how to help veterans

Continuing Actions Epilogue and Conclusion

EPILOGUE THOSE WHO’VE FOUGHT in Iraq and Afghanistan have an historic opportunity to redefine the veteran’s experience for future generations of American warriors. How? By approaching the challenges of coming home as integral components of the warrior’s journey, not as aberrations that only affect the weak. America’s relationship with her veterans has matured to a point where invisible wounds are socially understood to be unavoidable consequences of sending troops to war. It is time we, as veterans, do the same. The reality of combat has changed each and every one of us in fundamental ways. If we take the opportunity [...]

Continuing Actions Chapter 11

AS UNSELFISH AS IT GETS “Cover me, I’m fucked!” “Fuck you—I’m covered!” —Conversation between two grunts at Thermopylae, Fallujah, and every battle in-between IT DOESN’T MATTER if you’re a grunt, an admin clerk, motor transport, or a high-speed, low-drag recon guy, there’s somebody in your unit who’s a selfish prick. This guy—or gal—always makes sure they’re taken care of first. Their pay is never screwed up, their vehicle always has the chow and water in it, their shelter is always the first one up and comfortable, and they never lift a finger to help anybody else. Selfishness, as much as we [...]

Continuing Actions Chapter 10

"DOC!" BY THIS POINT IN MY JOURNEY, I figured I had it all under control. My self-aid consisted of spearfishing and free-diving to quiet the physical aftereffects of combat and writing to understand the emotional ones. I had developed my self-awareness to the point where I was able to understand the genesis of my emotions and reactions significantly better than before. I felt I had successfully moved past my combat experiences and had really, finally, come home. But I hadn’t. Unresolved aspects of my combat experiences lingered deep beneath my well-adjusted exterior. I’d handled the physical and emotional issues pretty [...]

Continuing Actions Chapter 9

LOOK AT IT "By itself, reconstructing the trauma does not address the social or relational dimension of the traumatic experience. It is a necessary part of the recovery process, but it is not sufficient." —Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery, p.183 I HAD A GOOD FRIEND in college who loved to get hammered and expose himself in public. More than once I lost track of him while stumbling home from the bars only to find him standing proudly in the middle of the street, pants around his ankles, shouting “LOOOOOK AT IT!” to anyone within earshot. This is only tangentially connected [...]

Continuing Actions Chapter 8

KUM BAY YAH, ANYONE? "In the second stage of recovery, the survivor tells the story of the trauma. She tells it completely, in depth and in detail. This work of reconstruction actually transforms the traumatic memory, so that it can be integrated into the survivor’s life story." —Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery, p.175 TO UNDERSTAND THE EMOTIONAL effects of your experiences, you must tell your own true narrative. Don’t get freaked out—this isn’t some New-Age, self-help catch phrase, and it isn’t going to require joining a drum circle. Your own true narrative is simply your story—what you saw, did, didn’t [...]

Continuing Actions Chapter 7

EMOTIONS, SHIT. "Narrative can transform involuntary reexperiencing of traumatic events into memory of the events, thereby reestablishing authority over memory.Forgetting combat trauma is not a legitimate goal of treatment." —Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam, p.192 IF YOU HAVE ESTABLISHED your own safety and sobriety, either through self-, buddy- or corpsman-aid, then you are ready to move forward. The next challenge you must overcome is figuring out how to reestablish authority over your own memory because, even if you don’t remember these experiences, you can’t forget them. Great, that’s super helpful. So how the hell are we supposed to go about making [...]

Continuing Actions Chapter 6

GETTING PHYSICAL AT THIS POINT I have to assume two things: First, that what I’ve explained about the warrior’s journey, and how we’re only prepared for some of it, makes sense to you and, second, that you’re getting tired of background information. That information was critical to set the stage for the rest of the book—but I agree. It’s time to start hammering out the details. From here on out, the focus will be on the specifics. We will separate the challenges into their components, understand the support that is available to overcome them, and develop a plan to move [...]

Continuing Actions Chapter 5

THE VALUE OF MYTH "Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed. The living images become only remote facts of a distant time or sky. Furthermore, it is never difficult to demon- strate that as science and history mythology is absurd. When a civilization begins to interpret its mythology this way, the life goes out of it, temples become museums, and the link between the two perspectives is dissolved. . . . To bring the images back to life, one has to seek, not interesting applications to modern affairs, but illuminating hints from [...]

Continuing Actions Chapter 4

SOCIETY'S ROLE ". . . I cannot escape the suspicion that what we do as mental health professionals is not as good as the healing that in other cultures has been rooted in the native soil of the returning soldier’s community." —Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam, p.194 SOME SOCIETIES THROUGHOUT history had specific ways of helping their warriors heal the inner chasms created by combat trauma. They had rites of passage, rituals, and meaningful ceremonies designed to welcome the returning warrior, cleanse him of the caustic emotions of battle, and reassure him of his honored position within society. In his book, [...]

Continuing Actions Chapter 3

THE MYTHIC POWER OF WAR "War is a mythic arena. In its noise and grandiosity, its manipulation of the forces of life and death, and its irrevocable shaping of history and destiny, war transforms the mundane into the epic and legendary." —Edward Tick, War and the Soul, p.25 WAR HAS BEEN HELD as a rite of passage for thousands of years. Traditionally, it was the crucible boys had to survive in order to become men. Even now, many veterans consider it the dividing line between their own adolescence and adulthood. But even if we value the experiences of war in this [...]

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