AUDIO TRANSCRIPT: Veterans use writing to confront lasting memories of service:
Natural Sound – Western talking: Let’s get some flares. A plane comes over and drops some basketball flares.
Davison: For Marine veteran Don Western… flashbacks from the Vietnam War strike without warning… leaving him wondering why.
SOT – Western: No idea. Some neurons freak out and start kicking around. A bunch of electrons pump it out.
Davison: These memories surface suddenly and unpredictably — sometimes in peaceful moments.
Earlier this month, Western wrote about a flashback that hit while he was spending a summer day by the water with his wife and granddaughter.
His piece was later published on Syracuse.com.
Western’s writing: And here it is, that risen up memory. I am in the present time and place but a m of sensations skitters across my skin… I am both within and beside myself, occupying past and current time.
SOT – Western: There are various degrees. That one on a summer day was pretty extensive. Some are less. I’ve driven in the Adirondacks years ago, and there’s just… there’s a fourth thing that triggered. I said, ‘Well, I’m in the Adirondacks. Why the heck does this trigger?’ But it does. It was just something that interests me — could these things that come up, could I put them down on paper in some way?
Gerken reading poem: You are the first female West Point cadet to die in Iraq, and I am sorry as a writer, I did not write against the war.
Davison: That same question… what to do with painful memories… led former Army officer Tim Gerken to start writing as well.
For him, it began after a string of devastating losses in his unit.
SOT – Tim Gerken: I had seven suicides in that 10-month period. And there hadn’t been a suicide in the basin in three years… That stuff just blew me away and started messing with my head. And I didn’t know what else to do, so I started writing.
Davison: For both veterans, writing became a place to put the experiences that never truly go away.
SOT – Western: A set of experiences that have a searing quality to them — and they’re in you, forever.
Davison: Matthew Davison, NCC News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – Many veterans carry memories that never fully fade. Sudden flashbacks can strike without warning and in the most ordinary moments.
At Syracuse University, two veterans are using writing to cope with those experiences through the Syracuse Veterans’ Writing Group.
The group is open to all veterans and their supporters. Its focus is on nonfiction accounts and true stories about life in and out of the military.
Army veteran Don Western says the flashbacks come unexpectedly and can surface anywhere. Western recently wrote about one that hit on a summer day while he was with his wife and granddaughter. The piece was published on Syracuse.com.
In his writing he describes the collision of past and present.
“And here it is, that risen-up memory. I am in the present time and place but a frisson of sensations skitters across my skin,” he wrote. “I am both within and beside myself, occupying past and current time.”
Western says some memories are brief and others more intense. He recalls the flashback on that summer day was one of the more powerful ones.
Even an ordinary landscape can trigger something, he said. Years ago while driving in the Adirondacks the sight of a forest suddenly brought a memory rushing back.
“Could these things that come up… could I put them down on paper in some way?” he said.
The same impulse to make sense of painful memories led former Army officer Tim Gerken to start writing as well. Gerken, now a writing professor at Syracuse University, works with veterans in the Writing Our Lives Veterans program.
“I had seven suicides in that 10-month period. And there had not been a suicide in the basin in three years,” Gerken said, recalling his time as an officer. “That stuff just blew me away and started messing with my head. And I did not know what else to do, so I started writing.”
Western describes the moments from combat as “a set of experiences that have a searing quality to them… and they are in you, forever.”
For both veterans writing offers a place to put memories that never fully disappear.