This isn't a confessional/journal type blog, so my even posting this recap of "veterans, PTSD and my week" might seem out of place on it, but this past week was full of nuggets of interest at least to me -- and perhaps also to you -- that I just have to do it, if only just this once. The items are all pretty miscellaneous as well, though linked around a common theme. So sit tight, and I'll try to make this as painless as possible :-) -- although it promises, as always, to be a veritable "linkfest," to follow up at your leisure.
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Started the week by learning about the crisis humanitarian photographer Zoriah was in, recently embedded with the Marines in Iraq, who'd run afoul of the Marines for posting photos of dead American servicemen on his blog, even though he'd done so with great restraint, and in effort to show the grim realities of war -- realities we're increasingly prevented from seeing, except in the most sanitized of ways. It was a shame to see how discordant and rancorous the debate over what he'd done became, but it was great to see him hold his head up high and help keep the focus on his work.
(This photo is from Zoriah's excellent, true-to-life war coverage blog, linked here and used with permission. It appears to be of a solitary American servicemember enjoying a lonely Fourth of July lunch in the chow hall on his base in Iraq.)
That gave me the chance to write another post about censorship and the Marines -- which seems to be an ongoing problem -- and mention the case of Eric Acevedo again -- only to find out from the IAVA blog, later in the week, that censorship is alive and well -- restricting freedom of the press -- even in funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. Gina Gray seems to have been fired from her job as Public Affairs Director for the cemetery, by the Army, essentially for being a whistleblower, and trying to protect the public's right to know. Depressing. If seeing is believing, I guess we're now not supposed to see anything, either. Rats...
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A friend of mine, code-named the Beautiful Redhead, has a Marine husband (1/25 - "New England's Own") who is just about to return from his umpteenth deployment. That reminded me that the wonderful Ray Scurfield, D.S.W., had sent me some of his writings and given me permission to post them on this blog, which gave me an opportunity to post "Home Sweet Home: After Deployment, What? Support for Returning Veterans and Their Families" in her honor. On the other side of the coin, another buddy of mine, Kathie Costos, (mentioned elsewhere in this post), in her most rabble-rousing blog post of the week, questions why she gets so much static from wives of deployed military, who seemingly want to push the truths of war and its coverage aside. She argues firmly that knowledge is power, and produces compassion and understanding, even (or especially) for wives and families, whose veterans sometimes need a listening ear on the homefront, about what they've experienced. Read that post, questioning whether it's really bliss to be oblivious, here.
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Then I got a chance to communicate with former First Recon Marine and current international heartthrob, Rudy Reyes, one of the stars of the HBO miniseries about Generation Kill (linked here), and learn what his future plans are -- and they're exciting. (Searches for Rudy Reyes skyrocketed this week, coming from places as disparate as Jack in the Box and the U.S. Senate, and from Alaska to Argentina. I joke that everyone but the Pope searched for Rudy Reyes this week, and perhaps even him. Reyes just got an agent -- William Morris -- (he's gonna need one!) -- there are some stupendous shots of him on the Web -- and there are plans for him to release an undoubtedly hotly-anticipated workout video and more, based on the concept of "Hero Living." Can't wait to see what that's all about. (My semi-educated guess is his eventual website will be, www.RudyReyes.com, but currently there isn't any content posted there -- so check back periodically to see when it is.)
Later in the week, I got the opportunity to interview at length a Vietnam veteran, Marine, from 2/5, named Steve Piscitelli, who's now a sculptor in Florida, and turned to art to purge some of the inner demons he carried back from war. He went to school (UMass Amherst) years ago with Kate Collie, a talented painter, who worked with him to create an exhibit known as Soldier's Heart. I learned about Collie's work from a wonderful article on art therapy and PTSD -- really, the definitive article, from what I've seen -- by Jenny Hontz, that was published in the LA Times two years ago, and seems to be only available via the public library system at this point. It's a shame, because it's an excellent article. (Editor's note: good news -- it's available here.) We'll blog about it shortly, as part of our series on art therapy and PTSD, and ideally get to show some of Collie's paintings of Steve Piscitelli as well. Then, got a chance to start a group on Facebook about combat art and poetry, in case any veterans who agree with Piscitelli's advice to just get creative and do SOMETHING want a chance to mingle with one another and discuss ideas.
On the "creativity in veterans" note, learned from Maxine Hong Kingston, internationally known author, and the editor of "Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace," that they're just about to start releasing guides to running writing workshops for veterans. This is great news, because I for one would like to hold one, and it may be just the impetus to make it actually happen. That inspired me to finally start talking more about combat trauma and poetry -- you can find war poetry books listed on the right of this blog as well -- something I'd like to continue to do more of in the future. (The link to the index of everything about poetry written on this blog is here.) My dream job? Teaching veterans how to write about they've been through, or otherwise express themselves creatively...
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Later in the week, sadly not in time to announce the first session in advance, I learned that the VA hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado is making it easier for veterans, their families and the community to talk and learn about PTSD, in a series of three weekly meetings they're holding in July. Good stuff -- or at the very least, a great idea. Let's hope it spreads.
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A journalist friend in New York City, who's writing a book about veterans and dissent for the University of California Press, pointed me to a short story by Civil War era author and personal favorite, Ambrose Bierce, called "What I Saw of Shiloh," which suddenly gives more insight into Bierce's character, since what he suffered in war -- even before getting shot in the head with a musket, later on in another battle -- was really pretty strong stuff. Bierce is a quirky writer, with a very dark sense of humor -- "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" is just one sample -- but after you read the Shiloh piece, it's not hard to understand that what Bierce and the others saw and experienced would have scarred them for life. There are some paragraphs, deep within the story and towards the end, that are intensely graphic and compelling, about the horrors of war as a combatant that paint the same picture in words that Zoriah (mentioned earlier in this post) is currently doing in photography.
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Later on, trying to chase down the details of another Marine (2/9 and 1/9) and Vietnam veteran's story about a particular issue of Time magazine he saw, as he was recuperating in the hospital, and what profound implications it had for his life, I learned that you can access historical copies of Time magazines on the Web, right through the Vietnam war, and many other decades besides -- and see covers, tables of content, and read reporting as it was happening at the time. I focused on reading about the Battle of Khe Sanh, and had the opportunity to observe once again that a) war is hell (Vietnam certainly was); and b) that war reporting then isn't quite the same as it is right now, for any number of reasons. (This particular photo, at right, from the Battle of Khe Sanh, could easily depict some of the conditions Ambrose Bierce described at Shiloh, above.)
While I was working on unraveling the Khe Sanh "mystery" for myself, another First Recon Marine and Vietnam vet I care about took the opportunity to let me know he was contemplating cashing in his chips shortly -- which spun me off into a whirlwind of more learning needed on what do you do when you're not a counselor, but someone tells you something serious like that, that needs a measured and compassionate response?
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That got me talking to two people who know a whole lot more than I do -- Tyrone Ballesteros, at the National Veterans Foundation, which provides a hotline for veterans, open 7 days a week, from 9 am to 9 pm PST, and specializes in talking to vets about serious problems in their lives, of all kinds (1-888-777-4443); and also Kathie Costos, who may be newly ordained as a senior chaplain but has long been a friend of veterans, a fact evidenced by anyone who stops in to visit her blog, Wounded Times, linked here. The series of videos that Costos has made and distributes should themselves alone help remove some of the stigma of PTSD. In a strange but welcome twist, Costos is also being interviewed by a writer for a major magazine on PTSD, so it's great to anticipate the type of story that might come out of that, since the magazine in question doesn't give topics short shrift, but takes pains to cover them pretty comprehensively, and in a way that paints a very clear picture for the reader.
(What I learned about what you need to say and do will have to be saved to blog about later, but it essentially boiled down to two takeaways for me, who is no sort of expert on the matter: one, get the local authorities involved if you think someone's serious, because they will need a welfare check (the looking-in kind, not the one that buys groceries) and possibly more serious attention, such as the concerned bystander cannot provide; and also that there's a real distinction to be made between "wanting to die" and "planning to kill yourself," and while that distinction is subtle, and hard to learn, it's worth divining, because the wrong kind of "help" offered at the wrong time, can end up being a setback to the sufferer.)
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It was great reading Jill Carroll's piece in the Christian Science Monitor on Friday, that shows that some enlightened work is being done in the criminal justice and veterans sphere - and her article was not just informative but also well-written, which is always a treat. In a "small world..." sort of way, it was also nice to see that she talked about, in the article, people we've been talking about on this blog for a while -- Travis Twiggs, William Keating, etc., so that was re-affirming.
And speaking of re-affirming, two wonderful experiences to close out the week -- at least, the Monday through Friday part of it. One was catching up with the inimitable John Powers, who I initially got to know through this blog, and finding out that, thanks to his efforts and those of the Student Veterans of America, that Rhode Island, Power's home state, is really becoming a model for the nation in terms of getting veterans situated who want to go back to school. As just one example of the progress, and there are many to choose from, every college campus in Rhode Island has its own veterans office, to assist veterans returning to school. Power's comprehensive Veterans Resource Guide is fast approaching 250 pages, and his Operation Vets website seems to be humming along as well.
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Last but not least, I stumbled upon a really marvelous piece of writing for returning veterans and their families, by AP journalist and compassionate war survivor, Britta Reque-Dragicevic, called "Close to Home: A Soldier's Guide to Returning from War." The book is available in e-book form, as a download, at her website, LifeAfterWar.org, linked here -- and buying it for you or the veteran in your life just might be the best $10 you ever spend. Speaking of a great gift...that book is a great one -- I can't recommend it highly enough. It appears to have the endorsement of Ed Tick, as well. I hope Reque-Dragicevic and James S. Gordon, M.D., who we wrote about recently in the mind-body medicine material, get to cross paths, too. Between their interests in war-torn Kosovo, Bosnia and Sarajevo, and their interests in what amounts healing those damaged by war, I'm sure they'd have a lot to talk about.
