February/March 2008

Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Ted Glick

A Better World is Possible
John Cavanaugh & Jerry Manders

Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World
Kim Corbin interviews Bill Plotkin

Relearning What We've Forgotten
Chris Maser

The Welcome Home Project
Jody Woodruff

Diabetes: Inherently Treatable and In Many Cases Preventable
Daniel Smith, MD

Riding the Age Wave
Gaea Yudron

Radient Mind: Intervuew wuth author Peter Fenner
Carrie Grossman

Cosmic Calendar
Salina Rain

BACK TO TOP

The Welcome Home Project

By Jody Woodruff

More than one million veterans have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, shifting the composition of living veterans to a younger population in great need of support and resources. Media attention and a series of reports on Iraq war data have informed the public of the alarmingly high suicide rate among returning veterans as well as an increase in divorce, mental health issues and homelessness. In fact, former servicemen and women are more than twice as likely as the rest of the population to take their own lives. Consequently, new programs are being developed by the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to reach veterans in need. Public organizations and individuals across the country are responding as well. Many critics are saying, “too little, too late.” Others, including some veterans, find hope that issues are finally getting attention. Whatever one’s position, community support is crucial at this time for the efforts that are being put forth now.

Rising to the challenge is an ambitious project underway in southern Oregon inspired by Bill McMillian and Kim Shelton. The Welcome Home Project, as they conceive it, is a community centered program for veterans of foreign wars, in particular Iraq and Afghanistan, and their family members. The event will be five days, the first four to be held at Buckhorn Springs, a rural retreat center near Ashland. Here the focus will be on creating a community of approximately thirty veterans and some family members to encourage expression of their experiences and needs through discussion, story telling, art, writing, meditation and movement. This group will be facilitated by Michael Meade, Vietnam era veteran, noted mythologist, author and story teller, and Peggy Rubin, Director of the Center for Sacred Theater and forty year collaborator with Jean Houston. Experts in the field of combat trauma recovery will also be on staff.

Bill explains that this retreat segment of the program gives veterans who are coming back a chance to be with each other and with people who know them and can understand the experiences they’ve had. It’s an opportunity for them to share their stories and develop a sense of community among themselves with the assistance of Michael Meade and his staff. Although the intent is not therapy as such, the aim is to create a healing experience.

Kim adds that in this beautiful, natural setting the veterans will be creating the kind of ritual that they feel the public needs to participate in to understand what their experience has been. She emphasizes that no veteran from this group will be required to participate in the larger public meeting unless they choose to take part.

The final evening of the project, Memorial Day, 2008, will be a coming together of the veterans and the civilian public in a welcome home ceremony bridging the parallel worlds of veterans and those not familiar with the personal experience of war. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has generously offered the use of the Angus Bowmer Theater for this final event which will include a variety of speakers on war trauma, community resources for returning veterans, along with poetry and theater art. Participants will be veterans as well as persons from the public sector.

Bill comments that an important aspect of the project is to encourage the public to pay attention to what is really going on with the returning veterans so they don’t get the sense that no one cares—unlike the collective response after the Viet Nam war when many veterans were actually met with hostility. As a result, many Viet Nam vets are now coming forth as volunteers to lend their support to recent veterans. Unfortunately, many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans still report a lack of understanding from the public.

The final aim of the program is to start bridging military life and the world of war with civilian life—two groups that often move along on parallel tracks. This includes helping to bring parts of the civilian community together that may be politically diverse. Whether people support the war or oppose it, they can come together with the common purpose of caring for the people returning home. The Welcome Home Project seeks to involve all those politically diverse people who are willing. Kim adds that once the larger society is able to listen and help hold some of the stories of war, it is healthier for everyone—the people going through the trauma as well as the larger community. The final meeting at the Bowmer Theater will provide an opportunity for people who have been in the war to come together and reconnect with the public. This emphasis on public participation differs from most of the retreats for veterans springing up around the country.

Bill McMillian and Kim Shelton are a community-minded couple who collaborate in teaching stress management skills. Individually, Bill is a family therapist and Kim a documentary film maker. The idea for the Welcome Home Project took seed when they read about a coming home event in the San Francisco Bay Area and decided to attend the public segment of that program. Disappointed that public attendance was poor, they talked more extensively with the veterans, helped raise money for specific projects and eventually came to the conclusion that the Ashland/Medford communities could support a welcome home project. The idea later expanded to include the entire Rogue Valley, although facilities in the Ashland area will be utilized this time around. The hope is that this project will turn into an annual event, each year being held in varied locations in the Rogue Valley.

As a therapist, Bill has long wanted to move into working with veterans and is now a member of an organization originating in Portland, Oregon called the Returning Veterans project—a group of therapists who have put together a web site that lists providers offering pro bono services to veterans (www.returningveterans.com). Kim is best known for her award winning documentary, A Great Wonder, which tells the story of lost boys of Sudan. This film has been circulated among film festivals, public schools, universities and peace programs throughout the world. Her interest is in using film to tell stories of how people and communities can be healed. She believes film is a great tool for education and that having a film record of this community project will illustrate for other communities what can be done when people welcome back returning veterans.

Participants for the retreat and the public program are being selected at this time. In speaking with veterans the couple has found that men and women immediately back from the war may not be ready to share their experiences; those who have been home for a few months or those who have participated in groups or therapy are more willing and ready. One family who has signed up consists of a mother, stepfather and son who was severely injured in Iraq. The mother has become an expert on traumatic brain injury. They will participate in the smaller group and the mother will speak at the Bowmer Theater about brain injury and secondary post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Not all participants are expected to be experts, however, and word is being spread now among the veterans’ communities to see who is willing to share their stories and concerns with a public audience.

At present, Bill and Kim are meeting and brainstorming with the business community, artists, therapists and military personnel to raise awareness of the event and to see who might help. Space remains for more veterans and family members at the Buckhorn retreat (all expenses paid for the participants) and volunteers and donations are still needed. There are various ways that the community is responding. The Buckhorn Retreat Center has reduced their regular fee, food will be donated, a bookkeeper has offered services, and a sound technician is on board. Printfast has offered printing discounts, Susan Prufer, owner of A Rug For All Seasons in Medford, is giving a benefit for the project during the month of March, donating a percentage of her proceeds to the project.

Several other tasks remain, however, including airline transportation, transportation for guests, ticket takers, ushers, crowd control, clean up crew for the Bowmer Theater. Bill and Kim, who are investing their own money in this non-profit project, have also received two small grants and some donations. About one half of the $50,000 budget has been raised, but more tax deductible donations of money and volunteer assistance are required.

One community agency supporting the Welcome Home Project is the Department of Veterans Affairs, Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center, in White City. Keith Welsh, a clinical social worker and veteran, has recently been hired to implement a new program mandated from the Central Office in Washington, DC for all Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare facilities which will be providing services and outreach for veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as veterans who have been in any other conflict area.

Keith explains that there is acknowledgement that mistakes were made with the Viet Nam era veterans that they are trying to rectify. In addition, there is recognition that communication between the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs has not been adequate in the past to enable a smooth transition for servicemen and women from the military to civilian life. Consequently, the Office of Seamless Transition has been created where VA personnel are working with the DOD to help those vets who are leaving military service.

Keith is eager to assist with the community Welcome Home Project so that he may better acquaint veterans and the public with the benefits and resources available to them. He explains that there are several reasons such a large number of veterans returning from war often do not understand or use the benefits available to them. One may be past mistakes regarding inadequate communication among government departments, but as a former veteran he understands that in many cases it is the veterans’ natural response to get as far away from the military—and all it represents in their lives—as they can. Unless they are severely injured, there is a tendency to think they won’t need the benefits offered, and they often associate the VA with just another bureaucracy to be avoided. Unfortunately, there is a large population who may not recognize their problems until months later, post traumatic stress syndrome being a typical example. This delay makes it more difficult to connect with the VA unless they understand the resources which are available to them.

Another problem facing Keith and his staff in reaching returning veterans is the transient nature of our society. Many vets in the data base move to a different address or even to another state and become lost to the system. He hopes that participating in the Welcome Home Project will help the public better understand the VA and what it has to offer. He points out that independent providers assessing health care systems across the country find that the VA has one of the most comprehensive systems available with high patient satisfaction. The major problem appears to be getting people connected to the VA so they can receive the benefits which are available.

It should be noted that the VA has been holding welcome home events nationwide and will continue doing so throughout the year. The VA in White City will be holding theirs in the summer of 2008. The focus will be on family participation, with social events for all ages and a one day program of celebration to thank the veterans for their service and to acquaint them with resources provided by the VA and the community. When asked what he thinks returning veterans need the most, Keith replied, “Connection to the community and to the resources available from all sources. Then they can make informed decisions about whether to participate.”

Bill McMillian and Kim Shelton are doing their part to implement this connection. They believe most citizens, given the chance, want to support the returning veterans and receive them back home. The public gathering they plan through the Welcome Home Project allows residents of the Rogue Valley to become compassionate witnesses and to learn more about what they can do to help.

If you feel drawn to participate in this community event, either by attending, donating or volunteering in some capacity, please contact Bill or Kim for more information. (See sidebar on page 16 for names, numbers and resources.)

Jody Woodruff is a retired social worker and educational film writer who now writes freelance from Talent, Oregon.