A Family Deployment

Ambar Espinoza reported A Family Deployment, a sensitive profile of a family with a father and two sons serving in the military, as part of Minnesota Public Radio News' ongoing series The Red Bulls: Beyond Deployment, on the Minnesota National Guard's 34th Infantry Red Bull Division's deployment to Iraq.Espinoza, who participated in the recent workshop for journalists, When Veterans Come Home, sponsored by the Carter Center, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and the McCormick Foundation, explains what it took to report that story.

A few weeks before my colleagues and I dove into our reporting for the series, I asked a veteran, whom I had interviewed for a different story, if he had any friends who were currently serving in Iraq with the 34th Infantry Red Bull Division. When he said yes, I told him about MPR’s special series on the Red Bulls and asked him if he’d mind sending a note to his friends with an interview request on my behalf. Only one of his friends responded with a yes: Major Jeff Howe. The Howe family's experience was extraordinary: Major Howe was in Iraq on his second deployment and two of his sons were also in the military — one in the National Guard and the other in the Army. Sheri Howe and two teenagers were at home. 

Getting Permission

Working through commanding officers is a best practice for journalists covering deployed soldiers. So it was very important for our newsroom that the National Guard approve any interviews in advance. Once I had identified Major Howe as a possible interview subject, I emailed one of the public affairs officers at the Minnesota National Guard. The officer had already given me instructions by phone to include as much information as I possibly could about my story. He said if Major Howe couldn’t do the interview, he’d try to find another soldier I could talk to. I sent the public affairs officer a detailed note expressing my interest in learning how a deployment affects a soldier and family, and how they are preparing to readjust upon homecoming. The following day, I received an email from Major Howe that he and Sheri agreed to participate in the interview, even though talking about their experiences would be difficult. 

Emotional sensitivity

Most of the time, I conduct pre-interviews over the phone. While it’s obvious that deployments are closely tied to life and death, that reality hadn’t sunk in until I attended the “When Veterans Come Home” workshopin Atlanta, I heard one panelist, who works closely with military families who’ve lost loved ones, say that she once shielded a surviving family member from media interviews, because she believed that person was potentially suicidal. That story still sticks with me today.

Establishing trust and respect

Keeping in mind the delicate nature of these stories, I decided it would be best to pre-interview Sheri Howe in person. I wanted to introduce myself and tell her about the project and the focus of my story without my audio recorder, so that she could get to know me and, hopefully, feel more comfortable. Minutes after we met, it was clear how emotional her husband’s two deployments have been for the entire family. We spent three hours talking. Toward the end of our conversation, we scheduled a time for me to interview her and some of her children. I made it clear to Sheri that anything she and her family shared with me while I was recording would be used for broadcast; I encouraged her not to share anything she didn’t want to hear on the radio. Communicating these expectation clearly from the beginning helped us avoid misunderstanding and mistrust. I visited Sheri’s home the following week for the formal interviews. Sheri said she felt comfortable letting me be a fly on the wall while she spent time with two of her children, Mitchell, 14, and Melanie, 19. I spent nearly six hours with the three of them.  

Editing Audio

From several hours of recordings of interviews with Mitchell, Melanie, Sheri and Jeff Howe, I looked for audio that honestly reflects a universal experience, conveys emotions and breaks stereotypes. In an example of the former, Mitchell compares his father’s first deployment, which occured when Mitchell was in the second grade, to having his best friend move away.

Listeners might not realize that technology cuts both ways for families dealing with deployment. Email,Skype and text messaging allow them to maintain a close relationship from a distance, but can also bring uncomfortable emotions to the surface. In a telling bit of audio, Melanie Howe said she preferred to minimize communication with her father via Skype video — because seeing her father on a computer screen was more upsetting than it was comforting. 

The most common misunderstanding Jeff and Sheri Howe contend with on a regular basis is the belief that only the soldier experiences deployments. In reality, deployments affect the entire family. I chose audio from Jeff and Sheri that illustrated how those effects bring an emotional complexity to soldiers' homecoming, beyond the “it’s-great-to-be-home” sentiment. 

Logistics

I could easily have looked up the time difference on the Internet, but made a point of asking Major Howe to tell me how many hours apart we were. When we finally agreed to a date and time, we always included the date and time for both of our zones. I also made sure to send him several friendly reminders with my Skype username.

A few days before our interview, MPR engineers installed a software program called Pamela on my laptop, to record audio and video from Skype. We tested the software several times to make sure everything worked smoothly.

Finally, on the day of the interview, I asked Major Howe if he would give me permission to also record it, which is a routine question I ask any time I conduct remote interviews by phone, or — as in this case — by video. In addition to using Pamela to record our interview, I also captured the interview on my digital recorder as a backup in case the software failed. That saved me from having to contact a busy Major Howe for a second interview, which may have not been possible.

Multimedia and Resources

The MPR News online team created a special page dedicated to the project: The Red Bulls: Beyond Deployment. This project page features all of our stories by categories: family and war; adjusting to civilian life; mental illness and treatment; war and sacrifice; a happy welcome home; and living with physical injuries. These categories feature maps, timelines and any audio slideshows that accompanied stories. 

Panelists at the Atlanta veterans workshop encouraged reporters to weave resources and solutions into their feature reports. MPR’s project as a whole does include an interactive guide to coming home, one of the most important elements of this project, even though my story individually does not direct military families to resources. It's an outlet where veterans and their families can share their stories, advice and resources for integration.

There is also a list of resources, which is continually updated thanks to website users who contribute through an online form.

Finally, MPR invited veterans and their families to a forum where they could do all of this information sharing in person. MPR recorded, broadcast and archived this forum, The Veterans Guide to Coming Home.