Two NIU alumni who served in Iraq shared their stories for a documentary taped in Watson Hall on Friday.

The documentary is a project created by a team of graduate students under the guidance of Jeffrey Chown, professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Communication. The project is for a class, COMS 557 Documentary Theory and Practice.

“I find Americans tragically ignorant about what is going on in the Mideast,” Chown said in an e-mail. “Maybe if they listened to what these vets have to say, we would have a better informed public.”

The first veteran to speak was Marc Marin, a 2005 NIU graduate with eight years of experience serving in the U.S. Army.

Marin was questioned for approximately one hour about what he thought of the military before joining. He was also asked about his experiences in Iraq and elsewhere serving as a journalist, the stress and terror he felt and how he copes with the memories.

Marin said the experience of serving molded him into a man, but he also said he doesn’t think he would go back to Iraq.

“When I came back to America, I started appreciating every little thing way more than I ever did before,” Marin said. “The emotions of war didn’t really catch up to me until after graduation, so during my last five semesters of school, I was pretty well-adjusted to college life.”

Marin said his emotions regarding war typically cause him to have strange, recurrent dreams, and bad memories will randomly pop into his head and usually last about an hour.

“I never talked about my experiences to this extent,” Marin said. “[The documentary] lived up to my expectations and it was a chance for me to get things off my chest.”

The second interviewee – Mike Ippolito, a current NIU student and medic for the Illinois Army National Guard with eight years of service – spoke positively of his time in Iraq, but acknowledged the negative aspects of serving as well.

“Iraq was both the worst experience but the best experience of my life,” Ippolito said.

However, the positive experiences of saving lives, helping Iraqi citizens, reversing hatred toward Americans and developing friendships outweighed the negatives for Ippolito.

“There are so many positive things that happen in Iraq,” he said. “I would go back in a heartbeat.”

For Ippolito, one of the best experiences in Iraq involved saving the life of an Iraqi woman who developed gangrene from a spider bite.

“The providence she lived in went from hating us to loving us,” Ippolito said. “They asked me if I was Christian, and I said yes. And then I was presented with a plaque featuring Christian images, which was surprising considering they’re practically all Muslim.”

Ippolito blames the media for focusing solely on the negative in Iraq.

“Bad news sells,” he said. “People remember negatives and not positives.”

Ippolito expressed a similar positive outlook on the documentary and recommends other veterans participate in an experience like this.

“Get your experience on tape for the benefit of future generations,” Ippolito said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing; this is history.”

Greg Morley, a team member of the film documentary project and former Marine, said the documentary is not meant to be pro- or anti-war. The intention, rather, is to educate society about the burden of coming home after war.

About 10 post-Sept. 11 war veterans have been interviewed for the documentary so far, and the run time should be between 20 to 30 minutes.

“I think [the documentary] has huge value,” Morley said. “There are many people who could develop a better appreciation for war veterans by watching this film.”

Morley said the film will be available to the public, but how it will be distributed is unknown as of now.

Editor’s note: Marc Marin is a former Northern Star editor.