[NYTr] Veterans' Voices: Writing to Heal

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Ed Pearl
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2007-11/11peters.cfm

ZNet Commentary - Nov 11, 2007

Veterans' Voices

By Cynthia Peters

Written testimony "means that we no longer allow ourselves to be
silenced or allow others to speak for our experience. Writing to heal,
then, and making our writing public, as I see it, is the most important
emotional, psychological, artistic, and political project of our time."
-Louise De Salvo, PhD, author, "Writing as a Way of Healing"

A few years ago, an old friend from Nicaragua started writing to me
about his experiences fighting on the side of the Sandinistas during the
revolution against a brutal dictator in the late 1970s and then later
against the U.S.-supported contras. What I noticed most was how little
it mattered that he was on the right side of that fight. He'll spend his
lifetime managing the stress that comes from having witnessed and
caused and suffered so much trauma. No matter that the contras were an
illegal, internationally condemned, U.S.-sponsored proxy army. They
were also men. And my friend helped kill them.

His words reminded me of a veteran I met at a bar one night. He told me
the greatest sacrifice you can make isn't to die for your country. The
greatest sacrifice you can make is to kill for your country -
especially when you come home to a dysfunctional democracy that
elevates the rights of corporations over the rights of people. It
appears his intense personal sacrifice only helped make the world safe
for profit-making, which is why, he explained, he spends as much time
as he can at the local tavern.

Another thing I noticed in my correspondence with my (former) Sandinista
friend was how important it was for him to write. He didn't need a big
audience - just someone to listen. There is some healing that happens
when you use writing to make sense of your experience and to share your
understanding with others. But I wished I could do more than provide a
private audience. I wanted him and other veterans to be heard by more
people.

What if we coaxed voices like these out from behind the barrooms and the
private correspondence? What if veterans had more opportunities to meet
with other veterans, write about their experiences, and share those
writings with peers and possibly even the public? Not only might
veterans share in the healing power of writing, but if their articles
and stories were read and published in larger venues, the public would
benefit too. Their "ground truth" could provide the mobilizing force to
stop this war and prevent the next one.

With these ideas in mind, I organized a meeting last November that
brought Vietnam veterans and Iraq veterans together to launch a writing
group. Being used to needing multiple meetings and tons of energy to
get projects off the ground, I was surprised that all it took was
getting a bunch of veterans in the room together. The group launched
itself from that point. I worried that we had no money; the grants I
had written hadn't come through yet. "What do we need money for?" one
veteran asked. "Everyone bring your own pencil, okay?" And so the first
Iraq Veterans' Writing Workshop in the Boston area began.

In March, some of these veterans gave a reading, and I had the enormous
honor of going to hear them. Why do I say honor? It's not easy to
listen to what veterans have to say. They not only witnessed horrors,
they committed them as well. I could feel my tears come almost
immediately. But there is something right about being a witness. It's
like agreeing to share a burden that otherwise they would have to bear
alone. It's like admitting we have a shared responsibility for all that
happened (and is happening) in Iraq, even though they're the ones who
went through the physical motions, and I was not.

I brought a Vietnam veteran friend with me to the reading. I think
being at the event was particularly hard for him, but also particularly
meaningful. A recovered alcoholic, he told me later he spent the whole
weekend after the reading, fighting the urge to have a drink. When the
reading was over, he was the first to raise his hand, ready (almost
desperate) to offer support and advice. He has been struggling to live
with his war stories for four decades, and these young men are just
getting started. He told me later that he has always wanted to find
ways to be there for returning veterans. He once joined a group in
South Boston for exactly that purpose, but it turned out the group
intended only to post "Welcome Home" signs around the community.

Since the first writing workshop got off the ground, I have managed to
raise a little money, which means we can offer some payment to workshop
facilitators and maybe cover the cost of veterans' transportation and
childcare. Two new workshops are about to start - one for women and one
for men. There are veterans who are asking for special workshops for
family members. We have ideas about training veterans to be workshop
leaders and taking the workshops further into local communities - into
public libraries, YMCAs and YWCAs, and other neighborhood venues.

In June, at the U.S. social forum in Atlanta, I learned that the Iraq
Veterans Against the War (IVAW) have created the Warrior Writers Project
(http://www.ivaw.org/node/723) and published those writings in a
booklet. Meanwhile, Maxine Hong Kingston, who has been conducting
writing workshops for veterans for the past 15 years, is starting to
see more and more Iraq Veterans. (Read the transcript of her eloquent
interview with Bill Moyers at
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052707A.shtml.) One IVAW writer, Matt
Howard, said that there is no place in society that is safe or
comfortable for veterans to write about their experiences - except the
writing workshop.

At the start of this Veterans' Day weekend, when the news is that one
out of four veterans is homeless, and tens of thousands of veterans are
returning home with physical and emotional wounds that society is in no
way prepared to mend, we should focus on creating grassroots venues for
veterans' voices to be heard. Veterans (young and old) have a lot to
offer each other - if we can find ways to bring them together. They
have a lot to offer non-veterans, if we choose to listen. By simply
telling the truth and being heard, they represent a most powerful force
to stop the current war and prevent the next.

When a young organizer from UMASS asked for advice about how to do
anti-war organizing in his mostly working-class commuter school, I
said, "Find the veterans. And don't just ask them to come to your
meetings or your demonstrations, but figure out a way for them to be
heard. Find a venue for their voices. And then listen."

On October 27th here in Boston, veterans and their family members were
at the head of our march. To its credit, the anti-war movement has taken
important steps to make sure veterans and military family members are in
leadership positions. But in addition to marching with them, we should
create longer-term structures, such as writing workshops, that give
veterans the chance to work with their peers, share their experiences,
make sense of those experiences, and prepare to share what they learn
with the rest of us.

If you are interested in learning more about writing workshops for Iraq
Veterans in the Boston area, or if you'd like to set them up in your own
community, contact cyn.peters at gmail.com.