I pulled it off of one of those stock photo websites, 2008.

Ft. Richardson Alaska - The 4th Brigade 25th Infantry Division (AIRBORNE)

I distinctly remember when I found out I was being stationed in Alaska, I already anticipated what Mel was gonna say because she had told me she’d go anywhere but Alaska. Of course the orders came down “Ft. Richardson, Alaska” and I laughed a bit when I told Mel, let’s just say the conversation did not go well. Suffice to say we actually loved it there. When we arrived in the summer the days were long, meaning the sun barely set at around 11 pm and barely rose just a few hours later, it was trippy for sure. The winters were harder because they were dark for about 20 hours a day and that could drive alot of people kind of crazy. As soon as we hit the ground in Alaska we moved in to a new home, found a new church, “sped date” to find friends, I started training for my deployment and Mel was about to give birth to our first child, it was a busy, stressful and a wild time. Fortunately during those years we had a ton of family help and we made the best of every moment as you can see in this segment of my feature doc I made about Mel’s life. Our son Elijah was born on September 11th, 2008 and that would be about four months before I would deploy to Afghanistan, which definitely felt serendipitous.

Family photo outside our house at Ft. Richardson, AK., 2010.

Melanie and I at Elmendorf Air Force Base for an air show, she’s about to have our son, 2008.

This was from our deployment ceremony where Sarah Palin (the then Alaskan Governor and Vice-President candidate) gave our send-off speech, 2009.

This was the last picture I took with my son before I left for Afghanistan, 2009.

This was the first video I made for the military that won an award, First Place Feature Story, 2008.

I spent alot of time on this film and it was my longest film before I deployed. There’s of course a lot of things I would do differently but this resonated with the soldiers who fought in Iraq, so I made it for them, 2008.

This video was played in the Sullivan Arena to the entire Brigade for our deployment ceremony in 2009.

My first short film I made when I arrived to my unit in Alaska about their previous deployment to Iraq, 2008.

Afghanistan - Operation Enduring Freedom IX-X

Landing in Afghanistan and walking out in the middle of the night with my night vision goggles on and all my gear was when it finally hit me; I left America, my wife and son to film a war I know little about and could certainly die fighting in. But I couldn’t wait to get out and start filming soldiers doing their job. The problem was my unit had no idea how to use me or public affairs in general, so the first month I spent most of my time cleaning up our public affairs office, exercising and endless amounts of tower guard. Tower guard was boring but it was what soldiers did right? But after a while it wore on me considering that I felt I was much better off doing my job, the reason I came to the country and joined the Army in the first place. So in my short amount of free time (and even using my own gear because all of our equipment got stuck in Pakistan for over a month) I filmed the story below about the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team (EOD). The EOD soldiers were awesome and they loved having me around. On one mission they had found a huge vehicle IED with thousands of pounds of explosives and were able to disarm it before it went off. Part of EOD’s job is also disposing of the explosives so we had a ton of fun blowing it all up. I’m particularly proud of this piece because of the open “drone” shot that I made from a map, I even animated the cars. I tried to replicate stuff from Body Of Lies which I was obsessed with it at the time. When I showed my Brigade Commander this video he instantly took me off of tower guard and started giving me the freedom to tell stories that I wanted.

This was the first story I did in Afghanistan, 2009.

Filming on the front lines in Afghanistan, 2009.

This story was about a massive Vehicle IED that went off at our Forward Operating Base Salerno, 2009. It was streaming on Hulu and Amazon for a while when I returned.

Our meme game was strong back in the day ;) This was our team, 2010.

Filming and Telling the Soldiers’ Story

I was ambitiously trying to get out to the busiest units, try to gain their trust and then tell a story that would resonate with them. One of the next films I made was “Fight For A Fallen Brother.” I spent weeks with this Cavalry Scout Company at a base called Ft. Wilderness and I went on a ton of missions with them. I am proud of this film which was about the first KIA our Brigade took that year, Pvt. Patrick Devoe II. Patrick was very well liked in his unit and it hit them hard. This film kind of defines how many of the Soldier’s felt about the war. We were almost ten years removed from 9/11 so it didn’t feel that was the reason we were fighting anymore, although that fog lingered. For us it seemed as though the war became, “they killed our guy, it’s time to find the guys who did it and get revenge.” These soldiers are some of the best men I knew and still know. Ten years to the day that Patrick died I received an email from his mother. She wrote me that it took her ten years to finally watch my film and she’s glad she did, it helped her in some small way see the love the other men in the unit had for her son and gave her bit more closure. Her email meant the world to me and was exactly why I wanted to tell these stories.

This was the first film I was nominated for an Emmy for, 2009 .

Pvt. Andrya Hill and I returning after a long mission, 2009.

Combat Aviation

Our Brigade headquarters was at a Forward Operating Base in Khost Afghanistan near the Pakistan border and was one of the larger U.S. bases. At Salerno you had different special forces units like the Rangers and the Navy SEALs, you had K-9 units, the EOD teams and there were huge amounts of aviation units. During that deployment I went on over 100 combat missions and most of those were air assaults on Chinooks or Blackhawks. I spent a ton of time with the aviation folks also including medical evacuation missions where Blackhawks would react to injured soldiers, Afghan military or civilians. On these medical evacuation missions we would pick up wounded people and bring them back to the base, kind of like what our EMTs do, except we also got shot at. Below is a short-documentary series I made about the various types or aircraft the Army used, all played on Hulu and Amazon Prime at one point.

Attack On The Fourth Of July

My film Attack On The Fourth Of July was to me the whole reason I went to Afghanistan and the film I’m most proud of that I made on deployment. On July 4th 2009 an estimated 200 Taliban insurgents attacked a two platoon outpost (about 40 soldiers). It was one of the biggest coordinated attacks during our time there. About two weeks after the attack where they lost two great young mortar men, I was sent to the base to spend a couple weeks with them and tell their story. I became very attached to the unit and still think about Justin 19, and Aaron 20, and their sacrifice for our country.

Taking a breather and trying to cool off during a mission, 2009.

After an over 72 hour march through the mountains of Afghanistan where we were to clean up a blown-up district center and prepare it for the upcoming elections, 2009.

Filming a chinook, one of my favorite things to capture, 2009.

Weapon at the ready, with my camera on my back, 2009.

Returning Home

Coming home from deployment is met with a million emotions. I was excited to be home and see my family but also nervous knowing I had changed. It took me years to process that deployment but when I first got back all I wanted to do was stay at home with my wife and son. I was proud of my deployment and the things we tried to accomplish but there was a very unsettled feeling as though nothing we did there actually mattered. The world back home was completely unchanged and it felt that no one but my family really cared about what we did over there.

Receiving my Army Commendation Medal from our Brigade Commander Col. Michael Howard a few days before leaving Afghanistan, 2010.

My son and I visiting the memorial to our fallen soldiers from our deployment, 2010.

Photo with my dad after returning home, 2010.

This was the video our unit showed at our Return Home Brigade Ball, it went over well, 2010.

Our unit showed this video at our Brigade memorial service where we honored out fallen soldiers, 2010.

2010 Military Videographer of The Year and Survivors Guilt

Later that year in 2010 I submitted a portfolio of projects I had made in Afghanistan to the most competitive military videographer competition in the military MILVID (military videographer of the year) and I won! This competition has been around since the Vietnam era and is military-wide, meaning it included all branches of the military. The DOD flew Melanie and I back to Ft. Meade, Maryland to receive my award and they honored me and the military photographer of the year at the annual White House News Photographers Association competition where we received a standing ovation. This was by far the most prestigious award I had ever received and it was an honor of a lifetime. I subsequently received the MILVID award two more times which was the most in Army history. While this honor was an amazing accomplishment and something I was certainly proud of, I could never dismiss it from that fact that I received them for telling stories of soldiers who were killed in battle. Returning home as a survivor can be difficult for all veterans and is something many of us still struggle with; “why did I survive,” “were those killed deserving of life more than me,” “how do I live up to the tremendous sacrifice they gave?” Today I still struggle with survivor’s guilt, not just from war but also being a widow, my goal now is to honor all of them with a life well-lived and that’s what I strive to do everyday. It is humbling and important to remember our roots and our past, but I want to constantly be moving forward, evolving and growing.

“SSG Ham’s Army Films Part 2” that discusses my time from 2011 until I got out of active duty in 2014 will be coming soon and then a final part three of my time in the Army Reserve from ‘14-17. Thanks for reading! Peace and love to you all.