I spent this past weekend in Santa Fe with the Vet Art Project, which put on a workshop for veterans and family members.  The workshop’s purpose was two fold.  On Saturday it facilitated telling stories through art and writing, and on Sunday it brought civilian members of the community at large to witness the veterans’ stories.

While I had known that telling our stories is critical to our individual and collective healing, until this weekend my “knowing” was only of my mind, not my heart.  Because this weekend was the first time that I was a part of witnessing veterans speaking their truths.  It is one thing to read a veteran’s story and a whole other experience to be present physically before the veteran as they speak or read their piece.

One of the veterans at the workshop served in Vietnam and spent many years writing his memories, trying to give them form and intelligibility, trying to convey the experiences that created decades of physical and emotional anguish.   About seven years ago, he stopped writing, saying he felt he had to make a choice between continuing therapy and writing, that both created too much pain.

A local radio station program accepted a chapter he submitted, and we sat together as a group to listen as the program aired the veteran’s reading his piece.  This was the first time he had shared his writing.  As he sat amongst us we heard of a jeep ride a superior officer ordered him to take on a road notorious for its mines before the mines sweep had come along to clear the road.  The story’s language, dialogue, descriptions transported all of us to that road some forty-five years ago. By the end, the veteran did not need to explain his PTSD.  That one jeep ride, let alone all the other encounters he had had with terror, would have undone our souls.

When the story was over, he looked at us, we looked at him.  He saw our faces, our eyes, our mouths, our emotions brimming over. And in that moment I believe he knew community and validation.  If only for a fleeting afternoon, he was not alone with his pain.  His words had enabled us to receive it and feel it, renewing our bonds and responsibility to one another.  He told us later this was the safest he had ever felt in a group.

I wish this for every veteran.  We are obligated to be present for every single one of them.

The Multigenerational Ripple of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)