Blogs & Casual Writing
Commissioned writing, casual writing, and blog posts
The Railway Man
(written for the Elizabeth Dole Foundation blog, May 2017)
Most of the entertainment industry has not yet found an acceptable way to demonstrate the impact of post-9/11 war service on the veteran and his or her family. The movie-going public are still far too interested in films that showcase the conflicts from American’s Global War on Terrorism, both in scripted and biopic fashion. Authenticity in depicting American engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, often depends on adaptations of true accounts, like that of Marcus Luttrell in Lone Survivor or Chris Kyle in American Sniper. Even these stories still play to the audience’s desire to see and feel the suspense, horror, fear, and resilience depicted in combat while diminishing the impact these experiences have on the parents, spouses, or children waiting at home. Likely, film makers have not had their fill of pumping the adrenaline-filled, hero or tragedy stories from our contemporary American war experience, so we are not yet privy to seeing what filmmakers might do if they tried to answer the question, “What happens after?”
In trying to locate a scripted movie (as opposed to a documentary) that wrestles with the visible and invisible wounds of war and their impact on those close to our service members and veterans, I had to turn to a different war and, as it turns out, to a different country. I found the 2014 British-Australian war film, The Railway Man. The Railway Man is based upon the autobiography of Eric Lomax, a British lieutenant who spent time in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp after the fall of Singapore during World War II. After Lomax and his friends are caught building a radio to follow the progression of the war, Lomax is beaten and tortured.
The movie opens in England in 1980, more than three decades after the war has ended. The Eric Lomax we meet, played by Colin Firth, is a little eccentric in his fascination for trains and still connected to his military past by way of frequent visits to the Veterans Club. Shortly into the film, Eric meets Patti (Nicole Kidman) and the two fall in love. On their wedding night, we watch as Eric experiences a flashback, and any person with an understanding of war trauma will recognize it as a sign of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As we follow Eric and Patti into the beginnings of their marriage, we witness Eric’s disengagement, anger, violence, apathy, avoidance, denial, difficulty with confrontation, and restlessness among a host of other manifestations of PTSD. We are also privy to the story of Eric’s torture, learning more about his proclivities as a “railway enthusiast” and about his time in the darkness.
What I like about The Railway Man is that the film does not limit itself to showing us Eric’s journey as he wrestles with his trauma and the feelings and behaviors associated with it. Some attention is also devoted to Patti’s reactions and emotions as she learns more about her husband, his past, and his present. As a military caregiver to a veteran with PTSD, I recognized Patti’s response when Eric shows his resistance to changes she has made. Upon moving in with him, Patti reorganizes and cleans a room. The next morning, she awakens to find Eric reconstituting the mess and coolly tells her, “I decided on reflection I preferred things the way they were.” In Patti’s face, Nicole Kidman successfully captures confusion (why would he prefer this place to look like a total disaster area?), anger (why has he undone everything I have done?), and hurt (does he really even want me here?). And Patti, like so many military family members, says nothing and internalizes her own feelings.
Even for its beauty and pain, the film isn’t flawless. While Eric’s ability to locate the person responsible for his torture makes his story unique, it is that very uniqueness that diminishes the veteran experience. While Eric can directly identify, locate, and face the individual he holds responsible for his traumatic experience, most veterans do not have that option. Their struggles often stem from a variety of war experiences: combat deployments, Military Sexual Trauma, or even other events not related to enemy engagement at all. Likewise, some military spouses or partners may recognize Patti’s early failings as a supportive partner. While her initial desire to “fix” Eric is not entirely misplaced, her use of deception to strategize a way to force Eric’s confrontation with his past is risky and a bit selfish.
In the end, The Railway Man gently reminds us that post-war adjustment does not follow man’s rules of time; PTSD and other impacts from war do not end weeks, or months, or years after service. They require deliberate and careful interventions, patience, and sacrifice. For so many veterans and their families, this is what happens after.
Invisible Does Not Mean In Violation
(written for the Walking with Memphis blog, 2017)
After nearly twenty years in the Marine Corps infantry, my husband Tyron had sustained physical and psychological injuries that he knew would plague him for the remainder of his life. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from three combat tours, a blast-induced Traumatic Brain Injury from a rocket-propelled grenade during enemy engagement in Afghanistan, and a host of physical injuries to his back, leg, shoulder, and knee made him a little worse for the wear. Initially, we didn’t expect any long-term implications of the injuries beyond what we had already grown accustomed to in our years as a couple: muscle and joint pain, erratic sleeping patterns, difficulty multi-tasking, bouts of rage, mood swings, and periods of isolation we would call “sheltering in place.” The effects from his TBI, however, eventually caught up with him, diminishing his cognitive abilities, decision making, impulse control, auditory processing, and short term memory.
During his bad days, Ty also deals with chronic pain in his lower back and sciatic nerve caused by a collapsing nerve column. Every six weeks, he receives a two-set series of spinal injections that (after nearly a year of trying unsuccessful approaches) alleviate much of the pain and inflammation that impair him physically. During the weeks in between shot series, the increase in his pain is evident as are changes to his daily functionality. During those weeks, Ty can’t play with our three year-old son on the floor or bend over to pick up his toys, help me carry groceries, take out the trash, do work around the house, or retrieve pots and pans from the lower cabinets in the kitchen. During those weeks, Ty uses a cane to assist him with getting in and out of bed, in and out of the car, or up and down stairs. On those days, no one throws Ty the side-eye for parking in a handicapped spot when he lumbers out of his truck to go grocery shopping with me. On the bad days, no one stops to crane her neck to verify our license plate says “permanently disabled.”
During the not-as-bad days, when his pain is managed, Tyron fights with his mental health. On those days, he’s trying not to get angry for putting the milk in the pantry or his phone in the refrigerator, trying not to get exasperated for having the same conversation with me three times about our dinner plans or what night I teach late (it’s Monday, babe, it’s Monday). On those days, a trip to the store is often a different experience. On those days, his struggles are internal and invisible to others save for his occasional public displays of road rage (inept drivers are one of his PTSD triggers). On those days, he faces a barrage of public shaming – obvious and subtle – about taking a disabled parking spot. He endures the screwed faces of people who, after looking him up and down to verify he’s “not disabled,” shake their heads and mutter under their breath. He tempers his desire to respond when someone lingers a little too long at the rear of our vehicle to read our license plate. The more brazen folks directly accuse him of “taking spaces away from people who really need them” or – worse – asking him if he’s disabled because they don’t see a hangtag (unnecessary when you have a permanent plate) or because he looks too young to have anything wrong with him. For him, these folks cause more harm than good in just a few moments of passing: shaming him into feeling unworthy as a disabled veteran or angering him with their audacity, lack of sensitivity, and judgment.
The stigma concerning those with invisible injuries – those not immediately or at all evident in the physical appearance of the person – plagues many veterans. For some members of the public, disabled tags or plates no longer grant a veteran the right to park in a disabled parking stall. Instead, he or she must be disabled enough or a certain kind of disabled. I shall henceforth refer to these people as the Defenders, because most of them believe they are defending the rights of the “truly disabled” by admonishing, shaming, embarrassing, or accosting those whom they believe are not worthy of the privilege. The Defenders, deliberately or not, are creating within our society a tiered system for how we comprehend individuals with disabilities, where one person can be more or less disabled than another or where the presence of a disability (those we can see or think we can see) supersedes invisible disabilities. Slight hitch in your gait? You’re good. Wobble in your step? You’re good. Cast, boot, sling, brace, cane, walker, wheelchair, or mobility scooter? Yep – you count. Visibly ailed or infirmed? No judgment here. The Defenders believe they are doing right by helping the state root out those who seek to take advantage of the system and, subsequently, take advantage of the people who “really need it.” If you see something, say something and all that.
Here are just a few other examples of the Defenders’ work.
One story making its way around the internet is from an Army veteran who had a noteworthy experience in Austin, Texas. The veteran, known only by his Reddit.com user ID, Molochwalker28, posted a picture of the note he received on his car along with his response. The Defender in question tells the veteran (paralyzed from the knee down due to combat injuries) that he doesn’t “look handicapped,” an accusation to which the veteran responds: “I would love to hear what your idea of a handicapped person ‘looks’ like.”
We would like to believe that only some Defenders are so unenlightened that they would accuse someone of not “looking” disabled. Wrong. After speaking with some fellow veteran caregivers about their experiences, I heard from Oklahoma caregiver (and a disabled veteran himself), Joseph Kavanagh. Joseph’s wife, Jerrie, is a veteran rated 100% disabled due to Traumatic Brain Injury and breathing difficulties. One day, Joseph arrived to pick Jennie up from the college where she had been taking a class. He parked in a disabled parking stall (valid permit and all) and proceeded to meet his wife when an administrative assistant at the college confronted him. She informed Joseph that the disabled parking spots were for people with “real disabilities” and that he, in fact, did not “look” disabled. Joseph and his wife responded by filing a formal complaint with the college.
And yet, the problem is not contained to the opinions of the general public. Sometimes, even those responsible for enforcing the very laws that protect disabled veterans’ rights to park in disabled parking stalls offer criticism because of the “non-appearance” of a disability. In Florida, Army veteran Isiah James recorded his confrontation with a police officer on his phone, as the officer berated him for using handicapped parking in front of a Walgreen’s. “Does that make you any better than a citizen or an old lady in a wheelchair that really needs the place? I’m just saying, you’re walking,” the police officer says. By their duty to protect citizens and enforce the laws of their respective states, police officers are Defenders. And yet, this particular officer sees fit to assert his individual (and subjective interpretation) of what “counts” as disabled against a veteran who has met the qualifying criteria established by the very state the officer serves.
Seeing is not always believing. When an individual exits a vehicle from a disabled parking spot, we have no idea the individual’s disability, disease, disorder, illness, or injury and, quite frankly, it’s none of our business. The responsibility rests in the state whose procedures determine the distribution of placards and plates. Yes, there are some who take advantage of loopholes in those systems, those who do not have the legal right to occupy disabled parking spaces. However, our best interest does not lie in policing parking spaces or accosting those whose conditions lie beyond a crutch or a cane or a wheelchair. Our best interest resides in challenging ourselves, our friends, neighbors, and community members to look beyond disability as an embodied presence – something that we must see to believe. And at the very least, if you simply cannot agree that those with invisible disabilities or injuries should have the right to disabled parking, then at least recognize that the law disagrees with you.
Learn to be the Tortoise
(written for the Elizabeth Dole Foundation blog, 2017)
You’ve heard the story of the tortoise and the hare, right? The tortoise grows tired of hearing the hare boast about how fast he can run, so he challenges the hare to a race. The hare, overconfident in his abilities to run circles around the tortoise, takes a nap halfway through the race. The tortoise, in spite of his lumbering pace, never relents and wins when the hare wakes up too late to beat him. The lesson here, of course, is that being the quickest at something does not always yield a positive outcome. In fact, sometimes “slow and steady” wins the race.
During the first five years of our marriage, my husband – an enlisted infantry Marine – deployed three times to active combat zones: twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan. His first deployment was the most difficult for me, because the whole experience was new. I could not have known it then, but his first deployment would be the easiest. His enemy engagement was limited, and although he saw some action, he was almost as safe as if he were stationed directly on the FOB (forward operating base). Despite a lower amount of deployment stress, he still came home a little different.
Driving was one of the most noticeable changes. In a combat zone, “dumb drivers” get Marines killed. When he was behind the wheel, he wanted everyone out of his way. I had to stop him, on more than one occasion, from getting out of his truck to confront another driver who failed to maintain the speed limit or didn’t use a blinker to signal an intention to turn. He hated being stuck at red lights, because of the feeling of being “boxed in” with no safe exit strategy. I would watch him as his hands would clench the steering wheel, and his eyes would start their frantic search for where to go “just in case.”
Even his digestion changed. After months of rehydrated MREs, bland foods, and a steady diet of mostly carbohydrates and caffeine (thanks to the abundant supply of Rip It energy drinks), his body had adjusted both in terms of what and how much it could process. My husband knew enough not to gorge on burgers or pizza or beer the second he got back in country. Moving too quickly would produce disastrous results. He needed to retrain his body to accept what he wanted to do to it, and that retraining would take time and patience.
And yet, we didn’t take the same approach to driving. He went straight back to sitting behind the wheel, and the consequences were the same kind of uncontrolled explosion that would have happened if he had rushed his digestive system.
Assisting my husband with his reintegration after each deployment took time, and as his partner and the key person responsible for helping him reintegrate, I had to learn. I had to know that he couldn’t just leap into driving right away. I had to remind him that driving should come in small doses to gauge his reactions to particular situations and that, for at least the first little bit, he shouldn’t drive alone. I had to learn that while a welcome home party might sound like a good idea, being stuck in a small space surrounded by a bunch of people in a loud environment wasn’t good for him. Instead, we warmed up with family dinners, graduated to a small BBQ gathering (outdoor spaces worked better for him), and then we could handle going to or entertaining a larger number of people. If friends or family insisted on welcoming him home, we invited them over individually and on his timetable not theirs. This also required that our friends and family learn about the challenges of reintegration and to respect his needs (and ours) above their own.
As a military family, the most important lesson we have learned about post-deployment reintegration is that, in all things, we must learn to be the tortoise. Daily habits, mindsets, behaviors, communication: these all become ingrained in our service members during their deployments. Over the course of months (in some cases, many months), deployed service members learn to operate within their environments. For those most directly engaged in combat or in life-threatening situations, this learning is especially vital. These habits become the most difficult to modify. The learning that occurs during a deployment can take time, so it should stand to reason that when service members return home from a deployment, some of what they’ve learned isn’t as applicable in civilian contexts. Helping my husband to readjust his habits and responses required us to be the tortoise as much as we wanted to be the hare.