- Welcome to Independent Lens.
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut.
Soldiers who make it back from war
when those they served with do not
struggle with the thought of, "Why me?"
Tonight, we bring you an emotional and touching story
about one soldier who confronted his grief and sorrow
by traveling the country to comfort the families of those
from his unit who never made it home.
Tonight's film is Make Peace or Die.
Anthony Marquez grew up with G.I. Joes
and dreaming of being a Marine one day
and serving his country like his uncle.
He was so eager to join the U.S. Marine Corps,
he enlisted while still a junior in high school.
Just four years later in 2011,
he was sent to Sangin, Afghanistan.
Marquez's unit lost 17 soldiers.
When he returned home,
those fellow soldiers' faces haunted him.
To try to heal, Anthony took it upon himself
to contact every family of his fellow Marines who had died
to let them know he would not let them be forgotten.
How would he do this?
With a chainsaw.
Anthony Marquez turned dead trees on his family's land
in Green County, Oklahoma into works of art
by carving them into wooden crosses,
then hand-delivering them to each family.
A beautiful gesture for sure,
but his mission did not stop there.
On the 10th anniversary of his unit's deployment,
he traveled over 12,000 miles through America
to visit the families again, and this time,
visited with those who had survived as well.
Anthony's older brother Manny documented the journey,
which became tonight's film.
Director Manny Marquez says before he became a filmmaker,
he considered entering the priesthood
and also thought about joining the military himself.
But he says he has always been a storyteller,
and eventually, the film bug caught him.
The director says this film was a follow-up
to two award-winning short films.
The first film saw Anthony try to adopt the bomb-sniffing dog
he worked with in Afghanistan
and became so attached to during the war.
In the second film,
Manny filmed his brother delivering the first cross
to the first family.
But it was Anthony who says
they needed to make a feature-length film
to make sure all the Gold Star families were visited
and not forgotten.
The project saw its challenges.
In 2020, COVID struck
and delayed the production by a year.
Once they got rolling,
they were on the road for 40 days and in 37 states.
Manny says his biggest challenge as director
was convincing his soft-spoken, limelight-shunning brother
to be the film's hero.
This was important because the director says
he wanted to make a film
where people with opposing political views
could meet in the middle,
and thought it would be more easily achieved
if they rooted for a person
as opposed to a particular stance on the war.
While Anthony initially resisted,
eventually he gave his brother what he wanted
from a filmmaking standpoint.
Anthony listened to his older brother
and once again became a hero.
Make Peace or Die starts now on PBS Wisconsin,
your home for independent film.