‘Scrap Heap’ film helps audiences find the true costs of freedom

MANSFIELD — Kevin McClatchy knew his dad served in the U.S. Marines in the Pacific during World War II.

The war in the Pacific included some of the bloodiest battles of the war on distant islands like Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

The Marine Corps and attached U.S. Navy corpsmen suffered more than 90,000 casualties in the Pacific, including 23,160 killed and 67,199 wounded.

But it wasn’t until McClatchy and his father were talking on the back deck of his father’s house in North Carolina more than four decades later that he learned how those years of service impacted his dad’s entire life.

The graphic, 1998 movie, “Saving Private Ryan” was rolling into theaters. McClatchy asked his father if he planned to see it, especially since his dad had a friend who had been involved in the D-Day invasion of Europe.

The answer was no.

“He told me, ‘I can’t make it through an hour of an action television series without it causing a reaction,'” McClatchy said.

“Just sitting there on his back deck in North Carolina on a summer night … for the first and only time, he talked about what it was like to be in the Pacific. It was astounding. It would have been nice to have that information and that insight for 20 years I spent growing up in his household,” McClatchy said.

“Clearly, he lived the final 65 or 66 years of his life with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress and combat trauma. It would have been good to have a frame of reference for that to try and navigate that experience.

“I was sort of heartbroken and outraged on his behalf, but also immensely proud of the fact that he willingly served.”

That conversation planted the initial seeds of what has become McClatchy’s passion project. He wrote and starred in a one-man stage play-turned-film, “Scrap Heap,” which dives deep into the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder in military veterans.

That 55-minute film will be offered April 21 at 6 p.m. in a free showing on the campus of The Ohio State University-Mansfield.

“Scrap Heap” is a turbulent, darkly funny, whiplash tour that examines the costs of war and explores the reality of what the country asks of its military members, as well as society’s responsibility in the transition from service to civilian life.

During an interview with Richland Source, McClatchy made it clear he is not a military veteran.

He has been a professional actor for more than 30 years, a writer, creator and college theatre professor.

Born in Los Gatos, Calif., McClatchy grew up in Havertown, Pennsylvania. He attended Washington and Lee University, where he majored in journalism and was captain of the basketball team.

After working for a sports marketing firm in Philadelphia, McClatchy quit his job and moved to New York to study acting. He worked steadily in New York on stage and in front of the camera before moving to Los Angeles in 1999.

Yet, McClatchy has made assisting veterans through the lens of his art a significant portion of his life’s work

It’s because of the things he learned about his dad that night on the back deck.

It’s the stories he has heard from his nephew, a U.S. Army veteran who operated a Stryker Combat Vehicle during two tours in Iraq.

It’s what he saw first-hand from his close friend, Jeff, who served in the U.S. military’s Special Forces and later in the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service, the principal law enforcement and security agency for the U.S. State Department around the world.

The one-man stage show he wrote and starred in, filmed at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus is based on the experiences of his friend.

McClatchy said he had known Jeff in their hometown for years, but they ended up roommates for six weeks in Los Angeles.

“In those six weeks, we got to establish a friendship on a different level. I learned about his experiences in the Special Forces and the Diplomatic Security Service … and then in real time witnessing his physical and mental health challenges and also his challenges with the (Veterans Administration).

“Once again, I was sort of heartbroken and outraged on his behalf, but also humbled by the what he had done,” McClatchy said.

The things he learned from Jeff stayed in his head and heart. But McClatchy said he didn’t really act on them until he and his wife and new daughter came to OSU, launching his master’s degree program in fine arts in 2009.

“The (MFA) program here has an emphasis on creating new work. I decided early on that any opportunity I had to individually create work was going to be to explore the veterans’ experience in as many different ways as I can,” McClatchy said.

He started with a 20-minute version of the script, expanding as he went along, sending drafts and revisions to his friend, Jeff, along the way.

McClatchy wanted the show to be intensely physical, immersing the audience in Jeff’s experience, which he emphasizes through the sound design. He later expanded both the technical elements and the script to the performance it is today.

“Creating this film has helped me widen my radar of how our veterans are portrayed and given me a front-row seat into a portion of their experience,” he said. “People who have seen this film, including veterans, tell me that it helps express and amplify their struggles in ways they could not do alone.”

It’s a show his friend, Jeff, has never seen.

“I don’t think he wants to see the show,” McClatchy said. “He has already been through it. He has seen it. He lived it.

“I collaborated with him through the process. He was fine reading it and giving me feedback and the stamp of approval, sort of instinctively knowing the impact it could have on people.”

Through performing the show live and offering screenings of the film, McClatchy has seen that impact on veterans and civilians, alike.

“We are intentionally bringing people together to share this kind of experience and have this conversation that we get through the lens of performing arts. It primes the soil for a community conversation.

“(Civilians) may have a hard time understanding what it is we ask of military service members when we send them into areas of conflict, and what responsibilities the community, the civilian population, has when those service members are transitioning back to civilians,” McClatchy said.

He said the community conversation after screenings also asks questions about the potential divide between the military and civilian communities.

“We get different answers every time we pose that question to the audience, regardless of who is in the audience. It’s always been a mix of veterans, military family members and community members who have not served.

“It becomes a really potent conversation about those things, but also about the things that connect us despite different experiences. Trauma is not exclusive to combat trauma, obviously,” McClatchy said.

“There’s all different sorts of trauma. There’s different ways to decide to serve something larger than yourself (other than the military). Everyone has family considerations and challenges and things they have to navigate.

“Finding the connective tissue among people who maybe feel like they’re hopelessly different from each other because of their life experiences is also part of (the experience),” he said.

McClatchy continues to dip back into professional acting.

His own recent acting credits include “The Tempest” at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the films “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” and “Heartland,” as well as episodes of WGN’s “Outsiders” and NBC/Universal’s “Gone.”

Yet, the work he does for veterans and others in the community holds a special part of his heart.

McClatchy has facilitated workshops for the military community since 2016, and did a
week-long residency with “Scrap Heap” at the Wexner Center for the Arts in July 2023 when the film was made.

Now the head of acting and directing in Ohio State’s Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts, McClatchy is also the director of the OSU Shakespeare & Veterans Initiative and the OSU Shakespeare and Autism Project.

The post-screening community conversations resonate with him.

“I think the most vivid reactions are in the community conversation. There’s always people who are at first, they’re reticent to speak, which is sort of the MO of most veterans at first blush.

“The minute the door opens and the seal is broken … (there are people who) need to be heard. To have someone bear witness to your story and to somehow to communalize that … it’s so deep.

“Without fail at every event, there’s someone, usually a veteran, sometimes it’s a military family member, but someone who’ll start talking for five, or six or seven or eight minutes.

“And that’s OK. Clearly, this person needs to be heard. They have a need to express something. It gives them permission that is a space where it can happen and those experiences can be shared.”

(Here is what others have said about “Scrap Heap.”)