By Rita Howell

A retired Marine lieutenant colonel spoke to 300 employees of Batesville Casket Company at a special screening of the HBO film “Taking Chance” last Friday in the Batesville Junior High School auditorium. Lt. Col. Mike Strobl had written the screenplay for the film based on his experience as an escort for the body of a young Marine killed in Iraq in 2004.

Strobl, moved by the respect and kindness shown along his journey with the casket from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to the young man’s home in Dubois, Wy., had kept a journal of the trip.
Afterward, he shared the resulting essay with family and friends via email. The piece was widely distributed, and eventually producers from cable network HBO approached Strobl about making a movie.
With the blessings of Chance’s family, he wrote the screenplay. The film, with Kevin Bacon playing Strobl, was released in 2009, receiving two Golden Globe and ten Emmy nominations, a 2009 Humanities Award and a 2010 Writer’s Guild Award.Since then, Strobl, who now works as a civilian budget analyst for the Defense Department, has spoken to a number of groups interested in the film’s portrayal of the dignity and  tribute paid to the fallen hero.

Company vice president Anthony Casablanca, in introducing the film to the gathering of local Batesville Casket employees, said the subject was relatable to the mission of the company.

“It’s so important that we never forget how important what we do is,” he said.
The film follows Strobl from his comfortable home and family in Virginia, to the Dover mortuary facilities, to Philadelphia for a flight to Minneapolis, to Montana, then through a five-hour automobile trip to Dubois, Wy., population 900.

Then on active duty working in Quantico, Va., Strobl had volunteered for the assignment after reading a list of casualties and discovering that Chance Phelps was listed from Strobl’s home town in Colorado. He had never met the young man and didn’t know his family, but felt a connection since he believed they were from the same town. Turns out Chance, 19, wasn’t from Colorado, and had only attended his senior year in high school in Strobl’s hometown.

The movie’s straightforward narrative shows the interactions of Strobl with the people he encounters as he escorts Chase Phelps home.

“What a great country,” Strobl said, speaking to Batesville employees after the screening. “What struck me was how ordinary Americans reacted once they found out what I was doing.”

From the flight attendant who quietly passed to Strobl a small crucifix pin, to the baggage handlers who spontaneously took off their caps and stood quietly as Chance’s coffin was loaded onto a conveyor belt, to the motorists on the Wyoming highway who saw the flag-draped casket in the funeral home SUV, turned their lights on and formed an impromptu funeral procession–the film witnessed to the sympathetic response Strobl encountered.

In the years since Chance died, Strobl has developed a friendship with the Marine’s family.

“We see each other four or five times a year, and we email and Facebook all the time,” Strobl told The Panolian during a reception hosted for him and about 20 Batesville Casket Company workers who are military veterans. Each veteran received an autographed copy of the Taking Chance DVD. Strobl signed it “Semper Fi.”