For one reason or the other, life experiences always seem that much sweeter in hindsight, when they are memories of accomplishments rather than feats not yet completed.  With little effort at all, our memory is able to whisk us back to those seemingly endless summer nights, those all too familiar fragrances, and the overwhelming sensation in just that moment, this is the best place to be on earth.  Unfortunately, as time passes so do our memories and what once was revisited in an instant has now become increasingly distant with each year that passes.  It is a tragedy in every sense of the word and for most people, it is nothing more than an inevitable reality.  However, there are those of us out there, full of ignorance and nostalgia, who simply refuse to let the past be past.  These people are easily identifiable; camera always within arm’s reach, inseparable from their journal, and in a never-ending search for that perfect memento.

I happen to be one of these people, through and through, and that is why film, photography, and storytelling are such essential parts of my very existence.  Over the years I have discovered one medium that best helps me to relive my lost moments.  It acts as a vehicle, or window, which I can look down upon with the knowledge and perspective I have now, very unfamiliar to me in that particular memory.  As mundane as it may sound, I look at old postcards.  I use them to remind me of my past and the places I have been; but at the same time, to encourage me to passionately pursue my future, and the place I still need to go.  I reminisced over my postcard collection not too long ago.

The first post card I come upon is one of La Boca, which takes me back to that inspiring and colorful artesian district in downtown Buenos Aires.  I was lucky enough to stay there, with a friend’s Argentinean host family, during the Winter of 2000 and it is where I fell in love for the first time with new people, cultures, and languages.  The next card in the stack is one of many and depicts a lazy sun dipping behind the rolling grassy hills just outside of Glasgow, Scotland.  Following high school graduation, I spent two months backpacking Europe and it was there that a true passion for photography and the still image grew inside of me.  I was truly humbled by the
beauty of every country I visited and even further inspired by the array of cultures and customs I had never before experienced.  I was particularly impacted by some of the roads less traveled -  thestill war-ridden train stations in Croatia, the graffiti murals that decorated what was left of the Berlin Wall in Germany, and the seemingly endless territorial wars between the urban vagabonds in southern Spain. Next to surface from my stack of memories is a postcard from
Fort Knox, KY; perhaps the most memorable of them all.  I can vividly remember crying as I wrote this letter to my mother, carefully trying to explain to her that the three years of military service I had enlisted for might not turn out as planned.  It was just a few days after September 11th, 2001 and my Drill Sergeants had just unsympathetically explained to us that the G.I. Bill and college girls would have to wait…we were going to war.  However, as it turns out the war I ended up going to was one my mother and I could both happily agree upon.

Now I look to a postcard from Fort Polk, LA which depicts American soldiers in a fire fight with Iraqi insurgents – or at least to the naked eye.  Following my basic and airborne training I was fortunate enough to be assigned to the Joint Readiness Training Center, home to the Army’s elite
		combat warfare training school.  There I was charged with the task of learning from actual Iraqi and Afghani militants and converting it into training for our deploying soldiers.  Before I knew, it I was chasing Marines around in tanks, humvees, and helicopters all the while gaining a profound respect for my middle-eastern counter parts and their beloved culture.  It was here that I discovered the power of film, its ability to animate the pictures I already adored, and its unrivaled capacity for storytelling.  I began to document everything from airborne insertions and combat patrols to soldiers’ individual perspectives as well as those of their families.  Before long, my films had caught on and I was officially known as the battalion’s “film guy”.  This title couldn’t have come at a more convenient time. The last postcard I have from this time period is nothing more than a folded piece of paper addressed to my mother. I sent it just days before my unit was finally called to Iraq.  It reads the following:

Dear Mom,
The colonel called me into his office today and told me this:
“Sgt Hausmann, this has never happened before, but I have a feeling you were meant for better things than Iraq.  I am going to allow your release from active duty on the sole condition that you pursue this film dream of yours, get the best education possible, and return one day to tell the story of this unit and your fellow soldiers.  Roger?”

Now I had much more than a passion, more than desire, I had a personal vision.

The next few postcards resemble a shelf from a college paraphernalia store; they are from Arizona State University, UCLA, and Universidad de Madrid.  Determined to live up to my obligation and ultimately realize my dream of filmmaking, I hit the ground of academia at full speed.  One year at ASU allowed me to establish a USC-caliber GPA and simultaneously get an early exposure of many film classes to come.  After that, a summer semester at UCLA and an internship in Hollywood lent me some invaluable exposure to the industry while at the same time making my eventual goal seem all that much closer.  The following semester was spent studying

abroad in Spain and almost as if to satisfy what I was still lacking, helped me to see that there are a lot more stories to be told than just those originating in the military or Hollywood.  I was given the incredible opportunity to work as a full-time camera operator for a few documentary-based television programs and ever since then, I have been more inspired by the human element than ever before.  I discovered that there is an intrinsic social responsibility to filmmaking and from there on out, I intended to realize that to the best of my abilities.

Finally, I come to a postcard from USC and I can’t help but wonder what feelings will be invoked as I look back on this a few years down the road.  Will I be that much wiser?  Will I have more

life-altering experiences?  How will my perspective of the world  have changed?  I suppose only time will tell.  The one thing I can be sure of at this point in time is simply this; I am honored to be here, more eager than ever to learn, and for the first time, excited to begin with the feats I have not yet completed...