A trip that is drawing to a close....

So today we went to this small row house on Massachusetts Avenue, home to the D.C. office of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. They are largely an advocacy organization for veterans issues and a large membership organization. The oldest staff member is 34 and so they largely utilize the internet, creating an almost facebook equivalent for veterans to discuss issues that are specific to them and not feel that they will be attacked for what they say.

Then we had some free time before we head out to Walter Reed where we played some Bingo with some guys who were receiving care there and their families, thanks to a contact we made at the alumni reception- Monica Boner. (WONDERFULLLLL)

All throughout this trip, people have been commenting on the way that being around people who serve in the military makes your own life feel so insignificant. The other teams, while they are doing excellent work, probably won’t have this exact feeling in regards to their topic and the people they are serving. You can build beds in South Dakota or pull out invasive species and you can feel like you didn’t make a difference, but here we are engaging and learning with a population so unlike our selves, so vastly committed to something larger than anything we could ever have imagined. But they are there, in the Middle East, watching their friends get blown up, dealing with language barriers, lack of trust sometimes, and a general lack of civilian infrastructure in those areas. When they come back, Tom at the IAVA gave us this quote/thought: That after war, the volume on life has been turned down. How do you find meaning in a life that hardly compares to the danger of war? Waking up and wondering what’s for breakfast hardly compares to waking up and wondering if your going to die that day. Every single person on this trip I think feels almost completely insignificant.

At Walter Reed, just standing around and watching everyone come in with their families, it was so interesting and eye opening the kind of reactions these service men/women can have when they feel safe and comfortable. Almost immediately after we got there and sat down, we all noticed a guy who had had one leg amputated and had a prosthetic sitting not to far away who seemed to be maybe his mom and two brothers. As another man with a prosthetic leg walked past his table, the first guy sitting down called out “Haha, loser! You only have one leg!” Seeing this kind of joking taking place, while it made us glad to know that they still had that sense of humor in them despite what some would call an extremely grim situation, I reflected on it later. If even one of these guys were at a Maryland soccer game, what would happen? Maybe I’m thinking less of what other students would say and more of how the veterans would feel. Just, whether or not they would feel insecure about sticking out, or what that even feels like, or what men with prosthetic legs think that everyone else thinks about them.

It’s touching to hear ‘thank you’ so many times. I don’t think I’ve ever been told ‘thank you’ this many times in such a short time span. Mainly they come when we interact with the veterans or active military members, but in most cases they generally come from older men who have served in previous wars. One of my participants was telling me that tonight at Walter Reed she was talking to someone who was running the Bingo program who also happened to be a Vietnam vet. He was amazed at what we were doing, amazed that these COLLEGE students took the time out to care, since back during the Vietnam War a college campus was the last place you wanted to be.


I think a lot of people see us as ambassadors, as a new group of people who are showing that our generation truly cares, that this go-around, things will be different.

In planning this trip, and carrying out this trip, we have noticed (and been explicitly told) that there is not much military-civilian interdependence or communication. We can’t volunteer certain places for lack of a security clearance, or just the general lack of understanding we’re seeing exists between the two groups. We all felt kind of bad at Walter Reed, we didn’t want any one to feel as though they were being stared at or put on display, but I think that without a growth of communication between the two groups, to some extent it will always be like that, which is unfortunate, but when you physically need different accommodations than other people, its hard to pretend like you don’t stick out, unless you are somewhere where it really is that common place.

I also wanted to touch on the Alumni Reception again, and say that even though it was mainly getting the word out about the program, having so many people there that truly seemed interested in what we were doing and what we had to say, really conveyed to the students that what we are doing, it really is important. We have shown that we care so much I think throughout this trip, but I don’t think our students had really understood the impact and what even just our interest has meant to all of the people we have met.


The last thing I want to say, (and I hope its ok if I do since it was semi-stalking on my part to see this) is tell you a little bit about our reflection tonight, that hopefully can sum up some of the general changes in ourselves from this trip. A few nights ago, we asked everyone to write down what they thought of, when they thought of what veterans are. Most people wrote a list of a few words, or just a general definition like someone who has served in the military, whatever- preconceived, maybe stereotypical notions. Tonight we asked them to do the same thing- write down what they thought veterans 'were'. I was sitting behind one of the participants, and as the conversation at the end of the reflection came to a close, I saw what he had written for that question. Of all the characteristics, of all the people, the data, the stereotypes, the uniforms, what have you, of all of the things they could have written down for “Now, after having been on this trip, what ‘is’ a veteran?”, they simply wrote diagonally across the space in all capital letters ‘HUMAN’.


-Sophie Tullier