Suicide and Military Veterans

letter sent to The Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ:

I was appalled, but not surprised by your Memorial Day article “Rutgers genetics center to study Army suicides.”   This $2.4 million grant will fund the university’s collection of 55,000 blood samples taken from active-duty soldiers, to be studied by Rutgers’ Human Genetics Institute in a joint effort with the National Institute of Mental Health and the Army to determine beforehand individuals who might be “biologically” pre-disposed to commit suicide due to a genetic inability to cope with intense stress.   Also, the study will determine whether the experience of combat or stress actually changes the soldier’s genetic make-up. 

How fitting that this news should appear on Memorial Day.   As pointed out in the article, the current rate of suicides among active-duty personnel is about 18 per month, and your Memorial Day Editorial “Our War Dead” (on a different page from the Rutgers article) adds that the Department of Veterans Affairs states that 18 military veterans commit suicide every day.   In fact, more victims of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have died by suicide than have died from enemy fire.

I am a Vietnam veteran, and I cannot escape my memories of the genocidal (“The only good Gook is a dead Gook”) training we received, nor the barbarity and cruelty we witnessed.    That war, like the present ones, was born of lies and misrepresentations, and prolonged far too long while the military establishment garnered its ribbons and promotions, and the “defense” contractors wallowed in obscene profits.   In the years since the Vietnam tragedy, we have seen our country abandon its manufacturing and moral foundations. 

Today we spend more on militarism than all the other countries in the world combined, and our chief exports are death and destruction.   Our brave young soldiers join, often because it is the only employment available to them, for all the best reasons.   However, when they see modern combat, the horrible effects of modern weapons, and the brutality encouraged by today’s American way of waging war, many are mentally and emotionally scarred for life.  In most of these cases, PTSD is not a post-traumatic stress DISORDER.   It is the soldier’s humanity, respect for other human beings, and distress at the “collateral damage,” or atrocities that our country is unleashing upon the innocent peasants and poor who get in the way of the carnage.   It is outrage at the actions of our “leaders,” from politicians down to the officers and NCOs, that cause so many unnecessary wounds and deaths among their peers.   What is so disturbing about this article is the continuing strategy of our military to blame the soldier for his or her very normal reactions to the horrors of war.   That $2.4 million could be better spent, perhaps on a study of how to avoid wars.


John Ketwig
Washington, NJ

Ketwig is the author of …and a hard rain fell: A G.I.’s True Story of the Vietnam War, originally published by Macmillan in 1985 and currently published by Sourcebooks.

Healing from War through Art

Healing from War through the Arts:

Vets’ Art Exhibition, Workshops and Readings

Saturday April 21 at Teaneck’s Puffin Cultural Forum

An exhibition featuring handmade paper art crafted from military uniforms by war veterans will open April 21 at the Puffin Cultural Forum from 5-9 p.m. The Puffin Cultural Forum is at 20 Puffin Way in Teaneck, NJ. Reservations recommended; call 201-836-3499. Requested donation is $5 or bring a food dish for potluck supper. 

The featured art was created by participants in the NJ Combat Paper project, Veterans’ Sanctuary in Ithaca, NY and workshops in other cities. At these hands-on events, which grew out of Warrior Writers writing workshops, veterans transform war uniforms into cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, pulped and formed into paper sheets, which are turned into posters, book covers and other creative objects decorated with images from a veteran’s military and post-war experiences.

The April 21 event will open with workshops, starting at 5 p.m., in making Combat Paper, writing and drama, which are open to veterans, military families and friends. The workshops will be followed by a potluck supper at 6:30 p.m. The art show grand opening is at 7:30 p.m., followed by readings of poetry and prose by Global War on Terrorism veterans from the new Warrior Writers anthology, After Action Review.

The Combat Papermaking workshop facilitators are David Keefe and Eli Wright, coordinators of the NJ Combat Paper Project at the Printmaking Center of New Jersey; they will be aided by Nathan Lewis of the Veterans’ Sanctuary in Ithaca, NY. The three all served in the US military in Iraq.

The drama workshop facilitator is Dustin Evans, who coordinates drama workshops at the Bronx (NY) Veterans Affairs Medical Center. An actor and playwright (“Perimeters”), Dusty is a Vietnam war veteran.   

The writing workshop facilitators are Lovella Calica, director of Philadelphia-based Warrior Writers, and Jenny Pacanowski, writing facilitator at the Ithaca, NY Veterans’ Sanctuary; Jenny is an Iraq war veteran.

The event is curated by Jan Barry, a poet and Vietnam veteran, and Walt Nygard, a writer, artist and Vietnam vet. It is cosponsored by Military Families Speak Out – Bergen County; NJ Combat Paper Project; Veterans For Peace, Chapter 21 NJ; Veterans’ Sanctuary, Ithaca, NY; and Warrior Writers.

Facebook Event Link

Healing from War Event

This event is co-sponsored by VFP Chapter 21

Defense act abrogates Constitution

This letter to the editor appeared in The Record of North Jersey on Jan. 28. Joe Attamante is a member of Veterans For Peace Chapter 21,  a former Marine and English teacher. He lives in Morristown, NJ.

By Joseph R. Attamante

ON DEC. 15, the 220th anniversary of Bill of Rights Day, the U.S. Senate passed the 2011-12 National Defense Authorization Act, 86-13.

Recently signed into law by President Obama, this act includes sections that codify indefinite military detention without trial of anyone, including American citizens, the president accuses of "supporting" al-Qaida, the Taliban or "associated forces."

As this law permits the president alone to decide whoever fits the broad and elastic categories of "supporting" or "associated," the law effectively abrogates any accused person's rights to due process of law and a speedy public trial guaranteed by our Constitution's Fifth and Sixth amendments.

Although the law makes military detention mandatory only for non-U.S. citizens, it nonetheless leaves the door wide-open to military imprisonment of Americans by saying such detention is not "required" for U.S. citizens.
And Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., dispelled any doubt about the law's applicability to U.S. citizens when, speaking about Section 1031, he said: "The statement of authority to detain does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as a battlefield, including the homeland."

However, Graham and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the law's primary sponsors, maintain they had no intention of changing existing law since (they say) the president already has authority to capture anyone, anywhere and incarcerate anyone he designates a suspect indefinitely without trial or due process.

The senators' cited assertion of established presidential powers raises the following questions:

* If the president already has such powers, why did the overwhelming majority of Congress, including New Jersey Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez and Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-Harding, find it necessary to vote to grant these powers by inserting them into a defense authorization bill?

* Why did the Senate strike down amendments that would have exempted American citizens from any detention without trial and limited military detention to those captured abroad?

* Why did Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., affirm on the Senate floor that American suspects should be subject to indefinite military detention without trial?

The answer is that Congress chose to legalize the authority President George W. Bush and President Obama had previously claimed and acted on.

Notably, the law's military detention provision was opposed by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who said it would interfere with the FBI's ability to investigate and interrogate terrorism suspects. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said it could damage national security. Two retired four-star Marine Corps generals concluded it would damage due process and place an undue burden on the military.

James Madison, the father of our Constitution and key author of the Bill of Rights, warned that "loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."

Attempting to fend off and control real or perceived threats, Congress limits our liberty; but in undermining the freedom so many have given their lives to preserve, they can only achieve a temporary and finally false security.

All our elected representatives swear an oath to "protect and defend the Constitution." Members of Congress who voted for the bill, and the president who signed it, violated that oath and in doing so betrayed the Constitution and the people they represent.

Remembering Dave Cline

Last Sunday, January 8th, would have been Dave Cline's 65th birthday. Dave died on September 14, 2007, which was far too soon and in my opinion, Dave was a belated casualty of the war in Vietnam.

Please watch this video and if you wish, you can download an abbreviated version of the entire movie from Google videos.
 

Peace and Solidarity,

Ken Dalton
VFP 21, N.J.
VVAW

"In the 1960's an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn't take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam."

Vietnam vet Dave Cline was one of those organizers.

Visit www.sirnosir.com

Writing the Way Home

Book project supported by VFP 21

By Jan Barry

Across America, a special gift is arriving at numerous homes this week. This gift is a new book by Warrior Writers titled After Action Review: A Collection of Writing and Artwork by Veterans of the Global War on Terror.

What makes this book decidedly different from so many other gifts this holiday season is three-fold: its handcrafted artistry by young men and women who turned sleepless nights and troubled days into making art with hands that for too long held war weapons; its funding by dozens of supporters who collectively chipped in thousands of dollars to pay for the printing and postage; and its timing—published just as the war in Iraq was officially declared over and the last US military units departed that war-savaged land.

Here at home, a great many veterans of deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are trying to turn off unrelenting war memories. Some try chasing off nightmares with hard drinking, drugs, death-defying lifestyles. Some find nothing seems to work. As Zach LaPorte, a former Army Ranger who served twice in Iraq, writes in a poem titled “Spliced”:

My life is like a slide show, spliced with images of the desert.
Mom asks me if I like the potatoes,
     A woman shrieks from a bloodied mouth.
My Professor hands me an exam paper,
     I’m riding in the door of a Blackhawk.
I walk alone at night past neon signs,
     Crimson tracers snap so close you could touch.
I sit in my air-conditioned cubicle,
     The blood in my brain boils.
The scars run deeper than they appear.

LaPorte’s poem is a troubling, yet heartening example of what the Warriors Writers project and this anthology are about: writing war images and injuries out, releasing them to the light of day, shared with those who care, aired to help heal hidden torments that long ago were called “soldier’s heart.”

"It's hard to overestimate how writing can heal long scarred over wounds that every veteran inevitably has,” Josiah White, a former Marine who was wounded by a suicide bomber, writes in a quote displayed on the back cover. “These stories and poems also have the power of communicating a near impossible message to non-veterans, those hurt by war, those hurt by tragedy, anyone who has ever suffered and asked the question ‘why?’ No one will read this book and come away unchanged."

With the 10-year war in Afghanistan still raging and flailing dangerously into Pakistan, this book raises veterans’ concerns that extend far beyond the mission in Iraq that just ended. In the Foreword, Brian Turner—author of one of the first poetry books to come out of the war in Iraq, Here, Bullet—writes that the works in this anthology “seem to suggest that we would be wise to take stock of where we are now, as a country.”

Many of the pieces in this collection by more than 60 contributors focus on an incident that triggered disconcerting change in perspective in the midst of military life. In a poem titled “Happy Birthday,” Zachariah Dean writes about suddenly realizing he just turned 26 as death whizzes by in the middle of a firefight in Afghanistan in which his rifle is jammed by a defective bullet. Scrambling to fix the rifle, it hits him how carelessly he’s led his life to end up in such a desperate jam. "I wrote this in a hurry in a machine gun turret several nights later,” he notes in the poem, stunned by the surreal experience. “Try to burn it out of memory by putting it on paper…"

Others focus on trying to find a thread that may bring deeply sought change for the better in a veteran’s life. In a sardonic welcome home for himself and other veterans, Garett Reppenhagen wrote in a poem titled “Black Out Drive”:

“Heeeey, welcome home brother.”
Just grip that wheel hero.
Stay alert, stay alive.
The real war has just started,
Your fight to survive.

Jacob George, who served three tours in Afghanistan with the Army, reaches out to fellow Americans in a poem titled “Support the Troops”:

don’t thank me for what I’ve done

give me a big hug
and let me know
we’re not going to let this happen again
because we support the troops
and we’re gonna bring these wars to an end 

Unlike collections of writings by warriors of previous wars, women veterans take a prominent role in this anthology. Air Force veteran Kristina Vogt captures the bizarre military bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo that she describes as, from a female perspective, creating “the womb of the WoMD” (weapons of mass destruction)—the official reason for invading Iraq, which became as illusive as a desert mirage.

“I am the savage,” writes Emily Yates, who served two combat tours in Iraq, describing bursting into “proud homes” looking for elusive enemies, where women and children “stand in the doorway with fearful faces,” while she the armed American soldier wields “the weapon of ignorance … the shield of arrogance,” speaking with “the voice of entitlement….”

Former Army sergeant Robynn Murray, in a poem titled “Eviscerated,” throws the disillusionment of serving in terrorizing raids on Iraqi civilians directly at war supporters back home:

I am your walking wounded broken toy soldier,
and your flag is burning and all your yellow ribbons have fallen down.
I cut open these festers to force your eyes to see the truth so damn it, LOOK!
Look at what has become of me, of us.

I will gladly reopen these wounds if there is change that will come of it.
So that no one else receives these scars. …

Woven throughout the poetry and essays in this collection is an arresting gallery of often startling artwork. These include an American flag made of bullet casings (“Bullet Flag” by Lars Ekstrom); a toy soldier inside a prescription bottle (“Trapped” by Malachi Muncy); and a drawing of a walking skeleton with flaming oil derricks crowning the skull (“Greed Walks” by Eric Estenzo).

Many of the works in this book address post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Chantelle Bateman, a Marine veteran of Iraq, writes about “anger is the color I sometimes paint the town with … louder than incoming and the sirens they play when I hit the deck … I’m just a pile of tears needing to punch you”. Another former Marine, Jon Turner, punches at everything in sight in Iraq and back home in a string of explosive, insightful, drunken, cold sober images of human encounters, rejections, attempts at reaching out that ends with these lines:

In the unwritten letters and poems—
are the hidden faces of war

Several pieces reach breathtakingly out of inner turmoil to find an uplifting path. “I desire to trust life,” writes former Marine Liam Madden, “to cultivate my unique and needed gifts/Loving with abandon/ I intend to weave a web of gratitude into my community.” His poem “Intention” is the first in the book, followed by a wide array of perspectives drawn from a decade of war. The last poem is called “Brio,” in which Army veteran Maggie Martin, who served twice in Iraq, joins others in various civic actions:

I sow community in re-acquisitioned places,
Crowded city street, marching orders, protest song,
Our hands and mouths’ unsinkable strength.
…
Old constructs crumble and blow away,
new consciousness takes root.

The concluding section showcases photos of veterans at Warrior Writers workshops in cities around the country, accompanied by a quote by Eli Wright, a former Army combat medic: "I used to write before I went to Iraq, but when I got over there, I wasn't able to write. So through Warrior Writers I have been able to slowly begin to find my words again and share my experiences and what happened over there. It's been a healing experience."

The nearly 200-page anthology was compiled and edited by Lovella Calica, the director of Warrior Writers, which is based in Philadelphia, PA, with the assistance of a number of contributors and supporters. I aided the project as an advisor and copy editor. The book was artfully designed by Rachel McNeill, an Army veteran who included thought-provoking photos shot on patrols in Iraq by herself and others. A series of drawings and paintings titled “Dust Works” by Army National Guard veteran Aaron Hughes provides a visual theme of roads through war on the cover and throughout the book.

After Action Review (paperback, $20) is the third in a series of anthologies of writing and art by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans published by Warrior Writers, and is available at www.warriorwriters.org.

VFP Chapter 21 contributed to the financial support for this book project.

Happy Holidays

 

PEACE ON EARTH

Artwork on this greeting card was designed by Walt Nygard, a fellow Vietnam veteran; typesetting on the back is by Eli Wright, an Iraq war vet. 

The cards were handmade and printed by Walt, Eli and me at the Printmaking Center 

of New Jersey as part of a Combat Paper workshop.