Hampshire students get role in film on veterans

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Filmmaker Larry Cappetto speaks to his crew Wednesday at Hampshire High School. | Michael Smart~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: January 29, 2012 2:38AM

HAMPSHIRE — There were no desks in the classroom. Just a teacher, about 30 students, a blue star flag and a question written on the chalkboard:

“What have you done to earn to earn the right to sit at your desk?”

When the students answered that question, their teacher told them, they could have their desks.

It wasn’t their grades or their behavior. It wasn’t even their good looks, Colorado-based filmmaker Larry Cappetto added.

At the end of the day, it was the veterans of the U.S. military who carried the students’ desks into the classroom. It was the very men and women who had paid the price for their freedoms, for those desks, who had fought for their “right to go to school and get a free education,” Cappetto said.

That happened in 2005 in Martha Cothran’s social studies classroom at Robinson High School in Little Rock, Ark.

The story checks out on snopes.com, and, the filmmaker said, he talked to Cothran himself.

He asked the teacher if anyone ever had made a film based on her story, he said.

And no one had — at least, not until Cappetto started filming “Where Are The Desks?” last week at Hampshire High School, casting students and teachers from the high school and Hampshire Middle School, as well as a number of area veterans.

It was a story he’s wanted to film for some time, he said, like the stories of veterans he has told in his award-winning documentaries. That’s because, he said, “If we don’t remember, we forget.”

Cappetto, a Waukegan native, said he found a “kindred spirit” in Hampshire Middle School Principal James Wallis, who called him over the summer to invite him to speak at Hampshire Middle School last Veterans Day. (Community Unit School District 300 holds class on Veterans Day, including many special activities to mark the occasion.) Minutes into the conversation, the filmmaker said, he agreed.

By the time he left the school that day, he had decided to film “Where Are The Desks?” in Hampshire, eventually settling on Hampshire High School.

“I have not found a school that has embraced my work like Hampshire Middle School and Hampshire High School,” he said.

He’s interviewed about 1,000 veterans and produced about 12 documentaries in the past nine years, including the PBS World War II series “Lest They Be Forgotten.”

That started just “as a personal thing,” he said. He’d always felt guilty he didn’t serve his country in the military, he said, but now he’s realized, “I’m serving my country with my camera.”

On Wednesday, as he gathered Hampshire middle and high school students together in one classroom to film the climactic scene of his five- to seven-minute short film, he said that was “the payoff.”

He paused, wiping tears from his face, and apologized, “As I’m talking to you now, my mind is thinking of all the veterans and why we’re here and just the pride I feel that you all are here.”

And the filmmaker wasn’t the only one with tears streaming down his cheeks as about 30 area veterans filled the room, re-enacting that scene in Cothran’s classroom. He only filmed one take, he said, because “I just want this to happen.”

And it did, much as it must’ve in the Little Rock school nearly seven years ago.

As the veterans ringed the room — a young woman in Army fatigues, a dad with a young daughter in his arms, elderly men in American Legion uniforms — the students thanked them. They gripped their hands and wrapped them in their arms.

“Even though I have a little part, it’s really a blessing and an honor,” said Kristen Flojo, 15, of Gilberts.

The Hampshire High School freshman admitted she hadn’t expected to tear up, but her voice broke as she said, “Knowing these veterans did this pretty much every day, sacrificing their lives, it’s really nice to think of.”

AmVets members Jim Mosby and Ray Chelmowski, both of Elgin, were no less moved.

“It means a lot to be thanked. So many times we gave up a part of our lives and nobody has ever said thank you,” Mosby said. “Seeing the tears in their eyes elicits the same reaction.”

Mosby was a petty officer in the Coast Guard from 1955 to 1959. He now is state provost marshal of Elgin AmVets Post 202.

“Let’s face it: Everybody likes to be appreciated,” he said.

Chelmowski, who was a sergeant in the Marines from 1967 to 1971, added, “It’s the best welcome home I’ve ever seen. Overwhelming.”