For much of our history as Americans, the men and women who defend our country have only had their stories told in a general way, often directly connected to the battlefields upon which they were trained for service. Seldom have we heard their voices reveal the "emotions, behaviors, sleep, dreams and mood" that comes with being a soldier. Brothers & Sisters Like These: An Anthology of Writings by Veterans collects 77 remarkable accounts of lives lived in a way that everyone can feel.
The work of these 36 writers demonstrates a different kind of bravery, one not always associated with warriors, but as we see in these pages, indispensable to their ability as a human beings to cope with the extraordinary events they have witnessed. Their work gives us, the protected, new insights on what it means to be a protector, a duty that continues long after their enlistment ended.
This is a story about stories ... a prelude to the deeply felt expressions in the pages that follow.
Writing programs for veterans have existed since the Second World War to help veterans make sense of their military experience and honor the voices inside needing to be heard.
Quoting Ron Capps of the Veterans Writing Project, "Not everyone is a story teller, but everyone has a story to tell." He reminds us that for veterans with PTSD, "either you control the memory or the memory controls you."
The stories you're about to read had a long journey before they landed in this book, and I want you to know how they arrived here, because that journey matters.
Imagine a meeting room (at a church, a library, a hospital basement, a VFW post), with several conference-room tables arranged in a square with folding chairs pulled up around the outside edge. Wary folks file in and take a seat, darting glances at each other. Some know the jungles of Vietnam or the Ben Wah valley, others know Kandahar or the sandstorms of Iraq; some know the raw power of the high seas, others know the tense precision of landing helicopters while under enemy fire. They're unsure of what they're doing in that meeting room, some of them questioning whether they should have come to this veterans' writing class at all. Many of these veterans haven't gathered with other veterans since their days of service; most have never done any writing. In fact, most have never told their stories before - not to their wives, their children, their parents, siblings or friends. They've kept those memories shut away because they were told to do so, or because they thought no one was interested, or because they had tried at some point in time to speak up . . . and all they got was a blank stare, a puzzled look or a look of mild disdain. Some have crossed paths with a few veterans over the years, and stories might have been swapped. But nothing like this writing group.
