We're Releasing Battlegrounds & Backroads Online

After two years of making Battlegrounds & Backroads, two years of driving around the state and speaking with Gold Star family members, combat veterans, politicians, and more, two years of figuring out how to sync video and audio files, two years of this labor of love… now what?

We’d shown the documentary at the Together With Veterans national convention in Denver, where we got a standing ovation. We screened it at the Women Veterans Conference in Bend, Oregon, and they loved it too. So we decided to give the documentary a proper premiere here at home in Astoria. We originally asked for one of the banquet rooms at the Liberty Theatre, with a maximum capacity of about a hundred. But the meeting went so well, and the folks at the Liberty were so supportive, they offered us the main theatre with 635 seats. We accepted, gladly and a little terrified, because you “gotta risk it for the biscuit.” It meant a lot more work. 

We sent press releases to nearly every media outlet in the state. Two newspapers wrote front-page stories about us. We did the morning show at KOIN TV and had a feature on KPTV. We had radio spots and plenty of word of mouth. We hung posters in businesses all over the area. When Veterans Day came around, about 400 people showed up, and at the end they all stood and applauded our documentary. The showing was an amazing success.

Afterward, people reached out to us with support, questions, and requests for showings.

So we thought maybe we should take it on the road and show it at all the small hometown theaters in the towns we’d visited over the years we made the film. We figured we’d keep it offline, so the only way to see it would be at one of our screenings.

At first, that seemed right, but one of the Rogue Cell crew, JJ, said we should put it online. Maybe we wouldn’t be able to control where it goes or who sees it, but more eyes on the film means more people we can help. Brad and I took ourselves, our egos, out of the equation and realized he was right.

We know we made the right choice. Just two days ago, someone who knew Sean Davis only through the documentary found him on Facebook Messenger. They told him an Army buddy had posted “Goodbye” on his social media and said he wanted to die. They reached out to ask if I could help. Calls like that are hard, but I talked them through contacting the local police for a welfare check. The next morning, that veteran was still alive. He lives on the other side of the country, but together we helped him survive one more day. That’s what matters. It’s not about strength, pride, or ego. It’s about helping someone make it to tomorrow.

That’s why we’re releasing the documentary for free on our YouTube channel. Please share it widely, because you never know who it might help.

If you are looking for a sign to keep going, this is it.