The Things They Carried....The Things They Cannot Say

I am a 100% volunteer for The Fight Continues.   So, somehow I have to pay my bills...that would be as a public education high school teacher.   People ask what I teach and I respond "life" or "reality 101."   Usually, their response is "No, really what do you teach?"  Then I go into the fact that I have been teaching Special Education for the past 22 years.  I have taught in both rural and suburban public schools.  I have taught students that have been identified as having an educational disability ... everything from down's syndrome, mentally handicapped, behavior disordered / emotional disturbance, specific learning disability, other health impaired, autism, and traumatic brain injury.   But teaching teenagers is really not as cut and dry as giving them an educational identification.   They are curious about all the things that adults are.   They love a good story ... whether you are telling them the story or they are reading it.  

I have been prepping my students to read The Things That They Carried by Tim O'Brien.  I have been using supplemental materials from our Global War on Terrorism Veterans and from Kevin Sites' book The Things They Cannot Say.  I have pulled all sorts of resources from the Internet from other teachers that have taught The Things That They Carried and have found that the teachers are overwhelmingly focusing on the tangible things that the soldiers carried.  While yes, these have a huge importance, I am taking a different slant and asking my students to identify the not so tangible things that the soldiers are carrying with them.   I am teaching them terms that they do not know or understand, like PTSD and TBI.  I have showed them the video of LCpl James Sperry on the Kevin Sites YouTube channel being readied for transport after his injury in the streets of Fallujah (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7hzC1vEBxU).  I have TPCASTT with them the poetic poem written by Eric Calley (http://the-fight-continues.com/?s=hell+between+the+ears).   TPCASTT?  It is an acronym for "Title, Paraphrase, Connotation, Shift, Title, Theme."   Where the person reading the poem actually predicts what it is about or means and then breaking it down as they read through it.  I then had them read the chapter from Kevin's book titled "Dogs of War."  The chapter is about a young man, Specialist Joe Caley, that is drafted into the Vietnam War.  He doesn't fit into the Army's MOS system and found himself working as a point scout with the 25th Infantry Division's Platoon Scout Dogs.  The chapter is part about the relationship between Spc. Caley and his dog, Baron, and then part about the things that he carries with him.   Spc. Caley carries with him memories ... memories of killing.

If you are a teacher, please feel free to utilize the above and what I will be posting in regards to the lessons we will be learning as we read "The Things They Carried."

Solitude...There in lies the Problem...

I am a fan of a number of the positive forces on Facebook (Positively Positive, Dave's Words of Wisdom, etc...) and this came across my news feed today.  I have been on Spring Break all last week and this week.  Being a single mom, that means that the noise in my house was with his father and I was surrounded by silence.  At first, it was cathartic.  I was able to just breathe in the silence and to exhale.   That was the first full day but then the next night, when I laid down to go to bed, my mind would not shut down.   I picked up Kevin Sites book, The Things They Cannot Say, and started to read. 
I read this quote and found myself thinking about this past week of "solitude."  The ability to be in solitude, to be in the silence...is something that I take for granted.   In my solitude and silence, I am haunted by decisions that I have made in my life.   But as a I really start to think about this, it isn't about me at all as to why this quote stuck out to me.   It was all the things that I have read in Kevin's book, the student veteran that I was told about that for the third semester in a row within the first three weeks just stopped coming to classes, listening to Julie Vinnedge (Gold Star Mother of LCpl Phillip Vinnedge) tell me about how she was notified of her son's death in Afghanistan and then hearing her tell the story of the 1951 pickup that would become Fallen Hero's Dream Ride.   It was being with LCpl James Sperry at a small community college finding out what their challenges were, visiting with a PTSD/TBI Army OEF veteran and his family that had been home for a week and listening to their challenges, and hearing him speak for the first time about what had brought him to this point in his life and the inception of The Fight Continues.  At some point, all of these individuals had retreated into solitude, their own solitude.  It was a veteran that retreated from the pressures of the civilian world by no longer going to class.   It was a Gold Star Mother that stood in front of approximately 150 people, asking them to please not forget her son and the reason that he served, that they had served.   Her solitude lays within her memories of her son and the life that they breathe into a 1951 pickup truck.  It was a man wearing sunglasses standing in front of that same audience telling of the death of one of his best friends in Iraq and how he acquired that friend's rosary.  His solitude lays within himself and his personal quest.  Kevin Sites writes "Despite his embittered state, his feelings of being damaged, worthless and guilty for just being alive, he is still able to reach out to me" (121).  And I was able to see what Kevin saw; "I see the warrior still, a man whose humanity abides" (121). 
But there was the young Marine at the Veterans Appreciation Dinner that was standing and looking at the Fallen Hero's Dream Ride.  Know no strangers, I approached a young man that was looking at the truck.   I asked if this was the first time that he had seen the truck in person and he nodded.  I continued to talk about the truck and the story and the healing that it has had with so many of us that have gravitated to it.  He told me that his injury had occurred about the same time frame as LCpl Vinnedge's death.  I invited him to sit at my table with James, two friends from the Mid Rivers Vietnam Veterans Association Chapter, and a World War 2 veteran (wearing his purple heart) and his wife.  I watched this young man, this young Marine, as Julie spoke and as James spoke.  I saw this young warrior go into his own personal solitude.  In this solitude, in this silence, what truth was heard?  what solutions where found?  What I saw was a young man, that when the Star Spangled Banner was sung stood like a Marine (once a Marine, always a Marine).  What I saw was a young man with a cautious smile and eyes that were like pools of blue water without the glimmer.   What I saw was a young man, a young warrior, within a solitude ... a silence that those of us that have never walked in their shoes can ever understand.
It is a solitude, a silence, that so many of our Global War on Terrorism active duty and veterans carry with them.   That solitude, that silence, are their wounds.   The wounds that society, as a whole, doesn't see, doesn't understand, cannot comprehend.   The wounds of the warrior that volunteered to uphold the foundation of our nation.  As a society, we must respect the cause of the solitude but at the same time, we need to educate ourselves, our society about the RED FLAG that the solitude is.   We are allowing a generation of men and women to slip away from us.   

Inspiration

I am a firm believer that we get our inspiration from some of the most unlikely places and people.   I have had the opportunity over the past 8 years to work with an amazing group of veterans from The Mid Rivers Vietnam Veterans Association in St. Charles, Missouri and to be nominated twice by the Wentzville VFW Post 5327 as their Citizen Teacher of the Year.   I am humbled by their support and dedication to not just me, but to this next generation of veterans from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.   I have come to them in need of support for young veterans needing assistance with financial burdens and they have come through for me without question.   They have shown that a generation that was scorned and riddiculed because of their service to our nation (whether they had a choice or not isn't even an issue) in an unpopular war/conflict, are this generation's greatest untapped advocates and resources to fight the battle on the home-front.  The singer, Alicia Moore (Aka P!nk) recorded a song titled "I Have Seen the Rain."   It is a song, written by her father about being a Vietnam Veteran.   Listen to the words carefully...I Have Seen The Rain...  The men and women of these two organizations noted above, know who they are, and for me, they are truly my heroes for walking the path of not letting what happened to their generation, happen to any other generation again.  

MURPH: The Protector

On Friday, March 22nd, the feature length documentary of Lt. Michael Murphy will be released exclusively showing in select Regal Cinemas.   This is the story of the the man that led Operation Redwing, the same operation that Marcus Luttrell writes about in his book Lone Survivor. 

Website for MURPH: The Protector: http://www.murphmovie.com/ 

Click on the tab of showtimes and there is a list of Regal Cinemas across the country that are showing the film.

I will be at the Regal Cinema at The Mills Mall in St. Louis,Missouri on Friday March 22nd.   If you are interested in attending the film with me as part of The Fight Continues, email me at christa.fightcontinues@gmail.com for the time I will be there.

Thank You for checking us out...We are currently under construction....

Please take time to look at our organization's website at 
http://www.the-fight-continues.org  
and also on Facebook

For local information on Facebook, look for The Fight Continues - Christa

Why the Adult Content Warning?  We plan to provide as much information as we find and due to the nature of the material, some may find that the images, comments, etc are graphic in nature.  Consider yourself educated.