FORT WORTH, Texas \u2014\u00a0In 2025, the U.S. Marine Corps celebrated 250 years since its founding. And this year, America joins the major milestone when it turns 250 years old as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These two turning points made the perfect backdrop for Texas filmmakers to share the story of a young service member who was killed in Afghanistan during his deployment, while highlighting the issues affecting service members and veterans.<\/p>\n
It has been nearly two decades since the death of U.S. Marine Cpl. JV Villarreal, but his memory still lives on in a major way.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a story about a Texan, made by Texans\u2014producer Laura Varela and producer and director Andrew James Gonzales.<\/p>\n
Adding to that creative force\u00a0is Fernando Cano. The North Texan is one of the producers and production supervisors of \u201cAmerican Sons,\u201d a documentary 15 years in the making finally coming to fruition on a national stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we heard the story about JV, Cpl. JV Villarreal \u2014 he\u2019s a Mexican American from San Antonio. We felt it was really important to tell the Latino side of the military experience,\u201d said Cano.<\/p>\n
The film highlights military brotherhood, camaraderie, healing for veterans after a loss or injury and veteran suicide, which has increased in Texas, according to the most recent numbers by the Veterans Affairs from 2001 to 2022.<\/p>\n
The film also highlights the short transition veterans have from service to civilian life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe eventually hope to affect legislation,\u201d said Cano.<\/p>\n
Back in 2010, while JV was deployed in Afghanistan, he kept his family back in San Antonio updated with vlogs, or video logs. Until the camera stopped rolling on Oct. 17, 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say time heals, but I haven\u2019t felt that yet. I mean, I can still remember things that happened, like the day that we found out, that surreal moment of the knock on the door,\u201d said April Rodriguez, JV\u2019s sister.<\/p>\n
JV was killed by an IED in Afghanistan, also known as an improvised explosive device.<\/p>\n
Sitting on this treasure trove of memories of her little brother, Rodriguez didn\u2019t want his story to die with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very charismatic. He always wanted to be center of attention, and this was kind of my ode to him, giving him a lasting piece of attention for him and carrying out his legacy. He didn\u2019t have kids or anything. Something moved me to put this out for more people. I had no idea how many people would end up seeing it and where this would go.\u201d said Rodriguez.<\/p>\n
From making its world debut at South by Southwest in Austin last spring to its North Texas debut for Oscar contention last summer at the Texas Movie Bistro in Fort Worth and the hometown premiere in San Antonio last fall, the documentary has been screened in and out of the U.S. and is getting ready to reach its biggest audience yet through its PBS debut this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are potentially reaching more than 300 million eyeballs. And I want to say over 124 million households in the United States. So, the potential to get us out there is huge,\u201d said Cano.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even after the PBS debut, Cano said they\u2019re in it for the long haul mission to continue to share JV\u2019s story.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican Sons\u201d debuts on PBS and PBS.org on Monday, Jan. 12, at 9 p.m.<\/p>\n
Cano said they plan to expand screenings across Texas and the U.S. to cities with a large veteran population.<\/p>\n
The latest screening is happening in San Francisco on Jan. 22.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas \u2014\u00a0In 2025, the U.S. Marine Corps celebrated 250 years since its founding. And this year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[7051,2160,132,134,133,8455,1570,102,138,2672,223,82,27,26986,1569,2053,835],"class_list":["post-120018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-military","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-blessing-iwuchukwu","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-military","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-editors-picks","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}