There are just a fraction left in our Community of the more than 16 million who answered the call of this nation during World War II. We can't think of no better tribute than to recognize and thank each World War II veteran today, now and forever by giving them a "red carpet" entrance! Together we can show the greatest generation our deepest respect and sincere gratitude for their sacrifices. A CALL OF ACTION to Give thanks to our WWII Veterans
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Followed by a Q&A with the
Film's Screenwriter Wes Tooke
Production Designer, Kirk Petruccelli
U.S. Navy Advisor, Chuck Myers
Moderated by U.S. Navy
Admiral James Winnefeld (Ret)
Proudly Invites the Community
for A Complimentary Special Screening of
Saturday, February 15th
Napa Valley Performing Arts Center at Lincoln Theater
100 California Drive, Yountville
Event Times
12:30 pm WWII Veterans VIP Meet and Greet (Exclusive to WWII Veterans)
1:30 pm Theater Doors Open
2:00 pm Screening
Q&A with
Screenwriter Wes Tooke
Production Designers, Kirk Petruccelli and U.S. Navy Advisor, Chuck Myers
Moderated by
U.S. Navy Admiral (Ret) the Ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former TopGun Instructor, James “Jaws” Winnefeld
Honorees
The 11 Women & 71 Men WWII Veterans at the Veterans Home In Yountville
The WWII Veterans and their families in our Community
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Own Midway on Digital Feb 4,
on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD Feb 18
A Time in History We Should Never Forget
MIDWAY centers on the Battle of Midway, a clash between the American fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy which marked a pivotal turning point in the Pacific Theater during WWII. The film, based on the real-life events of this heroic feat, tells the story of the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome the odds.
Are You a WWII Veteran Who
Would like to attend the Screening and VIP Reception?
Do You Know How Many Americans Served During WWII?
What the current population is of WWII Veterans?
What's the size of today's Armed Forces?
16 Million American Veterans Served During WWII
“Every day, memories of World War II
—its sights and sounds, its terrors and triumphs—disappear. Yielding to the inalterable process of aging, the men and women who fought and won the great conflict are now in their late 80s and 90s. They are dying quickly—according to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 389,292 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are alive in 2019.”
Source: National WII Museum New Orleans
WWII Veterans in
CalVet Homes
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Source: CalVet 2020
WWII Veterans Nationwide
Source: National WII Museum New Orleans
Today
1, 345, 550 Active Duty
1,080,440 National Guard and Reserve
Source: US Department of Defense.
Survey: 2018 Demographics: Profile of the military community
Arthur E. Lewis, United States Navy
Arthur Edward Lewis
BM2 United States Navy
May 23, 1922 May 14, 2005
Bronze Star Recipient
Who lived at the Veterans
Home in Yountville
#NeverForget
On a hot, hellish day nearly six decades back, 19-year-old
Art Lewis dived into Pacific waters - a roiling death stew of oil,
sharp-edged debris, subsurface sharks and the corpses of his
comrades - and swam toward a big sinking ship.
He hauled a rope behind him so that desperate men who had leaped
from that burning boat up ahead could be towed to his craft. Lewis, a
simple seaman, saved 35 lives that day. By all accounts, he should
have lost his own, but somehow he was still breathing when darkness
fell on the soon-to-be-famous Battle of Midway.
Source: Hero of the defining battle in Pacific recalls fateful day
Michael Dougan, The SF Examiner, June 2000
Kirk Petruccelli Production Designer
KIRK M. PETRUCCELLI (Production Designer) most recently designed the period, action-epic Midway, starring Woody Harrelson, Dennis Quade and Mandy Moore and heist comedy Finding Steve McQueen, starring Travis Fimmel, William Fichtner, Rachel Taylor and Forest Whitaker.
His resume includes the science fiction-drama Geostorm, starring Gerard Butler, Ed Harris and Andy Garcia; White House Down, starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Fox and James Woods; and Killing Season, starring Robert De Niro and John Travolta. The comedies Zookeeper, starring Kevin James and Rosario Dawson and When in Rome, starring Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel, Danny Devito and Angelica Huston, as well as hit action-adventures The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, and Michael Chiklis, and Ghost Rider, starring Nicholas Cage, based on the popular Marvel characters.
Petruccelli’s other credits include both Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and its sequel, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, as well as The Last Castle, Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot, Mystery Men, The Thirteenth Floor, Blade, Anaconda, Murder in the First, Where the Day Takes You and 3 Ninjas. He served as art director on Poetic Justice and Philadelphia Experiment II, and was assistant art director on Son in Law.
Raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Petruccelli attended Penn State University where he studied film, graphic design and illustration, ultimately receiving a degree in film. He also studied the art of Steadicam operation at the Rockport Film and Television workshop. He gained his experience in the film business in a variety of production jobs, including camera, art direction, set design and set decoration.
Wes Tooke Screenwriter
WES TOOKE (Screenwriter) is the writer of Midway. He previously served as a writer/executive producer on USA Network’s drama Colony and co-executive producer of Amazon’s comedy Jean-Claude Van Johnson, and he currently has multiple film and television projects in development. In addition to his work in Hollywood, Tooke is also the author of “Ballpark Blues” (Doubleday, 2003) and two young adult novels, “Lucky” (Simon & Schuster, 2010) and “King of the Mound” (Simon & Schuster, 2012). “Ballpark Blues” earned a Kirkus starred review and both of the young adult novels were Junior Library Guild selections.
Tooke began his career as an editor, feature writer and editorial consultant, and his projects have taken him around the globe from Tibet to Cambodia to Afghanistan. He holds a degree in Political Economics from Princeton University and lives in Venice, California with his wife and two daughters.
—its sights and sounds, its terrors and triumphs—disappear. Yielding to the
inalterable process of aging, the men and women who fought and won the great
conflict are now in their late 80s and 90s. They are dying quickly—according to
US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 389,292 of the 16 millionAmericans
who served in World War II are alive in 2019.”
Admiral James A. “Sandy” Winnefeld, Jr., U.S. Navy (retired)
Admiral Winnefeld graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in Aerospace
Engineering and served for 37 years in the United States Navy. He instructed at the Navy Fighter
Weapons School, also known as Topgun, and served as senior aide-de-camp to General Colin L.
Powell. He commanded a fighter squadron, the amphibious ship USS CLEVELAND, and the aircraft
carrier USS ENTERPRISE. As a flag officer, he commanded a carrier strike group, two NATO
commands, the United States SIXTH Fleet, United States NORTHERN Command, and the North
American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD. He retired after serving as the ninth
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the United States’ number two ranking military officer.
Admiral Winnefeld is a frequently published author and a director or advisory board member for
companies operating in a broad spectrum of business sectors. He currently serves as Distinguished
Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, where he is also a
member of the Engineering Hall of Fame. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Harvard’s John F.
Kennedy School of Government and a member of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board. Admiral
Winnefeld and his wife, Mary, are Co-Chairs of SAFEProject.US, a national nonprofit committed to
helping reverse the epidemic of drug overdose fatalities in the United States.
Chuck Myers, Docent on the USS Hornet
Chuck Myers is a docent on the USS Hornet Sea, Air and Space Museum in Alameda, California. He is a 3-time chairman of the Docent Council and chairman of the museum's speakers bureau. He is a Navy veteran, having served as an officer on USS Yorktown, an Essex-class aircraft carrier and a sister ship of Hornet. His service on Yorktown included underway watches as Officer of the Deck, “probably the most responsibility I ever had, and I was 24 when I was doing it”.
After his Navy service Chuck joined what was then The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company and worked for that firm for more than 26 years, mainly in San Francisco and San Ramon. He took an early retirement from Pacific Bell / Pacific Telesis in 1992 and then spent nearly 8 years living and working in Europe as a telecommunications consultant. His principal residence was in Holland and he mainly worked in and around The Hague, but also spent time working in places like London, Paris, Brussels, Warsaw, Oslo, Zurich and Stockholm - something he attributes to serendipity more than talent or personal enterprise. He retired from it all in 2001 and returned to Alameda where he now resides.
Prior to the commencement of filming Chuck twice toured Hornet with a “Midway” scouting team that included Roland Emmerich and Kirk Petrucelli. In late 2018 he was asked by the producers and the director of “Midway” to act as an advisor on things Navy and about carrier operations. He spent the better part of 4 weeks on sound stages in Montreal while scenes on Enterprise were filmed and says. “It was an awesome experience and a whole lot of fun”.
