Utahn chronicles Guard's good works

SPRINGVILLE — Humanity isn't lost — no matter what you may read in the news today. That's how Utah National Guardsman Sgt. Ryan Grassley likes to see it.

Despite the headlines screaming of war and economic ruin, this 29-year-old Springville native believes there's still good in the world. After all, he's spent a substantial amount of his free time videotaping and posting it on YouTube and www.half-throttle.com during his deployments with the National Guard building schools, repairing clinics and digging wells for communities in Central American countries.

"The military has been doing these sorts of things for like 20 years," he said. "But nobody knows about it, you don't see that on TV — that guys are leaving their homes and families to make better opportunities for these people in other countries."

So instead of waiting around for media to pick up on the story, Grassley took the initiative to record, edit and post videos on the Internet about National Guard projects in Panama, Guatemala and Belize during a four-month deployment that started in February.

"We live in a day and age where if the news doesn't cover something, we can cover it ourselves," he said.

Armed with a MacBook Pro, "the cheapest camera money can buy" and some basic editing programs, Grassley started filming. He said he wanted to show people some of the good the military is doing.

"I'm talking straight-up good," he said. "I'm not talking about good with an asterisk next to it."

At most, Grassley said he hopes to change some people's perspective of the military.

"I sometimes think the army gets looked down on like they're just a bunch of crazies that pray for war each night," he said.

More than 202,000 people have viewed Grassley's videos on YouTube — which show guardsmen building sidewalks, sewers or photographing families and printing pictures for them to keep. Some have posted comments saying they've experienced a change in how they perceive the military based on his videos.

"I hope it's real, not just advertising," one Web viewer wrote on a video about Grassley and fellow guardsmen taking photos of locals in Panama and printing copies out for them to keep. "You have changed my opinion about the young American soldiers."

"You give me hope and faith in humanity," another viewer apurviitr wrote.