Tag Archives: Veterans

Veterans Night of the Arts

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Veterans Night of the Arts

Veterans’ Night of the Arts
Tuesday April 22, 7pm

Sacred Heart University
5151 Park Ave, Fairfield, CT 06825
Schine Auditorium

A FREE EVENING OF
Poetry, Drama and Music Dedicated to Recovery From Mental Illness and Deployment.

Non-perishable food items, household items and donations will be collected for homeless Veterans.

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!

Updates….

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It’s been way too long since we updated the Blog.  For this I’m sorry, the fault rests with me (the founder – Mike Hawley).

We’ve concentrated on Twitter and Facebook over the last two years and it’s been productive.  However, this could be the heart and soul of our community.  Where we share writing, art, etc. 

There have been many changes over the last two years.  I’ll just list the recent ones .

  • We’ve grown in popularity and internet following
  • I’m now a social-work intern, who will concentrate more on our internet presence.
  • We’ve a meetup group (and attend others too)
  • We’ve added a pair of wonderful volunteers (Rachel and Adam).  Without them, the foundation wouldn’t have made it this far. 
  • We’re hosting our first major art show on September 7th
  • And much more….stay tuned for more. 

The next few updates will be about what’s going on with our foundation.  Some will be good/bad/ugly as far as what we’re doing. 

 

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.