Healing Through Art

Lawton is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He served at Camp Lejeune, NC, and his Military Occupational Specialty was Combat Videographer (4671). His job offered him a chance to see how the Marine Corps worked as a whole. One day he would film a retirement ceremony, and the next he would film Midshipmen going into the gas chamber.
Lawton is transferring to UNCW to study Biology and Film with plans to film and edit nature documentaries.

Of all the projects I worked on, the one that stuck out the most was a project called “Healing through Art.” It was a short documentary about how art was being used as a healing tool for the Wounded Warrior Battalion.

I spent three months gathering imagery and interviews with some amazing service members. During the documentary, the second painting was an homage to the Marines who went down during a humanitarian mission in Nepal after a major earthquake. Two of the Marines who lost their lives during the mission, LCpl Jacob Hug and Cpl Sara Medina, were friends from the school house for my MOS training. This gave me a chance to lift up and tell the stories that can have an impact.

The video can be found at youtube.com/watch?v=YNdoKeMJMsE or on the StoryForce website.