Writing About War and Peace: Inside a Veterans' Group

Spiral staircase in the Töölö library, Helsinki, Finland, 2005. PHOTO: © REETTA R.

"The end of art is peace," writes Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, in Field Work.

These words were brought to our Veterans' Writing Group by Boston writing teacher Fred Marchant. He traveled across the continent to spend a day with us at a serene, rural location in Northern California, as he has for the last half dozen years. Our group has met for over a dozen years with our teacher, the award-winning novelist Maxine Hong Kingston. One veteran described the bright-eyed, vivid-haired Kingston as "a midwife." She was there at the birth of our group, and has remained at our sides as we have grown. She continues to midwife our story-telling and writing, and edited our new anthology, Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace,.

Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie's words from an essay entitled "The Power of the Pen: Does Writing Change Anything?" had been sent out by Marchant to the veterans to prompt writing on courage: "Tyrants fear the truth of books because it's a truth that's in hock to nobody…."

Our gatherings begin with meditation, followed by a circle where each person checks in, preferably haiku-style, so we can hear all the forty or so changing voices in a brief time.

We began with only military veterans. Then widows, wives, nurses, members of military families, peace veterans, and others joined. We span five wars and include a veteran of the current Iraq War, as well as the last Iraq War.

Can you imagine holding together a diverse group of war and peace veterans, as Kingston has, for over a dozen years? Not easy. Given our differences, we sometimes disagree. But we always get to a peaceful, harmonious place.

"I'm a medic until no one needs a medic, not even me," Jim Janko checks in. "I'm broken-hearted," Ted Sexauer says, staying with the brief check-in form. Later in the afternoon he reads his morning writing, which reveals the heaviness in his heart from the death of a veteran friend, hastened by alcoholism. Sexauer asks for feedback, which produces the most animated time of the afternoon, talking about how to deal with alcoholism among vets and other friends.

"It's an unfamiliar experience for me to be in a room with other vets," a first-timer notes. "I tend to be quiet." I recall my first time in the group, about a decade ago. Groups are not easy for me. Groups of vets are especially not easy - too many memories, especially of the military family in which I was born, raised, and militarized.

"I'm just now starting to smile again," a long-time member of the group reveals. "Bob probably remembers how difficult I was when I first came. I'm a gentler, nicer person now." I can certainly echo that, as I continue my life's work of de-militarizing myself from those first two decades of military training.

Each morning includes a meditation, writing exercise, and writing. Then we share a potluck lunch, which we try to eat in silence. These meals differ from those of my military childhood. Our Veterans' Writing Group began when some of us attended workshops for veterans given by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. He talks and writes about the importance of mindful eating.

During my childhood we also did not talk much at meals. But they were stiff experiences of lifting utensils to a stiff-necked, upright face. I now bow toward my food at times - face to plate, thus balancing those years of rigid eating. I no longer have to say, "Please pass the butter, sir!" And no back-of-the-hand comes across the table at me when I violate military eating etiquette.

Some of us stay in touch between what began as monthly meetings and became quarterly meetings. Even when I am not able to attend a meeting, the fact that it is happening and that I am a part of the group supports me.

Humor, conviviality, and frequent laughter punctuate our gathering. It's a time for memories - not all of them pleasant. Tears flow, especially as we read to each other in the afternoon.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and Poets For Peace

"Does writing change anything?" Marchant posed a question for us to consider in his letter to provoke writing on this Autumn day with change in the air. "Yes," say some. "No, not really," Scott Morrsion reads from novelist Kurt Vonnegut.

I listen carefully, then begin writing. My life was dramatically changed by the delivery of spoken word. I was a young officer in the US Army in Kansas, where I had been trained at Fort Riley, home of the "Big Red One" - the First Division.

My sweet girlfriend - my first real love outside the family - had been working on me. We went to hear some Poets for Peace, including Allen Ginsberg and Robert Bly. Then she invited me to an overnight in Nebraska with other young people. At the time I did not even know who Martin Luther King, Jr. was, the gathering's keynoter.

Hearing King during the mid-60s as the Vietnam War raged, I had what might now be called a "spiritual emergency." Back then we called it a nervous breakdown. I could not continue on the military path. What to do?

I pause from writing and try to stay in present time, even as I recall the past and write about it. I look out the window here in the Redwood Empire and see the tall, perfect trees and lovely garden. I know that we will later go on a walking meditation, in silence, into this abundant nature.

Words matter. Putting words together matters. I resigned my Army officer's commission, much to the disappointment of my military family. I followed Ginsberg to St. Mark's in the Bowery, a Greenwich Village church, Bly to a Minnesota farm, and eventually King to a seminary. Their spoken words, some of which I later read, gave me the courage and support to spend a short time in jail and a long time isolated from my military family.

I can still hear Ginsberg's harmonium droning away, in sharp contrast to the loud military shouts like "Yes sir!" and "About face!" Ginbserg's harmonious sounds and words broke the pattern of the commanding masculine from my father and other military men.

Sound Trauma

My essay in our book is about sound trauma. It is not what I had planned to write or publish. Our editor and publisher made me write and publish it, for which I am most grateful. That is part of what good teachers, editors, and publishers can do, wring the best writing out of their authors, even as they protest. I trusted them.

The personal essay that finally appeared in the book, though hastily written, was the one that friends, colleagues, and editors have been trying to get me to write for decades. It is one thing to tell one's story orally; it is another to submit it to print and thus wider exposure. I had not been ready for that. I still feel vulnerable from my self-disclosure. Perhaps someday I will be able to read out loud from my own essay. But first, I need more meetings of our group to summon up more courage.

The afternoon readings are usually the climax of our day together. A tear may fall, moving like water throughout the entire group, uniting us in a shared feeling. Some feelings are expressed, many are contained and taken to the page.

Our afternoon sessions start with another meditation. This one invites us to listen attentively and without judgment. Kingston encourages us to "listen deeply" and "hear what has been unsaid."

Veterans on Writing

Then people read out loud. "Writing brings me close to my sorrow," writes one vet. "Writing is a monkey on my back," Michael Parmeley offers. "Writing is leaping," another vet adds. "Writing is related to trust and play," poet Sandy Scull contends. "Words serve the soul and enlarge my experience of being alive. Words can be swords without the 's'," Scull continues.  

The walking meditation among the tall trees gives us a chance to digest our morning writing and afternoon reading/listening. For a moment I leave present time and go back some forty years to my basic training. I recall being trained to walk the point and lead an armed platoon into battle, which (fortunately) I never did. But that regimented march fades as this free-form saunter replaces it in my body.

It's kind of a family here, but without military structure. We do have leadership and a mother figure, Maxine, but no single father figure. The energies of various, diverse individuals provide a second level of leadership. I don't know what's next for me in this group, but I'm willing to continue showing up and finding out. We may even have another book in us. I hope that it takes less than another dozen years.

Reading Out Loud

Since we were soon to go into bookstores, schools, community centers, and even bars to read from our book throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, and elsewhere, actor Earll Kingston gave us five minutes of tips about public speaking. They included the following:

• "Light your words, as you would a good painting."
• "Take it off the page. Let them see more than the top of your head."
• "Your listeners wish you well."
• "Breathe. Breathe. Breathe."
• "Slow down!"
• "'Uh' is not a word."
• "Being nervous is OK. Make it work for you."
• "Find the best two or three people in the audience who are really listening and focus on them."
• "The text is your friend."

Earll Kingston concluded his brief, memorable words with the following: "Remember that this whole group is behind you, supporting you."