Department of Defense Communications

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel was the first enlisted combat veteran of the Vietnam War to serve as Secretary of Defense — a distinction that carried symbolic weight across every branch and generation of the military. This profile, produced for American Forces Network and DoD distribution, captures that distinction through the career and character of the man who held it. The piece won the Keith L. Ware Award, the Army Chief of Staff’s top honor for public affairs excellence.

Super Bowl Access: Armed Forces Coverage

Through DMA’s partnership with the NFL, two consecutive Super Bowls provided AFN with something beyond the game broadcast: access to both teams — locker rooms, practice facilities, player and celebrity interviews, and the social texture of Super Bowl week. Content built specifically for a service member audience deployed worldwide, produced with civilian-market values and distributed globally through AFN. Four playlists document the coverage: both participating teams at Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans and Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium.

D-Day: 70th Anniversary

On the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings, coverage from the commemorations on the beaches of France — one of the most significant military and historical observances of the decade. This assignment required more than access: it required the judgment to capture the weight of a moment that does not repeat, for an audience that understands exactly what it marks.

Lab Teaches Marine New Tricks

The brief called for a recycling PSA for AFN broadcast. The concept that cleared was stranger: a Labrador Retriever teaches a U.S. Marine to recycle. Getting the concept approved through federal channels required its own production first — a proof-of-concept video featuring his wife as stand-in, shot to demonstrate that the dog could hold her own in a professional shoot environment before supervisors would authorize the real thing.

Supervisors cleared it. Stevie delivered. The spot continues to air on American Forces Network and the Defense Travel System.

AFN Broadcast & Institutional Production

A selection of additional work produced for AFN broadcast and DoD institutional distribution — radio spots, command communications, event coverage, and science and cultural programming that reflects the full range of the DMA mission. Roles include primary production as well as supporting camera and production credits.

Obama’s First Trip to Iraq After Becoming President

On President Obama’s first visit to Iraq following the 2008 election, the camera was there. This is the kind of coverage that gets assigned once: a sitting Commander-in-Chief in an active theater, his first trip to a war zone as president. The edited package and the full unedited speech from the original camera are both preserved here — the latter a record of what the assignment actually looked like from the ground.

Documentary Short: Specialist Stephanie Grewell

Specialist Stephanie Grewell was a combat medic who had been wounded in a previous Iraq deployment and returned to serve again. Produced for the Smithsonian Channel’s Memorial Day 2009 special, this documentary short tells her story. A complete edit was delivered to Smithsonian specifications alongside extended cuts provided without transitions for the channel’s editorial discretion. Both versions are preserved here: the Smithsonian-delivered edit and the extended production cut.

Enduring Partnership: A New Dawn for U.S. Operations in Iraq

Produced during the security transition as U.S. forces drew down in Iraq, this documentary short captures the institutional handoff between American and Iraqi security forces — what partnership looks like at the end of a decade-long conflict, told through the people navigating it. The title and the subject required a register that could hold both the weight of leaving and the shape of what comes after.

XVIII Airborne Corps End of Tour Memorial

End of tour memorials mark the conclusion of a deployment and the losses sustained during it — among the most important and most difficult assignments in military public affairs. This ceremony was presided over by then–Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin III, who would go on to serve as the 28th Secretary of Defense. The record stands as both institutional documentation and a historical artifact of the late Iraq War.

Year of the NCO: Staff Sgt. Phillip Shields

Produced for the Association of the United States Army’s Year of the NCO initiative, this documentary short profiles Staff Sergeant Phillip Shields. The format demands a specific discipline: finding the story inside the service record and telling it in a way that honors both without becoming a recruitment ad. Delivered to AUSA specifications for the 2009 annual meeting.

Field Production Sampler

A selection of additional production work from deployed assignments — command events, cultural and human interest coverage, science programming, and institutional content that reflects the full range of the public affairs mission in a combat theater. Roles include primary production and supporting camera credits.

University of Kansas Tests Weather Drone in Antarctica

Before Iraq and before DMA, a University of Kansas research team deployed a weather drone to Antarctica to monitor climate conditions as part of ongoing climate change research. Produced during a 1st Infantry Division garrison assignment, the piece stands at an unusual intersection: military public affairs production in service of civilian science communication. It is also, in retrospect, an early marker of an interest in environmental storytelling that would run through the EPA work that followed years later.