Tower-Fall-2018

FALL 2018 | TOWER 13 You can call her a writer, a director, an award-winning filmmaker, a soldier and an advocate. All would be correct. But above all else, Kutztown University alumna Rebecca Murga ‘03 is a storyteller. When the Chicago native moved to Pennsylvania with family, she discovered and enrolled in the electronic media program at KU – a perfect fit as she liked the idea of being in the communications field. “It was a small, but hands-on program; I remember being excited about what I was doing. I wasn’t stuck in a classroom and it didn’t feel like work. I spent a lot of time out filming – football games, you name it,” Murga said. A HISTORICAL TURN But one day on campus, there was a shift in Murga’s focus. It was a fateful day for many – Sept. 11, 2001. She recalls emerging from class in Rickenbach Learning Center to learn about the terrorist attacks on the United States and not being able to attend class the remainder of the day, glaring at what she saw unfold on television, stricken with shock. Many remember that day and associate it with a feeling of grief. Murga remembers it igniting a spark inside of her. “I remember going home and telling my dad we were going to go to war,” Murga said. Serving in the military was an idea Murga considered even before enrolling in college, perhaps inspired by seeing relatives serve in her younger years, but her parents urged her to put school first, and she did. After 9/11 she said she felt she had a purpose she could no longer ignore, leading her to enroll in the ROTC program at Lehigh University. After graduating from KU in 2003, she was commissioned to serve as a signal officer, part of the reserves program, stationed in Tobyhanna, Pa. “Sometimes you feel like you have a purpose, but it can be lost in logic. That day [9/11] clarified the sense of purpose I had,” Murga said. As different as it was to serve in the U.S. Army compared to serving as a writer or director, Murga’s service was still rooted in storytelling. She was there to document just what it was like to serve in our military through film and with her stories, something done by less than 1 percent of our population. She was there to feel what a soldier goes through. She was there to experience what he or she feels like when they return home from war. SHARING STORIES After 10 years of military service in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, and being awarded the Bronze Star for her work with the Special Operations Command and the Although she’s out in Los Angeles “making it” with big names and grads from the likes of NYU, Murga remains fiercely proud of her KU roots. She says, “I’m always proud to declare I’m a Golden Bear.”