March 22, 2016 - 12:43
March 22
Family history of military service
Travis Manning Foundation -- engaging survivors in public service to others, to give back in name of deceased family member
"It's all about the stories."
GSSWSR
trauma course
Plan for Talk
1) presentation on cultural competency -- individuals who are military or veteran connected, connected to that culture -- also people exposed to military kinds of operations (beyond people in uniform)
Largest number of children affected are siblings of people serving in the military. Family context for discussion is difficult -- harder to have child serving than to serve yourself.
Important to think broadly
important to be recognized
issue of intrusiveness vs. respect for privacy -- don't go there if you are not ready yourself
Question: what about including on the slides the numbers lost of those we fought?
Faust, The Republic of Suffering.
"total force concept" - all people connected
journalists have died more often than soldiers
"mothers and fathers, husbands and wives" -- also more broadly in terms of gender identity -- cross-cutting identity questions?
Run a drone during the day, read bedtime stories at night! Nature of warfare and experience serving in the military is changing.
Can not know what is going on with near neighbor or colleague -- how to open this out? If we don't ask . . . but how would you ask, in context?
separations from loved ones a key issue
Individuals carrying the heaviest load are a smaller and smaller number -- "special forces" (in which women will now serve)-- they do things in the name of you and I -- their activities are not published, that is likely to continue.
STRESS -- integral to military service
Secondary traumatic stress is a real phenomenon. Exposure to a loved one's suffering is significant. Victims of community violence, individuals struggling with profound illness. Caregivers also stressed.
"vicarious" trauma. Working in the presence of suffering. ie a nurse on a burn unit.
Body handlers -- toughest job -- recover of remains. Somebody does it.
Dover Airforce base -- DNA testing to return bodies/human remains to loved ones -- primarily civilians
Today, our capacity to sustain life means 7 individuals survive for every one who is killed -- injuries are more severe and life changing, including severe brain trauma. Impact on family system.
Question: As an educator, how do we regard our students as individuals AND as family and community members?
'Alive Day Memories" -- HBO series with veterans
Normative assumptions about who will become a caregiver . . . Who cares? Who is expected to care? ie caring for the elderly? The daughter . . .
Costs associated with major disability -- emotional, financial
globalization . . .
How do you bear witness and converse?
Why do people participate in the military given these risks and struggles?
Economic opportunity, benefits of important life experiences, roles and responsibilities (not possible in civilian experience at that age), intense cameraderie/bonding, sense of obligation/civic duty (ie National Guard), humanitarian services (armed forces has capacity to provide emergency relief), Tsunami, Haiti earthquakes, Ebola.
Analogy to becoming a firefighter
Nancy Sherman, BMC alum, new book: After War
"giving testimony" -- trajectory of experience of war.
Wanting to be a listener -- shame, betrayal, guilt, breaking of trust -- moral injuries of war. -- reminds me of fragility of goodness (Martha Nussbaum, which Shay quotes)
Building book from interviews -- book unusual for a philosopher -- a philosophical ethnograpy. Had their permission to use their names. Interviews at hospital, home.
Not listening like a clinician, but an engaged listener.
"What they say shows they are thinking about things." -- why not?? This shows her bias as a philosopher? Bringing sense to something unmanageable.
Father was a vet -- "didn't talk much," stoicism.
Teachers, educators can be informed by these stories, through this "special window."
Feeling "suckered" by WMD's discourse
How to read this talk and the set of issues as performing racialized civil society/white supremacy.
"Went to cover war, war covered me."
Taking moral responsibiity is a way to restore sense of integrity.
Killing and collateral incidents.
cop supposed to bring honor -- didn't.
Not just the tragedy, but accounting for responsibility.
YoImportant to mix with civilians -- one community. important to the civilian students, too.
Book is about breaking down barriers in a country where so few serve -- 1%. Long in a student's life.
Holistic can also mean "breaking down barriers" --
National Writing Project Network -- veterans making their way to higher education.
K-12 teachers have children of service people.
Gulph of understanding between those who know and those who don't know.
You don't know what you have in your classroom until you try to get to know your students.
Material touching on war can connect to many fields.
You should never be pushing vs: being available. Not dig but be present. Be accepting.
Give people a voice to tell their story.
Value of asking -- rather than just "thank you for your service."