bipolar disorder. Another is a former sniper grappling with his service in Iraq and resulting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Whether members
talk directly about their personal demons and horror stories or paint Normal Rockwellesque portraits with words, all are coping in their own ways, she said. “But there’s nothing there (at the center) that helps veterans any more than their being able to see their own words in print,” she added.
By veteran Stephen Gates.
And Samuel J. Hall will vouch for that. He has written and published through HVWP for several years, turning out at least 100 stories, all of them related to his military service during Vietnam.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“The siege is over, Healing begun.”
Cecile M. Crawford VAMC, Leeds, Mass.
Hall was 17 when he quit school to join the Navy Seebees. Though he later completed high school and went to college, English was never his best subject. He took up the pen – or the computer mouse – after he retired. In the beginning, it would take him all day to produce a single page, he said. “Now I revel in it.” He has also written a book about Vietnam and an autobiography.
“It’s been a big help for me,” he said. He was affl icted with PTSD for 40 years, Hall said, before it had that label. The PTSD doesn’t go away, he added, but “writing helped more than anything.” “I write a lot of bad experiences, but it seems once I write it down, I let it go out of my mind. So it’s on paper and I don’t have to remember it anymore.” ■ MS
To learn more about supporting the Hospitalized Veterans Writing Project and Veterans Voices, go to
www.veteransvoices.org, or call (913) 432-1214.
32 LADIES AUXILIARY VFW MAGAZINE
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