2013 NSSSA CONFERENCE

5:15 – 7:00 pm Keynote Session Landmark Ballroom 1, 2, 3 ______Mike Boettcher Presents “The Hornets Nest”: A True Story of Survival

Veteran network news correspondent, Mike Boettcher, has been recognized with journalism’s top awards for his coverage of events that shaped the world since 1980. He is recognized as one of the most experienced foreign correspondents in the world, covering wars and revolutions in every part of the globe. Today Mike shares with NSSSA his most recent, most profound and perhaps most important report to date, a soon to be released documentary, “The Hornet’s Nest.” “The Hornet’s Nest” is composed of footage taken by Mike Boettcher, and his 26-year-old son Carlos while they were embedded with U.S. Forces fighting on the front lines in Afghanistan. Amidst the constant threat of the Taliban they had unprecedented access into the longest war in U.S. history. The documentary is war in real time, not the war that is shown in movies. Much of it is shaky, which the viewer will understand when hearing the bullets or seeing the RPG smoke trail racing toward the camera. It was not Mike’s intent to make a film; he certainly never intention to make “Apocalypse Now.” But the chance to pay tribute to soldiers at work and at risk was not worth missing. The soldiers and Marines wanted their stories to be told and Mike feels the American public needs to know what the soldiers went and are going through every day. As Mike said, “I wanted to leave behind a historical document that really doesn’t exist, of that part of the war. It’s the only historical document of the surge [in NE Afghanistan].”

While teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication Mike Boettcher, a Peabody and Emmy Award winning conflict journalist and war correspondent, continued reporting from around the world for NBC News. Then there came a time when submitting the battlefield dispatches wasn’t enough. Mike broke a contract with NBC when he started to get a nagging feeling. The nightly news, due to ratings demands from audiences was not interested in Iraq or Afghanistan war news, were less willing to run soldier stories. Mike, a fan of WWII reporter Ernie Pyle, grew frustrated that stories about the men in the field weren’t being told. “We are becoming disconnected from this war,” he said. Mike had an idea and struck a deal with The Oklahoman's NewsOK.com and ABC, whose executives agreed to run his reports and give him rights to the footage. Mike and his son, Carlos, would spend one year embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, recording footage and interviewing people involved at the front lines of the conflict. That multimedia material would be transmitted to Norman, Oklahoma where undergraduate and graduate students journalism and international and area studies students in the groundbreaking War and Media class would prepare it for ABCNews.com and other ABC outlets He would also teach a class and lectured weekly, via satellite, from Iraq and Afghanistan to the University of Oklahoma’s class. Before beginning the project Boetthcer said, “This is a project that is very important to me. The war in Afghanistan has not received anywhere near the media attention it deserves. I want to tell the personal stories of the men and women that are fighting this war. This project will let me do that and still work with the great students at OU.” In 2012, Boettcher received the recognition of his peers when he won two more Emmys in the News and Documentary awards for his work in Afghanistan. This marked the first time an active college professor received an Emmy while also being an active war correspondent. The United States Army recognized his efforts with two honors usually reserved for soldiers. In 2010, the 101st Airtborne’s Rakkasan Brigade awarded Boettcher the Combat Order of the Spur for his actions in combat. A year later the 101st Airborne’s legendary 506th Infantry Regiment, known widely as “The Band Of Brothers”, made Boettcher an honorary member.

For more information: http://thehornetsnestmovie.com “American Valor: Home of the Brave” is available on YouTube. Information and student stories are available on afghan101.ou.edu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVuB3kVhTm4