With Memorial Day around the corner, I want to reflect on our work throughout the year on productions involving or supporting America’s men and women in uniform. There are many within the Yorktel family who have served our country or have family members who have or are currently serving in the armed forces.
Stories of American veterans’ service, sacrifice and heroism are especially important to us.
One of the proudest moments in Yorktel history was receiving an Emmy Award in 2015 for our production “The Honors: A Salute to American Heroes” that we worked on with the American Veterans Center. The television special, which aired on Veterans Day, shares the stories of heroes like Colonel James Magellas, the most decorated officer in 82nd Airborne History, Marine Corps veteran and Medal of Honor recipient, Sergeant Dakota Meyer, and SFC Joe Kapacziewski, the Army Ranger who became the first and only soldier to ever return to combat with a prosthetic limb.
The program included such notable film and television personalities as Bret Baier, Lorraine Bracco, Megyn Kelly, Taylor Kitsch, Joe Mantegna, Pat Sajak, Gary Sinise, D.B. Sweeney, and Mark Valley, each of whom shared stories about an American throughout the two-hour television broadcast.
Yorktel also produces the annual Veterans Day special, “The Wounded Warrior Experience,” hosted by FOX News’ Jennifer Griffin, which profiles several wounded warriors and explores their journey from the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq to their return home, rehabilitation and recovery. For many years, Yorktel also produced the live television broadcast of the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington, DC.
The United Service Organizations (USO) in the Washington DC region has entrusted Yorktel’s Media Services team with their event productions, promotional films and public service announcements for 14 years. In 2016, Yorktel produced the short film honoring the USO’s 75h anniversary, which premiered last month at the USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore (USO-Metro) annual awards dinner hosted by television personality and USO-volunteer, Jon Stewart.
Truly, it is an honor for us to work with such esteemed organizations and, as Michelle Shortencarrier with USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore so eloquently stated, “telling the story of the unique challenges facing our military members and their families, and shining a light on the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.”
We are honored by such high praise and for the opportunity to work with an organization whose sole mission is to support those individuals – and their families – who so bravely serve our country.
These highlights are a small sample of what our media services team is capable of, the expansive nature of our work, and how we combine broadcast, production, content streaming and media services in a single, harmonious environment. You can see many of Yorktel’s productions on our YouTube channel, including the programs mentioned above.
On this day and every day, we at Yorktel remember and honor the courage, sacrifice and valor of all of America’s heroes, on and off the fields of battle.