Afghanistan |

Swords to Pencils: Thoughts on the Veteran Experience in Academics

by Daniel Buckman

I saw the young veterans filing into my classroom before they saw me understanding them. They patrolled my school’s Greyhound terminal hallways where I taught English composition among rodents and balled fast food bags, a rundown college in Chicago’s Uptown where pistol fire popped in daylight hours from the three-way gang war over the lucrative narcotics trade in a neighborhood blooming with homeless addicts and halfway houses. The young veterans humped camo assault bags, containing US History texts and biology notes instead of spare MREs, 5.56mm ball ammunition, and Afghan dust. They kept sleeves down over tattoos of battle crosses, globes and anchors, the names of friends killed in Afghanistan. They were young men who had seen enough to lose their smiles forever, and none looked optimistic about doing two years with Purple Kush-reeking classmates who attended my college for the financial aid disbursement checks and the deans and tenured faculty who believed they had more than a full-time city job teaching remedial skills. Being an older grunt, a man who trained and served twenty years prior to these young veterans, I was no stranger to hiding my aversion for the innocence and untested idealism of my civilian peers by looking away and pretending that I saw something in the cinderblock walls except painted cinderblocks. This habit hurt me with civilians, and took time and patience for me to accept, and I wanted to make sure these young men weren’t held back by looking at brick walls like they were staring out windows.

I completed junior college, undergraduate, and graduate study by staring at many walls, drawing my eyes to keep them from rolling, and developing my method of appearing engaged by the surreal students and professors who hadn’t left a classroom since kindergarten. I had my military years away from the conventional experience of attending college after thirteen years of unbroken school time, and unlike my peers, I had discovered that not every problem in the world can be solved by well-intended dialogues. These young men realized, like I did, that being an outspoken veteran wouldn’t work in colleges because the young vets’ presence destroyed the academics’ ideal world and buzz-killed the young people who were sure they could rearrange the social order according to these professed ideals. In less than a month of US History and biology, I saw them mastering the skill of staring at walls like they were windows. I began to round them up.

They were former infantrymen, boy Soldiers and Marines morphed (in less than 90 days) into boy combat veterans who knew these community colleges saw them and their GI Bill as dollar signs, the deans wanted their enrollment but hoped they would keep their mouths shut about the war. Most Chicago academics weren’t comfortable with the progressive president they’d elected to end hostilities in Iraq suddenly surging thousands of our young people into the mountains of Afghanistan to win hearts and minds during an active drone campaign, a presidential war that would fail as badly as Bush’s adventurism in Iraq. They were Latin, African, Bosnian, and Polish Americans, first generation immigrant kids who walked the gauntlet of drugs and gang violence long before joining the First Marine, 82d Airborne, 10^th Mountain, and 101^st Airborne Divisions and deploying to the “shithole,” as they called Afghanistan, during Obama’s 2010 “Surge” into “the right war.” I introduced myself to the guys, self-identified as a Cold War paratrooper, and invited them speak about their military experience, make their arguments that war is the saddest part of the human condition, not a flu to be cured with antibiotics, and nagged them to use this educational time to define what being a veteran means before going into the post-college workplace and stuffing every feeling about Afghanistan to remain employable.

They became my nephews in short time, and they joked that I was really a defense contractor sent to “unfuck” them. We met in empty classrooms, a squad of USA and USMC infantry veterans of the Obama Surge, and drank the ice coffee and ate the cookies that my wife sent from home. I let them rant about getting asked how many people they killed by fellow students, how they could enlist to fight Bush’s war by instructors, and why nobody seemed interested in their specific experiences save for the scripted versions from Hollywood, MSNBC, or Fox News about why America was fighting in Afghanistan. The young veterans laughed, recounting their encounters with the storytelling ability that comes from pulling guard with your buddy during cold nights. We are lost with blood lust, they’d say with the jokey sarcasm of a homesick infantry sergeant to their noisy instructor, or relate to fellow student asking about killing by responding “I got twenty-two kills, but I never notched that knife kill; you know that gets you the Medal of Honor,” or telling a college peer that querying a veteran about killing is like a civilian being asked if their father enjoys having sex with their mother’s best friend.

I knew the guys weren’t liars. They mocked their own hyperbole, but back in Fall 2011, junior colleges were not understanding that veteran students freshly returned from the worst infantry combat since Viet Nam were attending classes in their systems comprised of 80% “come and go” adjuncts. The schools were happy for the GI Bill to come their way–anything for our vets, the college president with a German car told me while she was looking away, as if expecting a question about all the poor kids she helped by giving them the hope of a PhD and political connections so they could drive a foreign luxury car to an urban community college and preside over a four percent graduation rate someday – but nothing was done to build learning communities where a cohort of veteran students took the same classes for a year, helping them transition into academia and graduate, which is a rarity at junior colleges. I asked my tenured department head if we could have veteran organizations speak to faculty about how to teach a two-deployment infantry veterans since the military and the mainstream were more removed from each other than at any time in our nation’s history. She was uncomfortable, stalled, then said something about having to clear it with the dean of instruction, an entity who never seemed too interested in what was being instructed by my fellow adjuncts and myself, and less about insuring these motivated, young veterans succeeded despite culture shock, varying levels of PTS, and a legacy of educational stagnation from the “drop-out factory” Chicago high schools they attended before enlisting. These veterans needed attention and a level playing field, but all my college thought to do was hire a part-time veteran services specialist who was on campus when most of the veterans weren’t. The cultural critics were right. Patriotism (or simply doing the right thing for those who fought in your name) had given way to narcissism in 2011, and nobody felt that more than these young men who’d cheated death and fear for two years in Afghanistan. The selfless person and the narcissist can never speak the same language.

The veterans took this lack of administrative understanding hard, but they took security tailing them around campus with real sadness. They were first semester college students because they believed college was integral to success in America, and they sought a chance to be successful at something beyond surviving the Korengal Valley. The boys were always alone or with their fellow veterans, rarely finding a civilian peer that didn’t treat them as preternatural humans to be feared. Their disconnection from civilians based upon society’s disbelief that these men wanted to fight the war left them stranded in the memories of their old rifle companies and deployments via social media, and they laughed to themselves over private jokes first hatched while patrolling the mountains of Afghanistan with buddies who lived anywhere from Florida to Washington State. The retired cops that my college employed as security guards continued following them for laughing to themselves, and tried their best to give real Soldiers and Marines the classic asshole cop grin that promised violence. The vets countered with the same, loud grin. None of this was helping anything; assuming a veteran is violent because he has done violent things is the quickest way to hurt him.

Haven’t they ever had to laugh to keep from crying? The guys asked me of the faculty and administrators who always had security tailing them. No, I said. Not the way you have. Laughing solo labels you crazy in this world.

I advised the guys to close ranks and we were soon reading Heinemann’s Close Quarters, Jones’ Thin Red Line, and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Some started writing. These old grunt writers, they said, are the only people teaching us anything here. Our informal sessions became the reason they came to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays since they had already figured an underpaid adjunct instructor stressed about personal finances wasn’t worth the GI Bill they survived to not waste and their close friends died hoping to have the same attitude toward the greatest benefit of military service. They avoided well-meaning instructors who gave them articles about veteran suicide in Sociology 101 and wanted to know—before the class—how they felt about the epidemic. The veterans started dropping classes, or stuffing enough into one year for a quick transfer to University of Illinois at Chicago, until the group was only forming to see each other, eat my wife’s cookies, and discuss the greatest American novels about war and return with their new buddies. We are done being taught by movie watchers and news junkies with lots of education, they said. It is a waste of my GI Bill. Does anybody here have a clue about what we just did, and what we want to overcome by seeking an education? I could answer by doing, by keeping them close and together for one year. There was little to say that might not be a lie.

Living With Killing: Lifting the Weight of Moral Injury

by David P. Ervin

In “What’s It Like to Kill Someone?” Travis Switalski delved into the depths of an important question. He answered it adeptly, employing the kind of candidness that makes that conversation enlightening and worthwhile. It’s a dialogue that we are afraid to have with ourselves, much less with the vast majority of the society in which we live. It is a necessary one. And, of course, like any provocative piece of writing, he also raised another important question.

What’s it like to live with killing in war?

We live with it by going through a crucible of sorts, navigating our way through some dark psychological terrain. As Switalski wrote, calculated indoctrination and reflexes enable us to cross the threshold initially. Then the abstract justifies it for a time. For in doing this deed we have followed the rules of war. We have preserved the safety of our fellow soldiers. We’ve fulfilled our duty. Overall, we’ve participated in an act of violence that’s morally sanctioned by the state, something done to advance an endeavor intended to liberate others and protect our country. For a while, those metrics apply – long enough, at least, drive on and finish the mission.

But after a while those aren’t the means by which we measure ourselves and our conduct. We don’t look to them in the middle of the night to comfort ourselves.

In order to kill we tapped into something in ourselves that is frightening and grotesque. When the context of training, duty, and politics is stripped away, we feel we’ve perpetrated something that is terribly wrong. We deprived people of something far more precious than any number of abstract ideals. We deprived them of their life. We know that despite the goal of providing people with freedom we showered them with violence, misery, and bloodshed. It’s enough to shatter our beliefs about the world and our place in it, and it does. Killing can create a phenomenon known as ‘moral injury.’ It’s defined as the psychological impact of transgressing core human values and beliefs.

That is the part we don’t live with. Dealing with a moral injury fosters a plethora of damaging behaviors and beliefs. Overall, we consciously stop believing we deserve life, especially any semblance of a good one. It can be a major catalyst of suicide. Even if not taken to that extreme, it impacts us in more subtle ways. We sabotage relationships and isolate ourselves from the world because we feel our souls are somehow poisoned. We have a peculiar tendency to believe that anything good that happens in our life is a mistake that requires correction. We think any good fortune is an anomaly because the world is an inherently malevolent place. You could say that it darkens our horizons.

But it doesn’t have to.

Someone once told me that, “You should be the best man you can be because that is the most real way that you can provide justice in an unjust world.” Those words have resonated deeply, and I think of them often. There is more truth in that statement than there is in the belief that we don’t deserve to see the brighter side of life. And there is, in fact, a way to cement that more positive mindset.

The real atonement for perpetrating and witnessing such horrors is to transcend them. They can – and probably should – define us for the rest of our lives, but how we shape that definition is up to us. We can regain our belief in the goodness in ourselves and in others by being a good person and serving selflessly. There is a multitude of ways to do so. We can be helpful to our neighbors, generous with our time, and magnanimous in our daily conduct. We can volunteer in the community or simply be a comfort to someone going through rough times. By engaging in the type of altruism that makes the world a better place we can see that it is not all so dark. We can carve out a small place in it that we know is good.

By guiding others to a brighter place we’ve helped create, maybe one day we’ll find ourselves in it. Of course, even if we don’t, we’ll know that in our time we’ve given the world something more than misery and bloodshed. Above all, we’ll know that there’s something good in ourselves to give.

Spotlight: Seth Kastle

by Joseph Stanfill

When news of Why Is Dad So Mad? by Seth Kastle first broke on social media and NBC news I was immediately enamored by the premise. A father of two little girls who is also a combat veteran had written a children’s book. This is no ordinary children’s book, mind you, this is a book which attempts to explain Seth’s post-traumatic stress disorder to his daughters. I turned to my wife after watching the news report on Seth and said, “This is what we need.” In researching the topic of PTSD for the past five years, I had not come across such a basic yet intriguing concept. How could one possibly take something so complex and heartfelt and translate it for an innocent child? How could a combat veteran, a former drill sergeant, and a company first sergeant put things into perspective for children? Dr. Seuss had explained numerous ideas to children through his stories, and Mr. Rodgers educated three generations of Americans on kindness, courtesy, and respect via his television show. Never has an author taken on the task of expressing such an intricate issue as PTSD to children. Until now.

The book expresses the often hard to grasp ins and outs of PTSD, yet delivers it in a way that children can understand. My copy came in the mail just two days after watching the NBC feature. My wife and I read through it, and read it to my three year old son that same night before bed. He had that look of understanding on his face that kids get when they see something clearly for the first time. I knew he didn’t have a full grasp of what was going on with me, but by reading the book with him started a very difficult dialogue to have with a child. Thanks to the book, that dialogue became easier to start

When asked about his inspiration for the book Seth doesn’t mince words.

“Well, personally it’s something that I’m not proud of. It’s the thing I hate about most about myself. So I wanted to be able to explain this to my kids. So there’s this cathartic process of getting this out there and paying things forward. You’ve talked about some of the darker days that you had, you know you had help from people, and I did also. I wish I could say that I’m a self-made man and I did this on my own, but that would be a complete lie. There’s a lot that goes along with this. If I could help others have these conversations, that’s what I would like. Maybe that’s a driving factor. Things like initiating social change is obviously an issue. If you look at the way this book has taken off, I think it speaks to the tremendous need out there. There are so many people, so many families that are impacted by PTSD. Having the ability to make that impact, hopefully helping families have these conversations and helping people understand, is a pretty big driving force for me also. My process for this was, I had had a really bad day at work, and this had been in my head a long time. I came home and sat down at my kitchen table and I wrote this in about twenty minutes. It sat there for a long time. I have a good friend who lit a fire under me to make this happen.”

Writing can be therapeutic for anyone who has suffered a trauma. While not directly dealing with Seth’s diagnosis, the writing and success has been therapeutic for him.

“If anything, I would say the therapeutic part has been the feedback I’ve received from people. It’s been extremely humbling. People are saying things like, ‘This has helped me reconnect with my kids, or ‘It’s made such a difference in my life.’ That piece has been more therapeutic than anything.”

After separating from the military, many veterans still have the drive to serve others in some capacity. As Seth says:

“I know it isn’t going to last forever. I’m trying to do as much as I can right now with the spotlight I seem to have. I was gifted 1,000 copies of the book from Amazon, and I am going to try to send them directly to the OIF/OEF counselors at every major metropolitan VA hospital. This book is geared toward our generation.”

Seth is planning a follow-up book for female veterans. When asked about the inspiration for that project he said:

“Well, I suppose it’s because my wife is a combat veteran also. She has her baggage too. When I had the idea for the first one, I knew I could do a second, that there would be a large need for it. She’s going to coauthor the book with me, and it took a long time to get her to do that. You’ve got to think about how much you are putting yourself out there when you are doing something like this. That was tough. Without question the hardest part of all of this, it’s just like, man I’m putting all of this out there you know. –Seth has PTSD, I mean – that’s hard. My wife isn’t as comfortable with stuff like that, and I finally got her to come around. I related to her that this would mean more to women if it came from a woman. Looking back on my research, there are books out there, but everything is geared toward men. So I realized we have had a decade of war that has been fought in an asymmetrical fashion…There are these blurred lines of women in combat, and there is nothing out there for them.”

Is there any message you want to send to our readers?

“Yeah, I would encourage people to go get help. My health is better because I swallowed my pride and got help. I don’t know where I would be today if I didn’t. Taking the steps to keep my family together was the best decision I ever made. If this is something you might need, get help. I would also encourage veterans to do their homework on burn pit exposure, chemical weapons exposure, and mefloquine toxicity. These are all huge things that are going to have adverse effects on our generation of veterans.”

Not everyone who puts their story down on paper will be able to publish a book. Not everyone who relates their feelings through prose will gain an audience or impact people the way that Seth’s book has done and will continue to do. What you could gain from beginning to express yourself through writing or art is a better understanding of you, and you just might offer a glimpse of the military experience to those who haven’t lived it. That is the beginnings of changing the narrative, and engaging in personal growth from trauma.

Why Is Dad So Mad? can be ordered through Amazon.

As You Were, Vol. 2 Release

MEA is proud to present you with As You Were: The Military Review, Vol. 2. This publication is the culmination of hundreds of hours of work on the part of writers, artists, and our volunteer editors. Its poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and artwork represent nearly every living generation of veterans and individuals whose lives have been impacted by the military. “We hope you’re intrigued, touched, and even moved. Above all, we hope you enjoy.”

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