7Salutes: Army Special Forces officer pens play on experience serving in the military

WASHINGTON (7News) — On September 10, 2001, the day before everything changed in America, Bill Raskin was an Army Special Forces officer.

The next day, when our nation came under attack, he and his team knew their world was about to be turned upside down. He was right.

Now, all these years later, Raskin was in the process of writing a book about it, but deep into the project, he thought a play would be a better vehicle to share what that time was like for people like him.

The play, called ‘The Team Room’ chronicles just three days.

“Day one is the day before 9/11 and day two is where they go off to war and day three is where they redeploy and reconcile some of the events they ran into,” Raskin said.

7News Anchor Jonathan Elias recently sat down with Raskin to talk about the upcoming play.

He said so many lessons learned as a special force’s operator are transferrable to anyone in any walk of life who has to rely on others to accomplish any goal.

“The one message is you ultimately succeed or fail based on the strength of the team,” Raskin said. “So, everyone is a special operator, but the team will succeed to the degree to which everyone finds that connectivity and bond to anticipate each other’s moves and stick together no matter how bad everything gets and ultimately to make each other better.”

7News caught up with Raskin during the evening of a rehearsal.

Actors were going over their scripts and working to embody the part of someone who risks their lives every time they go out for an operation.

The director of the play is Ray Ficca who is so excited to share this kind of play with folks that most likely have little to no understanding of what it is to serve in this capacity for their country.

“This is a play you want people to leave and say, ‘you know what, there is so much more to the military and the men and women who serve than what I see in the newspapers, tv and even [from] my relatives,” Ficca said.

‘The Team Room’ begins its 18-show run at the Keegan Theatre in D.C. on October 7, running through the end of the month.