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EMU Hosts Concern Group for Military Vets

Carolyn Yoder (l.), STAR director, facilitates a small group discussion at the military veterans roundtable.
Photo by Jim Bishop

Ten adults were given clay, blocks and pipe-cleaners. During a March retreat at the Mountain Valley center near Harrisonburg, these ten – including military veterans, pastors, counselors and health practitioners – had to construct models of their working communities.

Matt Huff and Frank Corcoran, who organize groups assisting fellow-veterans, molded isolated bits of clay to stand for ex-soldiers.

Jean Handley – a conflict-resolution team worker from New Orleans via Tennessee – topped her construction with bright blue material, representing her devastated region’s countless tarps.

Veterans' Needs

After the cross that U.S. Navy chaplain Capt. Phillip Cato placed on his model toppled, he left it that way to symbolize churches falling down on veterans' needs.

Bridging diverse perspectives was the aim of the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) roundtable, convened in response to community concerns for veterans and their families. STAR, operated by EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, assists healing work by community leaders and caregivers who are working with communities facing traumatic events. The program is funded in part by humanitarian agency Church World Service.

Kirsten Rothrock, who organized the roundtable and assisted faculty member Jayne Docherty and STAR director Carolyn Yoder, says, "There is a gap that is widening between civilian/peace activists and military. I think that STAR was able to stand in that gap for those two and a half days. Some participants seemed transformed through their interactions with the 'other.'"

'Not touchy-feely stuff'

Docherty, citing research by CJP students, told participants, "Relationship-building is not touchy-feely stuff. It changes structures."

On Sept. 11, 2001, Cato was called back from retirement for his most difficult assignment: notifying victims' families. He now hears from families of troops stationed in Iraq. He and several others who communicate with troops spoke of perfunctory debriefings given to those being discharged. One soldier had glibly relayed advice received as "don’t drive drunk; don’t beat your spouse."

Roundtable participants split into smaller groups to process issues from the larger gathering. CJP professor Jayne Docherty is at right.
Photos by Jim Bishop

"We’ve got a lot of lost kids coming back that don’t know where to turn," said ex-Marine Frank Corcoran, who is launching a Philadelphia chapter of Vets4Vets. For twenty years, Corcoran never spoke of his Vietnam experience, where "The combat stuff was really, really bad." His healing began during the 1991 Iraq war era -- "a turning point for many" – when he found a helpful Veterans Administration counselor and volunteered to carry medical supplies to Vietnam.

Though the U.S. was "passionately split" over Vietnam, Corcoran sees today’s mood more as apathy, while Iraq vets come home to shrinking job markets and ballooning education costs.

'This whole thing is about love'

Marianne Pittman, a Church of the Brethren pastor from Blacksburg, Va., became aware of veterans’ struggles during the Vietnam era when she answered calls on a crisis line. Now working with a veterans’ program, Regroup, she says "This kind of program does not come naturally for a historical peace church." Women sometimes tell her their husbands, as veterans, no longer feel welcome in their churches.

Pittman’s community model featured a sewing repair kit and large heart: "This whole thing is about love."

In New Orleans, Handley’s team, Turning Point Partners, arranged "re-entry circles" to support released prisoners. After Katrina – which virtually destroyed Handley’s home – those caregivers needed support themselves. "We spent a week here working through our trauma," and Turning Point began collaborating with STAR.

Roundtable participants spoke of expanding outreach by word-of-mouth and of helping an entire family through one child. They also discussed poverty, evidenced by homelessness among veterans and "loan shark" businesses clustered near military bases.

Wives are First to Contact

Other issues included race and gender. Huff, of Point Man International Ministries, said veterans’ wives are often first to contact his organization. Often their husbands insist, against evidence, "I’m doing fine."

"Women do it too," added Docherty, child of a military family.

"We’ve got women coming back now that have been killing people," Cato noted, adding he hears from parents worried about what their returning daughters may face.

"STAR was never intended as direct care. Most of you are more on the front lines of caregiving than we are," Docherty advised participants as they brainstormed about working with STAR and each other.

Though specific plans remain pending, Rothrock said CJP will seek funding for similar programs to help community leaders create support networks, train for trauma healing, and "build relationships with people across divides (military versus civilian; in support of US action in Iraq/in opposition to US action in Iraq)."

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Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer from Harrisonburg.

— article by: Chris Edwards; posted April 7, 2006