Milo Ventimiglia is composed as Top Gun pilot. First gear is smooth, then second — but in a cool way that velocity bursts with an swish and car lighting blurs.
Grip strength is a key component of riding shotgun. Knuckles are white, wheels scream, heart beating, music blasting. Today’s feature is “Red Eyes”, by The War on Drugs.
This is just controlled chaos for the man who has been America’s father for six years on NBC’s “This Is Us” program. The entire experience, including the morning drive, the story that you are reading, and how I got to work on his TV show, is surreal and absurd for me as a U.S Marine veteran of Afghanistan’s war.
It’s also my melancholic, and ultimately therapeutic, reflection of my war experience and my life after.
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We take I-10. We travel eastbound on the Santa Monica Freeway. We sail into morning traffic and weave through the traffic. Un chess game that is fueled by raw velocity.
It’s four years ago that I remember. I had scheduled an interview with Dan Fogelman (the creator of “This Is Us”) and Tim O’Brien (the renowned American novelist). Tim O’Brien was the author of “The Things They Carried”, and was hired to create the Vietnam War storyline for season 3. This interview was to discuss the verisimilitude and blending of real-life war memories with fiction.
While scrolling through Instagram photos an hour prior to the call, I discovered that a Marine with whom I had served in Afghanistan had committed suicide nine months before. Gunnery Sergeant. Vaughn Canlas, an infantryman who became a human intelligence collector was Gunnery Sgt. He was 39 years old and had served over 16 years when he killed himself.
After I had gotten on the phone to Fogelman and O’Brien, my tears started. The interview was a blurred memory of me apologizing for everything as I tried to answer my questions through tears. Fogelman stated that I was being unfair to myself and suggested I stop by California if I’m there.
Three months later, I am walking from one soundstage to the next, touring the editing bays and sets of “This Is Us”. Fogelman asked: Would you be open to chatting with the writers for approximately 15 minutes? It was an idea to create a new character, Cassidy Sharp (played by Jennifer Morrison).
Two hours later, I was offered employment.
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In a room full of strangers, Cassidy Sharp was developed. This was ultimately a deep mine of my internal struggle to understand the post-war world. Fogelman says that the show’s writing area became my therapy room.
He said, “That’s our program.” “If you had to choose one thing about the show, it would be about the loss of a parent. It would be about grief and the trauma that goes with that sudden loss.
I was able to identify. I shared with the writers the story of the curious Afghan boy who I saw step on an improvised explosive weapon. They also asked me about the guilt of my survivor. My depression.
They also heard about Lance Cpl. Charles “Seth,” Sharp, the man who inspired Cassidy’s last namesake, bled to death in front of his friends. My loss of innocence, purpose, and the crumbling marriage. My ex-wife took a Beretta 9mm from my mouth.
Fogelman wanted to know what I disliked about Hollywood’s portrayals of veterans and servicemen. It was the caricatured tropes which painted individuals as either heroically strong or extremely broken. There are no shades of gray.
This is not the reality. Post-traumatic stress veterans, I stated, still have bills and families to care for. We often try to pretend that we are okay by creating compartments.
Even when we aren’t.
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Everyone is affected by war on some level.
Life is lost. Innocence, too. A permanent shattering occurs on the topography of human existence — a before-and-after. This experience is multilayered and complex, so a true representation of a veteran must include these aspects.
The night of September 24, 2019, is a vivid memory for me. It happened one day after the birthday of my father. It was four years since my father had passed away. This is why I began watching the show.
I recall being asked if it was exciting to see Cassidy Sharp’s introduction during season four of “This is Us.” I was scared. What if people weren’t watching or cared?
Sharp and Lance Cpl. were the two friends I paid tribute to in this episode. Jeremy Lasher. Cassidy, in her Marine Corps uniform returning from war, is the scene that I most remember. After getting out of a taxi, she is welcomed by her family and friends. A handwritten sign reading “Welcome Back Sharp” is visible in the background.
My Sharp did not get that experience. His family did not get the same experience. However, 7.7 million viewers saw his name. Sharp’s father, Ric , told Stars and Stripes: “It gave me cold Chills. I cried. Right now, I am tearing up.
He said, “I wanted all my friends and family to see it,” “I was proud to be remembered and I was just thrilled.” “I believe that when people say their names, they are not forgotten.”
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As Ventimiglia claps his hands, I can hear him trying to calm Paramount’s soundstage 20, 20 production assistants.
This episode, number 608, was directed by him. It aired last week. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles’ “Ooo Baby Baby” echoes off the walls, as the camera captures Griffin Dunne & Vanessa Bell Calloway moving in the background.
Cassidy Sharp, played by Justin Hartley, is in the foreground pretending to be okay in front of her son, Kevin Pearson. However, she is still suffering from silence about the end of the war in Afghanistan. Her memories fluctuate between her broken marriage and her broken promises.
The scene is replayed in the mind of the character and mine. Last August was when thousands of Afghans fled to Hamid Karzai International Airport fearing another Taliban regime. My mind flashes back to the moment when I see a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane take off while several people are being crushed under its wheels.
On the way to Paramount, I remember how I held the door handle of Ventimiglia’s car. I think of the Afghans and their grips. How they held onto the plane’s underside as it rose in altitude. How they died. My hands become clammy. My muscles become tighter due to stress. My breathing becomes labored. I cry.
Dunne plays Nicky Pearson, a Vietnam veteran. He senses that something is not right about Cassidy. This is intentional. In the months before filming began, my conversation with Jake Schnesel, Kevin Falls, and myself focused on the relationship between Vietnam and Afghanistan veterans and the sins they feel are their burdens.
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In some ways, I think veterans are not reliable narrators of their war stories. Veterans are always looking inward, which can make their perspective unique and valuable. However, it can also limit the scope of their vision.
In the absence of a coherent narrative about the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, it is easy for soldiers to take responsibility for events that aren’t their fault. It’s easy to reduce the war to their small, horrible experiences, as Adam Linehan, an Army veteran turned writer, put it.
It becomes their war, a war of mind. They feel like the bad guys in this war.
In this storyline, the U.S. did not leave Afghans behind. Cassidy did. Jack didn’t bring back all his soldiers alive. Nicky is unforgiveable for killing an innocent Vietnamese boy. It was years of playing the “what-if” game that prevented a small boy, a toddler, from being swept away in a cloud of fire and torn flesh.
The war memories are not just stored away after a withdrawal, surrender or signing of a peace agreement. They change over time for both those who were there and the families that were affected by the violence.
Based on my experiences with “This Is Us”, I have come to the conclusion that a veteran who saw Saigon fall in 1975 can help an Afghanistan vet navigate the emotional impact associated with the U.S. troop withdrawal.
Fiction can be a way to teach us how wars in the mind should end. With a connection made and something added, we can see a path forward, not just a story of what happened along the journey. The realization that we can be OK even when things aren’t going our way.
