When John Scaletta needed somewhere to screen his documentary “Nasty: The Battle After the Mission,” one place immediately came to mind: the historic La Grange Theatre.
Not only has the theater been there for 100 years, but the subject of the documentary, Air Force pilot Lt. Col. Daniel Nash, used to watch movies there when his family lived just a few blocks south on La Grange Road.
“Dan and myself used to hang out there with our friends in high school to watch movies, so I thought it was fitting that we had the premiere there at the theater he went to as a child,” explained Scaletta, who met Dan back in 1981 when the two were freshmen at Lyons Township High School.
The premiere, which took place over three showings May 13, went really well, he said, based on what people said afterward. “You could just tell people were sincere and moved,” he said, adding that he got feedback the next day as well. “The LaGrange Theatre was so accommodating and receptive.”
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Those who missed the premiere have another chance to see the film. Showings are planned for 7 and 8:30 p.m. June 11 at the theater, 80 S. La Grange Road.
The documentary tells the story of Nash, an F-15 pilot based at Otis Air National Guard Base who was among the first pilots sent on Sept. 11, 2001 to intercept a suspected hijacked commercial airliner, American Airlines Flight 11, and the lasting effects that mission had on his life. Moments from his 9/11 experience and military career are interspersed with interviews with Nash, his brother Brendan Nash and footage from the building of a float in his honor for the La Grange Pet Parade in 2021, the year he died.
The La Grange resident said having his 99-year-old mother at the premiere was a surprise and “meant a lot,” as did having some of Nash’s family members.
Brendan Nash, who lives in Ottawa, said his brother “was always in his own movie, always doing things to an extreme. He hated ‘Top Gun’ because it was an ad for the Navy, but he loved being in the Air Force so much.”
Brendan thought the documentary was “a beautiful idea.” he said. He assisted with some of the facts of his brother’s life and found people for Scaletta to interview, including some of his pilot crew. His sister, Mairin Gradek, and mother, Catherine Nash, helped him gather artifacts and photos.
Brendan, who attended the University of Illinois like his brother and even joined the same fraternity, also agreed to be interviewed. “I had no idea how John was going to use it. He didn’t share any of the movie (in advance) so I didn’t know what to expect, but I absolutely loved it,” he said.
Eight of his fraternity brothers and three of his best friends from high school who also were friends with Dan attended the premiere, as well as his sister Mairin and her husband, Jeff, and their three kids, as well as an uncle and his children and their spouses.
He called the movie “powerful” and said sitting at the movie and having everything replayed, including their childhood on La Grange Road, was “very emotional. It was beautifully done. It was quite a tribute.”
Brendan believes his mother also enjoyed the film. “I’m sure she saw the film and thought it was a wonderful thing he did for our family and our country. I’m sure her looking at the images took her to the best of times, when he was building his life and career,” he said.
Dan Nash’s classmate Sharon Martin, of La Grange, thought the film was “amazing. I think it’s a great memorial tribute to Dan and all those who were in it. The pet parade is a big thing in La Grange,” she said. “I would definitely come again and see some people from school. There were 890 people in our graduating class.”
Pete Gifford, of Glen Ellyn, said Dan Nash was two years older and got him into the same fraternity he belonged to at the U of I.
“Every time I think of Dan’s story, it hits my heart as you can imagine. He changed the trajectory of my life in such a positive way. Dan doing so many things, that had to be hard,” Gifford said. “I always get very emotional when I think of his story. A lot of our fraternity brothers came and will see it another time. … John did an incredible job of putting it together.”
Scaletta, who owns Motion Source Studio in Brookfield and Thunderbolt Locks in Countryside, began filming the documentary right before the 75th annual pet parade with the idea it would be a short documentary about building a float in Dan Nash’s honor. After deciding to tell Dan’s life story, it took five years of off-and-on filming “with a lot of people who came together to work on the film” – and about $20,000 – before the documentary would finally be finished.
He said Brendan’s help was invaluable. “I couldn’t have done it without him. It was imperative to have his viewpoint because I didn’t know a lot of the story,” he said. “Dan’s struggle with PTSD – Brendan knew the inside story of that. …. He had struggled with alcohol and that was his way of dealing with the PTSD. His drinking is what took him down. You can’t be an F-15 pilot with excessive drinking.”
In addition to telling the story of Dan Nash, “a kid from LaGrange who ended up being an F-15 pilot,” Scaletta hopes people who see the documentary will learn “to look for the signs of PTSD and get people to understand that they need help. I think at one point Dan acknowledged it, but he didn’t stay with getting the help he needed. Like his brother said in the film, had he done that, he most likely would (still) be teaching young people how to fly F-15s.”
Dan Nash was honorably discharged from the Air Force in 2016 and worked as a contractor overseas, teaching pilots to fly fighter jets. But he struggled with PTSD and later was diagnosed with a liver tumor, eventually dying in June 2021 of cirrhosis. “He became a tremendous alcoholic,” Brendan Nash shared frankly.
He said many people don’t know his brother’s full story, including his battle with PTSD, adding that his relationship with his brother in his final years was hard. “I felt like I was fighting with him all the time,” he said. “I was so angry with him. He was living with my mom at the time and putting her through all that stress.”
Those who have PTSD “just want to escape. They don’t want to talk and they want to run away from it. The bottle was his way of running away. Him not being a pilot (anymore) totally crushed him and he totally lost his sense of who he was,” Brendan Nash said.
In addition to the stress many military personnel can feel, Brendan believes his brother’s PTSD was triggered by his mission on 9/11. Their father was flying from Boston back to Chicago and Dan Nash wasn’t sure if he’d have to intercept that plane, perhaps even shoot it down.
“He saw the second plane (that hit the World Trade Center) and saw that smoke and thought, ‘Do I have to chase a plane and have to shoot it down or did I see my dad’s plane hit the building?’ He’s flying around for the next six hours with only his own thoughts in his head,” he said. “He’s talking to the other pilot, his colonel, in the other jet, but that was his only person he was talking to. And when he saw the building collapse … he had no idea that anybody got out of the building. He thought it was still full of people.”
Brendan said his brother likely would have denied his emotional state after watching the documentary. “He would have said, ‘I didn’t have PTSD.’ He would say, ‘I should still be flying. They shouldn’t have kicked me out anyway.’ But as tough as he was, he was very sensitive and loyal and dedicated and generous, and I think he would have been very touched and honored that his friends did this.”
Scaletta said he has submitted the documentary to 30 film festivals and is waiting to hear if any have accepted it. “And we want to share the film with as many libraries, VA hospitals, schools – anyone that would like to show it that’s appropriate. We want to get the message out there – tell Dan’s story – but there are people in the military struggling with PTSD, and we want people to learn more about that. If they don’t get the help that they need, they might not be able to pull out of it.”
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To request a showing of the documentary, fill out a form at the film’s website, nastyfilm.weebly.com/.
Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.