Showing a different side of the war

Kevin Bacon with ''Taking Chance'' writer Michael Strobl (center) and director Ross Katz. (MARK MAINZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

PARK CITY, Utah - First comes the bearer of bad news - that a loved one has died in combat. Then comes the bearer of the loved one - the military escort who brings the fallen home.

Kevin Bacon's HBO drama "Taking Chance" chronicles a home-front saga little-known to most Americans - the procedures and protocols followed in tending to our battle casualties and the honors paid them on their last journey. It airs tomorrow night at 8 p.m.

Based on a true story, the film stars Bacon as Marine Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobl, a career officer who volunteered to escort the body of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps back to his family in Wyoming after the 19-year-old was killed in Iraq in April 2004.

Then based in Quantico, Va., Strobl traveled to the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where Phelps's body was prepared.

The film depicts the agonizing attention devoted to slain troops. Blood and grime scrubbed from dog tags, watches, and other personal effects. Hands carefully cleaned, though they will be concealed by white gloves. Uniforms and medals meticulously arranged, even in cases of closed-casket funerals.

"It never occurred to me, the painstaking detail," Bacon said in an interview alongside Strobl at last month's Sundance Film Festival, where "Taking Chance" premiered.

"I think that's in a way what the essence of the movie is. You tell this very, very simple, specific story about this guy and this kid and this one journey, then hopefully, people start to think about the bigger picture of the families and the sacrifice."

Along the way, Bacon's Strobl encounters little moments of compassion and communal grief with strangers who never catch a glimpse of Phelps but are moved by the young man's voyage home.

Escorts are required to keep detailed factual records of their trips. As Strobl continued to meet people touched by Phelps, his record changed from by-the-numbers details to a personal journal. Strobl shared it with colleagues, and the story eventually made its way to executive producer Brad Krevoy, who brought the project to HBO.

Ross Katz, a producer on such films as "Lost in Translation" and "In the Bedroom," collaborated with Strobl to write the screenplay and also made his directing debut on "Taking Chance."

Like Bacon, Katz initially hesitated, uncertain he wanted to take on an Iraq film, a sub-genre that generally has failed to find an audience among war-weary Americans.

The tipping point that convinced Katz was when he caught a TV news item one night about the latest casualties from a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Normally very engaged with international news, Katz said he felt nothing, that he was completely desensitized by the onslaught of similar wartime tragedies.

"I remember going outside, walking down the street . . . and everybody was running off to dinner, living their lives in busy Manhattan," Katz said. "I thought to myself, a parent right now is getting a knock on the door, and some Marine or airman or Army soldier is informing that parent that their child has died. Why is everything normal outside? Shouldn't the world stop for a second?"