Category Archives: Veterans Art

Art and Veterans do mix.

1000 Words Contest

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1000 Words Contest

We’re accepting submissions!

OUR FIRST CONTEST With a Randomly Drawn Prize of $100 for your writing/art! April 1st – 25th.

The more you submit the more chances you have to win! People who have submitted earlier this year, are retroactively entered.

The VAF is starting a Bringing 1000 Words Project. We want you (veterans and families) to take a picture, artwork, portrait, landscape, etc. that’s yours and write about it.

It can be the story behind your work, poetry, an essay, a speech, one word 1000 times over, what inspires you, anything in that vein. Or even a letter to someone you love/miss. You can write words over your work, as inspiration or just for the heck of it.

We ask that you be a veteran (noncombat included) or a family member. It can be anonymous, or public. Just email us the piece, let us know if you want your name on it.

It’s designed to broaden our understanding of art and motivations, along with self or group healing. It can be happy, sad or anything on spectrum.

We will display some of the work that comes in…

Please share with your friends/family!

The VAF’s second Podcast

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Listen to our second podcast as I interview Matt Mack, a combat veteran from the early days of Iraq.  He was blown up by a suicide bomber in a car and lived to tell the tale.  Hear what it’s like to survive and recover from a bombing.

The Veterans Art Foundation’s First Podcast!

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His Untitled Work

His Untitled Work

Interview With Jay Pizarro:
Listen to him talk about his painting, influences, symbolism, Vietnam and healing. I also had the opportunity to interview him.

Special Thanks to him for his time and openness!  It was great to interview him during a few weeks back. He’ll talk about his war time experiences, coming home and hope.

We Tend Toward The Shadows (But We Long To See The Light)

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We tend towards the shadows

But once we knew the light

We’ve stared into the gallows

While angels hushed “It’ll be alright”

We tend towards the shadows

Because we live in FEAR of light

For when you walk the shadows

The darkness protects from the enemy’s sights

We tend towards the shadows

Because there’d we know we’ll make it through one more night

We tend toward precious shadows

For there we know we’re safe to rest- and to look into the light

We tend towards the shadows

Awake through all of every night

We tend towards the shadows

Because we’ve seen– a time or two,

                              err, many more—

           the spark go out on LIFE.

We tend towards the shadows

Because we bear eternal fright

We tend towards the shadows

Because we’ve given with all our might

We’ve tended towards the shadows

But we long to be seen in the LIGHT.

 

—M.C.M., February 6, 2011; Vicinity 2227 hrs. “Moon in Scorpio” (or not)

****WRITTEN FOR, AND INSPIRED BY MICHAEL HAWLEY, MY WARRIOR-SOUL-BROTHER

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH INSTITUTES, INC.

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71 West 23 Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10010 · 212-845-4400 fax: 917-438-0894

Eloise E. Dunlap, Ph.D. Director, ISPR 212-845-4497   JoAnn Sacks,Ph.D. Executive Director/CEO, NDRI

The Veterans’ Health Study

The Institute for Special Populations Research (ISPR) within the National Development and Research Institutes (NDRI) is conducting a health study with veterans from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) who returned to and have been living in New York City for the past 6-24 months (‘recent veterans’). This study is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the V.A. Office of Research and Development. The goals of the study are to understand the reintegration process and to identify any specific challenges this population may face upon their return.

This study will use a method called respondent driven sampling (RDS) to recruit participants. Our staff must recruit up to 20 ‘recent veterans’ who are well networked to their peers. These will in turn recruit their friends, acquaintances and/or family members to also be part of the study. Our target sample size is 300 recent veterans.

Participating in the Veterans’ Reintegration study will involve taking a 1 1/2 hours survey on demographics, recent military experience, drug use history, HIV risk behavior, mental health history among other themes. All participants must give their informed consent to take the survey. All components of the study will be strictly confidential: no participant names will ever be collected in the survey. All participants will be financially compensated for their time.

National Development and Research Institutes contacts:

Morgan Cooley /Alex Bennett, PhD

Research Assistant/Project Director

646-361-7336 / 412-297-6026 (cell)

cooley@ndri.org / Bennett@ndri.org

My world comes crashing down…

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Before the Veterans Art Foundation was even a concept weaving it’s way inside my brain, I was an infantryman. Some people don’t know what one is. It’s simply a foot soldier, a grunt, the front line troops.

Like everyone who’s deployed, I have war stories. I try not to exaggerate or embellish mine. For instance, I didn’t kill a hundred Iraqis with my bare hands. Maybe one by knocking out his chest tube. It didn’t look like he’d had a chance, anyways.

Truth be told, I never pulled the trigger outside the “wire.” I had made the choice once and was pulling the trigger as my squad leader stopped me from firing on an Iraqi National Guardsman who’d been tucked away in a window, above our heads firing rounds into the field before us.

The real problems I had didn’t start until I touched down with the rest of the first wave home after our 12 month tour was complete. The three weeks that followed were both the best and worst of my life. I’ll never have another time like that. In some ways, I’ll miss it. In others, I’m glad it won’t happen again.

The powers that be had decided to extend my unit, the 172nd SBCT out of Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska. Our unit was to take control of Baghdad for four months. The news spread like wildfire, through the media and eventually down the chain of command.

Soldiers overseas were lined up, ready for their plane roster, in hopes of getting home soon. The CO of the unit ripped the dream to shreds. Panic, anger, and disgust swept through our ranks, at home and abroad.

My own thoughts initially were to stay at home, to ride the surge out. The vast majority of us fought the urge to run, to cower, and to opt out medically.

Coming home from war as a unit is an amazing, unforgettable series of events. Being greeted by family and friends is heartwarming. Unfortunately, most of us had no one there to greet us. We’d been moved north for the remainder of our time in the army.

The only sign welcoming our unit back was taped to a dumpster in a parking lot away from the main roadway. If you strained your eyes, you might catch it. Regardless, our homecoming was bittersweet.

After the news rocked the city, fort, and soldiers (families too) our lives became chaos. We fought white rappers in the streets, drunkenly screamed at military policemen, vandalized, and womanizer. What else could we do but unleash the fear and horror of returning to the unknown of war.

Those weeks, without the fanfare, politicians and anger were the best of my life and I’ll never be able to find that again. Good or bad.

– Mike Hawley, co- founder.

Some wounds can’t be seen.
PTSD can be a death sentence, if untreated.