Film tells story of final journey for soldier

[unhappycamper]

Film tells story of final journey for soldier
By Jeremy Goldmeier - Gillette (Wyo.) News-Record
Posted : Sunday Feb 15, 2009 17:49:46 EST

GILLETTE, Wyo. — It was just one soldier’s story. Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps, 19, was killed in an ambush outside of Baghdad on Good Friday 2004. Within the next week, his body would be escorted from Iraq, across the Atlantic Ocean and across most of the United States to his hometown of Dubois in northwest Wyoming.

To national audiences, it was one more military casualty.

But like every soldier felled in battle, Chance left behind a world of connections: family, friends and a small Wyoming town devastated by his loss. The man who accompanied his casket from Philadelphia to Dubois, Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, provided a glimpse into that world by journaling the cross-country trip.

He wrote of not just the mourners waiting for Chance back in Wyoming, but of all the people who helped the young soldier back home to his final rest. The construction workers who took off their hard hats as the hearse passed by. The pilots and flight attendants who offered condolences for the family. The cargo guys who bore Chance on and off each flight with the utmost solemnity and respect. Each of them became part of the young man’s world, of his story, and the words they passed on informed Strobl’s writing.

After Strobl’s account, entitled “Taking Chance,” gained national attention, HBO came calling. A film adaptation, starring Kevin Bacon in the role of Strobl, debuts Wednesday in Dubois. Residents of the town, understandably, go into the event with mixed feelings.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/news/2009/02/ap_wyo_soldier_film_021509/%2e

[stray cat]

1. Thanks for the post - I plan to watch