DEL.ICIO.USDalton veteran, disfigured in war, now a soap star
‘All My Children’ casts JR Martinez in soldiers storyline
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Iraq war veteran JR Martinez got a crash course in his new occupation while lying on his back in an intensive care unit.
In April 2003, just two months into his tour of Iraq, the Humvee that the Dalton resident was driving struck a landmine. Trapped inside, Martinez was burned over 40 percent of his body.
Donna Svennevik /ABC
JR Martinez plays ‘Brot’ on the ABC Television daytime drama.
During his lengthy recovery, which involved 32 surgeries, Martinez’s mother, Maria Zavala, would while away the hours with her son by watching her favorite Spanish telenovelas.
“I was stuck!” the 25-year-old recalls. “I couldn’t move so I started watching.”
Today, as the U.S. honors millions of military veterans, Martinez’s personal drama is playing out on national television. A character he plays is at the center of the soap opera “All My Children,” whose Veterans Day storyline is exposing millions of viewers to the effects of war.
Last summer, the ABC daytime drama’s executive producer decided to add weight to the soldiers’ storyline by casting a real-life vet in a recurring role. The show hired Martinez, who has toured the country as a motivational speaker.
He plays Brot Monroe, who, like Martinez, was injured in the line of duty. Currently, the ABC soap opera is telling the story of Iraq veteran Lt. Taylor Thompson (Beth Ehlers) who is grieving for Monroe, her fiance. She wrongly believes he was killed in action.
Because he was disfigured in the accident, the soldier, in grand soap opera tradition, is letting his bride-to-be believe he’s dead.
The Iraq veteran can relate to his character. But he credits his real-life hometown of Dalton for changing his own perspective when he arrived home after his injury.
“When I was injured,” Martinez explains, “I was unsure how society would accept me. I will never forget my homecoming. People were lined up on both sides of the street. Those people didn’t care what I looked like. They were just happy to see me. Dalton and Georgia gave that to me. I’ll never forget it.”
Through his ground-breaking role on “AMC,” Martinez is hoping to provide inspiration for other vets and to create public awareness about what injured soldiers deal with when they come home.
“No matter how dark your life is, you must have hope,” Martinez says. “You have to learn to look beyond the mirror.”
Martinez says he’s thrilled to be a part of “AMC’s” Iraq storyline, which continues the venerable soap’s ground-breaking topical storytelling.
Longtime “AMC” fans will recall that lead character Erica Kane’s first love, Phil Brent, was drafted into the Vietnam War and later presumed dead when the soap’s creator, Agnes Nixon, took the risk of writing the very real conflict into the landscape of her fictional Pennsylvania town in the early 1970s.
Nixon herself recently filled Martinez in on the show’s history.
“She explained what a risk it was to do stories about Vietnam on daytime back then,” Martinez says. “After I spoke with her, I realized the opportunity we have to affect things with this story.
“It’s amazing to be a part of this. I’m so proud. If I can be a voice for wounded veterans and their families, that’s great. I feel like I’m ready.”
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