Charley Valera
Author, Filmmaker
Hey, you found me!
This is mission control for everything I’m writing, filming, and shouting about: new books, live events, documentary premieres, videos, and the occasional unhinged Facebook rant.
Pull up a chair, stick around, and please holler if you need me.
THE BOOKS
My Father's War: Memories from Our Honored WWII Soldiers
“Valera always believed his father had no war stories to tell… until forgotten roll calls revealed a painful, hidden past.
That moment changed everything.
He began interviewing other veterans, desperate to
capture their truths before they were lost forever.
The result: 18 unforgettable voices from every U.S. military branch and both theaters, speaking with complete honesty about the war they lived.
This is My Father’s War.”
This documentary is not another battlefield recreation. It is nine intimate, unflinching portraits— some familiar faces weathered by time, voices cracking with memory as they sometimes stare into another time long ago—preserved so their children, grandchildren, and generations who will never meet them can look them in the eye and hear, in their own words, what it was really like. This is My Father’s War: the stories they carried home, the ones they almost took to their graves, and the promise that they will never be forgotten.
Help their stories reach theaters, classrooms, and communities—forever.
Documentary
A MILITARY MUSTANG
At 17, John W. Arens patrolled the deadly North Atlantic convoys as a Merchant Marine in World War II. Drafted as an Army Ranger in Korea, he later enlisted in the Navy for Vietnam and finally stood watch in the mine-strewn waters of the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm. Four wars. Four decades. Three branches of service. Starting as a high-school dropout enlisted man, he fought his way up to commissioned officer—a true "Military Mustang," one of the rarest warriors America ever produced. This is the unforgettable story of a man who kept going back until the job was done.
