All About Mentoring Spring 2011 - SUNY Empire State College

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Homecoming; in class we watch the film
version of the Faulkner short story “Two
Brothers,” that chronicles how a young boy
reacts to his brother’s enlistment during
WWII. We also have students listen to
popular anti-war music from the 1960s
and watch “Private SNAFU” cartoons from
WWII. We bring Twain’s “The War Prayer”
to class, where we read it together and
discuss what Twain was saying to those who
support war but are not soldiers. Students
are given the opportunity to write a true or
fictionalized story about a soldier coming
home from war, from either a soldier’s
perspective, or that of someone who has
been on the homefront.
Lisa, a student with no military experience,
wrote about witnessing a soldier’s young
family waiting on the tarmac at an airport
as his flag-draped coffin was carried off a
plane. As the family walked back through
the waiting area, people in the airport
became silent; some saluted and others
bowed their heads. She told the class it was
at that moment the war became real to her.
Our veteran students usually choose to write
about their own experience. Dick, who had
been a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, wrote
about how difficult re-entry was:
When our tour of duty in Vietnam was
down to the last 30 days we became
so-called short timers. We would joke
with each other about our return to the
world. We reminded ourselves not to
use profanity when asking our mothersin-law
to pass the salt. We boasted that
the first thing we would do at home
was to make love with our wives; the
second would be to put down our
luggage. We promised to never come
back to Vietnam … . It immediately
became apparent to me that they [my
family] had gone crazy while I was
away. I knew they loved me and meant
well, but their words and actions were
confusing. I had no idea of what it
was they expected of me or what their
conversations were about. My son
screeched and cried all the while. My
mother asked me silly questions. My
wife, now a most serious young mother,
acted nothing like the young bride I had
left to go to war. I felt quite ready to
get on the next plane to Saigon.
A student who had been deployed twice
and expected to be deployed again wrote
about using alcohol to cope with feelings
of guilt and anxiety. He described plunging
back into his old life, only to find himself
incapacitated with nightmares and panic
attacks. He ended his essay by writing: “ …
when you go to war you will always carry
that war with you. And once you become a
soldier you will always remain one.”
Module Five is Coping. We begin by
discussing Pennebaker’s healing and writing
research and DeSalvo’s five qualities of
a healing narrative. We talk about war
and trauma, and present this work as a
writing tool students can employ at any
time to enable their own healing from
trauma. We have students read George
Saunders’ humorous essay, “Heavy
Artillery,” and discuss the role of humor
in coping. For their writing assignment,
students interview someone who has been
significantly influenced by war in order to
learn about the circumstances of the war
experience, how he/she has coped, and how
the experience changed the person. This
turned out to be one of our most powerful
assignments. Students choose a wide variety
of people to interview, but often select
relatives who they had previously never
talked to about their war experiences.
One student interviewed his grandmother
about how she coped during WWII. He
learned how memories of war, even for
those on the homefront, last a lifetime. Also,
he discovered the contrast between civilian
involvement in the war effort then and now.
Some students interviewed the spouses of
deployed soldiers, and others interviewed
people in the military who have been
deployed about coping both in combat and
with reintegration. Dick decided to interview
his wife, who was 19 and pregnant when
he left for Vietnam; they had never talked
about what it had been like for her while he
was at war and when he returned.
She said she was angry at the Army
for turning our family upside down
and even angrier with the anti-war
demonstrators who used such terms as
‘baby killers’ to describe soldiers … .
According to her, I returned from
Vietnam an angry, impatient man who
had no time for either her or our son.
She said I acted as if I could not wait to
get back to the company of my buddies
in the Army … . When asked if feelings
leftover from her wartime experience
influenced her views of current issues,
she responded saying that she was
disheartened by our country unfairly
asking so much of today’s military
families. She went on to say our
nation’s unwillingness to share the
burden of our military families seems
evidence that the country has lost its
moral compass.
One particularly powerful documentary we
watch together during this module is Muse
of Fire. This film, featuring soldiers and
family members reading their writing, serves
as a model for our students and emphasizes
the healing benefits of telling our stories.
The final module is Reintegration. Students
read a series of stories and articles about
the challenges of soldiers reintegrating into
society after having been at war. In class,
we watch a YouTube talk by psychotherapist
Ed Tick who points out that many
indigenous societies have rituals and
ceremonies that allow returning warriors
to tell their stories and help them become
part of society again. Our American society
provides no easy way for soldiers to pick up
their civilian lives again.
One of the assigned readings is “Betrayal
in the Field” by Helen Benedict that
chronicles the difficulties women soldiers
endure beyond the trauma of war: many are
sexually harassed and even raped by their
fellow soldiers. When they return home
they find little or no help coming to terms
with this devastating trauma. This was
particularly eye-opening to our students,
including our male veterans.
Have we accomplished what we set out
to do when we created War Stories We
know some things for sure. War Stories
created a communal academic environment
where people deeply affected by war
could write the truth, as they know it,
about life-defining experiences they have
participated in or witnessed – with support
and without judgment. War Stories gave
people permission to write, to process their
experience, to gain clarity and perspective –
to take action, rather than to feel helpless
in the face of traumatic events. The Gulf
suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011