Lynchburg - The Voice - Fall 2023

Tales of Service with a touch of Hollywood
Coast Guard veteran Matt Moyer came to Lynchburg to speak to VDOT, to thank
those who’ve served, and to discuss movie magic and meeting Kevin Costner
On November 9th, a special event held at VDOT’s Lynchburg
District honored military veterans across Virginia. 26-year
Coast Guard veteran, Captain Matt Moyer, spoke about his service,
close calls, and how he helped Kevin Costner make “The Guardian”
a more realistic movie.
Moyer spoke in Lynchburg, but other districts joined through a virtual
meeting to hear him speak. And they heard a lot, including the time
Moyer was involved in a helicopter rescue of three men stranded on
a boat during what was at the time Tropical Storm Gordon (it would
later become a hurricane).
“We knew it was bad,” Moyer said. “The boat was listing, the sails
were shredded off, the rigging torn apart, debris in the water. We
approached the vessel at an 80-foot hover and when we did, our #2
engine fire light came on. We transitioned into forward flight and we
left them.”
They had to determine what was wrong with their HH-60J Jayhawk.
“At one point, the flight mechanic has to exit the aircraft and hang
outside the cabin door, to look inside the engine compartment.”
There was no fire, but the pilot told the crew about the protocol.
“The pilot said ’Protocol has us returning to base, but we can’t leave.
These guys are gonna die.’ So, we all agreed we were going to go
back in.”
They were able to save all three men, who’d been treading water at
that point, and get everyone safely back to land.
Moyer’s service and expertise led him to be chosen as a technical
advisor for the movie “The Guardian” starring Kevin Costner and
Ashton Kutcher. The movie follows Coast Guard rescue swimmer Ben Randall (Costner) who mourns losing his crew
in a fatal accident and copes by training new recruits. One recruit, Jake Fischer (Kutcher) is a cocky swimming
champion. Randall molds the young man into becoming his protege and takes him on a mission in the dangerous
waters of the Bering Strait.
Captain Matt Moyer, U.S. Coast Guard
brought items collected from his years of
service to display at the Veterans Day
event in Lynchburg