 to use our next session. Good morning. Good morning. Good, you can do it twice. When the National Theater Project was first piloted in 2010, one of the very first projects supported was reentry by American Records KJ Sanchez and Emily Ackerman. Its focus on the marine experience and the goals of reaching a community that was perceived then as practically impossible were instrumental in awarding the grant. It was the beginning of NTP's focus on reaching those communities who aren't the stereotypical theater audience. It certainly changed the expectations of what was possible. KJ's vision of an alpha, beta, and Charlie version for touring caught the interest of the advisors and was instrumental in ultimately awarding it a grant. In the seven years since the project received support, it has toured to universities and regional theaters. It's toured to military bases here at home and in Germany and Italy. It has had full performances. That would be the alpha version. It has had music stand stage readings in military chapels, and that would be the Charlie version. I've seen both alpha and beta versions and sat in discussions afterwards. And for me, the most remarkable thing were the comments and the feelings expressed by the children of actively serving military. Although that is followed closely by the moment when we were in Baltimore and someone mistook me for KJ's mother. We're still laughing about that one. Reentry continues to have life and impact. It received an NTP transition grant to support touring a naval version of the show instead of a marine version. Because we do know there are significant differences between the communities. And KJ sends her best wishes. She's really sorry she can't be here with us today. But this is near and dear to her heart as a member of a marine family. Today we're going to hear excerpts, facilitated by Barton Pitchford and performed by Kedda Carpenter and Andrew Carlson. And like the sharing yesterday, there will be discussion after, so thank you. Reentry was commissioned by Two Rivers Theater. But it was John Jory that gave KJ the idea in 2008. He knew that KJ had five brothers who had served in the military during the Vietnam War. KJ asked Emily Ackerman, who had two brothers serving in the marines, both of whom had deployed to Iraq, to co-write the script. They had a few basic rules. No politics, this wasn't about the why of war. Two, nothing is fiction. The characters in the dialogue come directly from transcripts of interviews. No characters are amalgamations, and only approximately 2% of the dialogue was changed to protect anonymity and or for clarification. They traveled across the country, spent time at a few bases. At first, they interviewed service members and veterans of all conflicts. But after spending time at Camp Pendleton, decided to focus on marines serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom and serving in Operation Enduring Freedom. The decision was to go deeper with fewer characters. Excerpt one. When I first got back, they sent me to this boxing match, Don King, you know? And everyone cheered when they introduced me. A lot of people come up to me and say, thank you for your service. I had a lot of really nice things done for me, but like very public, you know? And I used to be a little bit embarrassed, thinking the only reason you're doing this is because I got wounded, and me getting wounded doesn't make you a hero, you know? It's the one gunfight I lost. Getting shot doesn't make me anything. They mean so well. I know they mean so well. It's very genuine, I'm sure. The problem's all mine, the way I'm taking it. I know it's just, I think that... Now there's what I know and what I think. And I'll try to stick to what I know and stay away from what I think. And what I know is that no one's gonna tell you the truth. They're never gonna tell you the way things really are over there. They're only gonna exhibit chest thumping and we were in the shit drunk in bar talk. I was right there. We were leading the invasion. And what I read in these books is utter nonsense. And it's always, out of all the books that are picked, that are made into movies, it's always those kind. For instance, Generation Kill. Jarhead, which was not endorsed by the military, by the way. When I was in Fallujah, this is 7th, April 2004. When I came to in the hospital, I didn't know which way it was up. But all of us on the ward, we did what we usually do. We formed ourselves into a unit. We got up out of our beds and we would meet our little makeshift unit and we did something they don't do now. We talked about it. How'd you get hit? And we'd laugh about it. We'd tease each other about being stupid enough to get hit. Man, they tease me mercilessly. You can imagine getting shot in the head with an RPG. You know what I mean when I say RPG? Yeah, a rocket propeller grenade exploded on my head. I was perfect fodder for their teasing. They do, they tease each other all the time. Sure, I laugh about it too. I mean, I never want to laugh. What I really want to do is cry, especially seeing all those boys, all those boys when Pete was in the hospital. But no, I never did. I never cried. Well, getting through that time, all of my strength, believe it or not, came from belonging to something bigger than yourself. I don't know if it sounds cliche, but when you're a Gunny's wife and there are so many other wives looking up to you, you have to be strong. You have to be a model for the others. He wasn't going to show how hard this was. So I wasn't going to show it. And when Pete first got back, your family, your friends, they're always around and they never let you be alone. Halfway through the interview process, K.J. and Emily decided to include Emily's family in the play. Her brothers and mother gave them permission to use their story. And since they have different last names than Emily, K.J. and Emily were able to change identifying details to protect their anonymity. Exert two. Which one? John or Charlie? Yeah, both of my brothers have been. Yeah, both are Marines. I know. You should see the looks like it when my liberal New York artist friends I have say that I have two brothers that are Marines. I usually don't tell people. I remember some women, the wife of a guy I was working with, the subject of war came up and I said I had two brothers in and she gives me this look and then was like, oh, you know, all knowing or something. And then she asked me where I was from. People always ask me that when they find out where I'm from. Like it's going to hold the key to why in God's name anybody would join the military. We're from right near Portland, Oregon. And then they go, oh, like that means something. I don't know what that's supposed to mean. Like Portland is some conservative military hotbed or something. Portland is known for like pro military attitude. It doesn't make sense. Portland's known for like roses and rain. Oh, hey though. When you interview John and Charlie, don't go drinking with them. They will fuck you up. Wait, what is this about? You want to know what it's like to come home? You want the good side or the dark side? Well, when you come back, they tell us the usual fucking stuff. Like don't drink and drive. Don't kill your neighborhood. What? When you, you're gonna have to form that into a question. I mean, or maybe you did and I just wasn't paying attention. What did I miss the most? Uh, vagina. Everything, be more specific. Being able to take a shit and no one comes in. Comfort? Basically anything you do for fun, I missed. Why did I join? I don't know. I wanted some life experience and not to mention we were at war and a bunch of my friends were doing it too. And it was, you know, like reading a paper. I mean the thing, I mean what happened was like, oh, so many people were killed and da da da da da da. And a lot of people were like, oh my God, that's so sad, blah, blah, blah. And it pissed me off. Like I got really mad about it. And you kind of, I don't know. If you get the chance to do something and then no. No people, like peers of yours that have done it and returned, you know? So it was, I mean, that's kind of how it came about. Why is being a Marine awesome? Because we get to blow stuff up and break stuff and then build shit and save people's lives and girls like to sleep with us. John went in first. And I remember at the time, I remember thinking when he went in, oh, this is a mistake. Why would anyone ever want to do that? Because I still, I mean, I had no concept of what it was like to be a military family because it's this huge other thing. And I was really pissed off just from the, I'm in college, I'm very liberal, military is bad and sort of way. And so John was enlisted for four years and then he got out and he worked as a mortician. I know, and then he finished college and he went back in as an officer. My younger brother, Charlie, he enlisted like two years ago. And I was totally pissed when Charlie went in because there's a war. I mean, come on, you're going to join during a war on purpose? I never felt like I fit in on the outside and that's why I went back in and became an officer. After I got out of the Marine Corps when I was in the first time, I worked for a funeral home. People are fucking stupid. That's why I couldn't handle it. It's not the death, that's no big deal. That shit never bothered me, never did. It's the worthless trash you have to deal with. Grandpa died and the whole family is screaming at each other. He only died a few days ago but grandma's already shacking up with somebody else. His worthless kids are fighting over money and the grandkids just want a nice funeral for him. I remember this one time a fireman died and there was like a huge fucking parade for him as it was right after 9-11 but the thing is he didn't die fighting a fire or rescuing anybody, he died on his goddamn day off crashing a snowmobile into a tree. And I have to go to a parade a mile long because everyone has a heart on for firemen but then like an hour or so later I have to go pick up a dead four-year-old and no one's throwing a parade for him. So like, what the fuck? John's making me read this book. It's called Gates of Fire. He's like, here's a book, I love it, you need to read it. And you know what, this is the only job where not only do I get to just be myself but actually me being me gets the job done better. There is no other job that I could do. And so I'm reading it or I'm trying to read it. It's really hard to get through. It's total gore porn, super bloody and violent. I think he read it in candidate school. Anyway, it's about the Battle of Thermopylae, the 300 Spartan warriors that held off the Persian Empire. Yeah, yeah, the 300. Don't tell John that you learned about Thermopylae from that movie because he gets really pissed off. He's all like, we've been fighting wars for 5,000 years. Nobody knows anything about it until they go see some fucking movie. Has anybody ever read a goddamn history book? John, not his real name of course, had returned from his second deployment and Charlie was recently back from his first deployment. He was home recovering from an IED explosion. He and two other Marines were on patrol when they were hit by two IEDs. Charlie's sergeant was blinded by the explosion and his best friend died in Charlie's arms. Charlie returned with some damage to his eye and shrapnel in his skin, shrapnel from his best friend's body parts. Obviously this was not happening to everyone in the Marine Corps, but it was happening to Emily's family. The challenge for KJ and Emily became how to be honest about what is happening so close to home and how to balance other voices so as not to suggest that everyone responds to being downrange or injured the same way. Case in point, Pete and Maria. I go into hospitals a lot. I go in and I visit these guys and I speak to them and I'll tell you what, what they're doing to these kids is all wrong. They're trying to transition these guys into civilian life and I don't know why they're trying to do that. Take these kids and get them back to their units. If they could just get back to their units, there'd be a lot less of the- They take all of their will and their strength away. I mean, that's all connected to being a Marine. When you're wounded, the thing you have to turn to is your strength of character and all of that is derived from being a Marine. In my case, it was. I just went through this thing on transition. Transition of what? Why would you make yourself a civilian? We didn't train you wrong. We didn't put those core values in you because they only work on the battlefield. There are too many victims in that hospital and too many flakes on that staff. Bethesda's ridiculous. It's all about everything but fixing these guys. There's a slew of entertainers coming in, offering them tickets, baseball tickets, concert tickets. Plasma TV. It's just turning into something I don't like. I hear the briefs. I tell these guys, you should feel bad. This is not normal what you've been through. Actually, it is normal. It's very normal. This is what we expected. This is what we trained for. You stood up and you fought for something you believe in. That's very normal for a man. Don't treat these guys like it's taboo. Why should it be treated like I'm damaged? Look, if you wanna hear some story about how I jump at loud noises, have a drinking problem or yell at my kids and all that, you're talking of a wrong guy. I'm sorry to tell you and maybe the therapists and social workers don't wanna believe this but I sleep very soundly at night. No flashbacks, no begging God for forgiveness, none of that. I have three combat deployments under my belt. I have killed hundreds of enemy combatants and I didn't do that by pushing a button and then watching them die on the screen. I saw and brought my fear of destruction and death. Were there bad days? Did non-combatants die? Yes, that's what happens in war and to think otherwise it's just plain naive. That's the reality. Do I wish those things didn't happen? Of course I do. But do I torture myself? Do I feel guilty? No. I trained to be a warrior. I trained to fight. I wanted to fight. I did my job and I came home and if I could fire my rifle, I'd go right back. Excuse me first thing. It's the hallway behind the hostess. There's two steps down. When I talk to a civilian they always ask me what it's like to be married to someone in the Marine Corps and I just laugh because I'm not married to a Marine. We are a Marine family and I chose this life but here's something, I lied to you when I said that I never cried. That's not really true, I do. It's the secret that all Marine wives keep. I go to the bathroom and I let it all out and then I fix my makeup and I come back out again. Strong Gunny's wife. A sixth character who threads through the play is the CEO, the commanding officer. This is an individual that KJ and Emily met at a Marine parent conference. The CEO gave special presentations to parents of Marines so that they can understand what their children are going through. Hey, no this is good, this is good. We can talk right here. Yeah, it's nice and quiet and I'm not a fan of big bars so yeah, this is perfect. I do these lectures, well, because I think people need to know the whole piece of it but I want them to know that there's actual thought, there's rigor, intellectual rigor that goes into this. It's not just Hollywood chest thumping follow me but we are very, very methodical. We're very emotionally disciplined and guys pride on that poise. When I do these conferences, when I talk to these parents, you see their level of commitment and when you see the hope in their eyes, when you talk about what you're doing with their sons and daughters and really that's when you feel the weight. Have you heard the phrase throwing in your ticket? It's from Gates of Fire. Well, I love that book, I tell you. I was born 2,500 years too late, yes. I know, I know they all died in battle but you know what? Those who weren't there, they're dead too. We're all gonna die, it's just a matter of when and why and if it counts for anything. But anyway, the Spartan warriors had a very important ritual as they prepared for battle. Each warrior would take a big twig and on the end of each twig he would carve his name and then he'd snap the twig in two and on one end he tied a string on his wrist and the other, called a ticket, it throw into the basket. By throwing your ticket, you were ritualizing your willingness to die that day. Then after the battle, one by one, each warrior went back into the basket and reclaimed their ticket. And of course it was by those tickets that were unclaimed that we were able to account for the dead but you know the act of pulling your ticket out of the basket was also a ritual. It was an act of regaining one's humanity. And in the book, these warriors who had shown no sign of injury or fatigue up to this point, now upon retrieval of their ticket, suddenly became overcome with fatigue. And it was only then that their knees would buckle and their limbs would shake. I'm not suggesting that I would rather have died in the battle by the way. When you get back, it's weird. A lot of people will come up right up to you and just say thank you. Yeah, people just come up and say thank you or I'm glad you're home or you're not going back again, are you? I wish we were a country at war and not just the military at war but I do think you see the gratitude and I appreciate that. I was in a ball game and there was a moment of silence for the guys who've died. Everyone stands up and there's this one guy who didn't take his hat off and like a dozen people around him were like, hey, take off your hat until he finally did. I think people are expressing their gratitude in the way they know how. I don't know. When people thank you, it's like they feel like they've done their job. They're like, thank you. And I'm like, don't thank me, do something. I mean, I know the legend of troops getting spit on when they came back from Vietnam and it is a radically different environment today. I guess I would rather be thanked than spit on. That's nicer. How do I really feel when people say thank you? What I wanna say is you don't even fucking know but you're welcome. Thank you for what? You're forgetting blown up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or for doing what you wouldn't go and do, whatever, just buy me a beer and we'll call it even. No, I don't mind it when people thank me. There's a lot of things that piss me off but I like it when people say thank you because they are thanking the uniform. They're not thanking me and they should thank the uniform. I guess one of the reasons I get so uncomfortable when people thank me is that I guess I feel guilty. I didn't see the worst and I feel guilty about that. The only stuff I had to deal with was, well, I had to identify an officer who shot himself in the head in a porta potty. Yeah, so then I had a stalker, a stalker, someone who would just come into my tent at night and steal my underwear. And my tent, I mean, it was a little pup tent, you know? And one night I wake up and I see this hand sticking into my tent and I jump up and I run out of the tent and I have my weapon out but he has a weapon too because we all have weapons. And it's dark and I just see this figure and he dropped something. I thought it was a grenade. It was my bra. I think we all come back to the same amount of post-traumatic stress. You can't not. I have all the usual things, can't sit with my back to the door. And we go into a restaurant and my wife, she teases me, okay honey, which way are the terrorists coming in? I remember sitting, well, catching myself sitting at a stop sign back home in between deployments. And I don't know how long I was there. I don't know how long I was at that stop sign, you know? White knuckle, playing this one fight over and over again and not the way it went, the way I wanted it to go, the way it should have gone. Yeah, when you get back, you always get the talk. You get your temper's under control and you're given a form to fill out and everyone lies on that form. Of course they do. They ask, what did you see? And you give them the bare minimum. And they ask, did it affect you? And you say, no, absolutely not. Because if I did say anything, it would be the end of my career at this level. No, you lie through your teeth. If I had seen a therapist, I would not be here right now. And I know that. Now I never raised a hand to my wife, never raised my voice. I was full of self-loathing and when the insomnia really kicked in. But I took care of myself. I'm very disciplined about my vitamin A, ambient. Oh yeah. Time for bed, I take my ambient and I put myself to sleep. I will be at a table with all Marines, guys at a bar. And people will go up and buy every single one of them a shot. Thank you for your service. Let me buy you a shot, but not me. Because people just don't even stop to think that I could be a Marine too. And I don't know if that's because I look like a girl when I'm out, but it cracks me up. Cause you know, it's just not logical to think that a girl could be a Marine as well. I'm a captain. My first tour, I was a convoy commander. I was responsible for the lives of every single individual in my entire company. And that was probably one of the best things that I will ever do in my life. Yeah, I found myself in combat situations. And you know what, I performed very well. Yeah, so at the bar, you know, the first time it happened that someone didn't buy me a shot too, I was like, okay. But now I'm like, excuse me, you missed one. Man, one of the first things I saw when I came back was this Shakira video. Man, I fell in love with her. That video is so hot. I mean, look, oh God, she's just really hot. We hadn't been around to many girls, right? Oh, it was nice. It was nice. She's really, really hot. Here, watch it. And I was like, oh man, oh, it was so nice to see an American girl. Oh, hey, she's not American. But you know, it was really nice to see. It was really nice to see a white girl. I mean, look, I was just really glad to be home, okay? When John got back from Iraq, he was really happy. Oh my God, when he first came back from Iraq, he was the happiest I have ever seen him. He was like calling me. He was like, I love you. How are you? I'm so proud of you. And I commented on it. I said, Jesus Christ, you're the happiest I've ever, what's going on? He was like, I'm so fucking happy, I'm not dead. And I'm so happy that I'm in a place in my life where me, being me, makes me good at my job. I feel great. And that lasted for a while. Yeah, when I got back, I found out my fucking girlfriend had been cheating on me the whole time. At least we weren't married. A buddy of mine, his wife, spent all his combat pay and was fucking some other dude. You know, but that shit happens all the time, fucking bitches. When Charlie got back, he was, well, he looked fine, but he was jumpy and kind of weird and dark and very easily pissed off. Except when he's on his motorcycle, which I hate, but when he's on his motorcycle, he's completely happy. But you know, he's still very sweet and kind of the same guy, really, the same Charlie, but just a little more on edge. My medals? Yeah, I'll amount them, I guess. But I haven't even brought Dress Blues yet, so I don't have anywhere to put them. I've thought about getting a purple heart license plate thing. Sometimes it gets you out of tickets, you know? I don't know, I might. Yeah, there's an announcement. There's a certificate that they read out loud. No, well, nobody wants to get it. I mean, it's the one medal you don't actually want to get. So getting it, the whole thing's not like something you feel good about. How do they deprogram you from being all tensed out? Is that what you're really asking me? Okay, well, they pretty much, they tend to do that, but the classes are really like it's, but you can't deprogram that, you know? You can't just, like they say this shit, they tell us, they're like, when you go home, don't get mad at your wife and your kids and beat them because they're all being stupid and you're irritated. Oh man, when I first got home, the skateboarders, those stupid little faggies, skaters, shit heads wearing girls pants, not that fags are bad, it's just the way I talk, but have you seen these kids with these fucking pants? They were probably like maybe 13 or 14 and they were like skateboarding in a brand new development that was just built and they were basically trying to grind on the curb, which was freshly painted, like a brand new like thing and I asked them, I go like, what are you doing? And they're like, yeah, well, like we heard this is a good place to skate. Don't have road rage, don't fucking, don't go drive real fast on your motorcycle, blah, blah, blah, I mean, that's the shit they really say. Don't, don't, fuck, don't fucking, I don't know, some kind of crazy shit. You live here? No, what the fuck are you doing? We're skating, dude, we heard it was a good place. It's not, so you don't live here and you're here fucking up my brand new freshly painted sidewalk, you pay for that shit? No, get the fuck out. Dude, you don't have to like swear at us. You don't have to do anything, but like leave, right fucking now. You know, just like a punk kid who doesn't like do anything. Don't go fucking drink excessively for days and days and days on end. I mean, that kind of thing. And then they say like, okay, okay, if you need help and you know it, then go ahead and talk to someone. So that's all they do, but there's not really a lot they can do. And the kid is like, oh yeah, dude, like whatever. And I'm like, don't come back. If you come back, you see that cliff over there? I'm gonna launch you, I will stop your heart, son. You know, they're, I mean, if you're really fucked up and they know it, they'll get you a counselor, you know, or whatever. I mean, they'll keep an eye on you, so to say, but you can't. I mean, it's not like a switch you can turn, you know, flip on, flip off. I mean, just by talking to somebody. It was really like, I mean, it was kind of intense, man. I went from like zero to fucking homicidal in about three seconds. Which is why it takes time, everyone. I mean, which is why everyone responds to it. I mean, coming home, you know. Either similar or different, depending on, you know, certain things. So what can you actually do to support the troops? Quit bitching. I like the, like the flag waving that happens for about a month and then nothing. If I don't get my $3 Starbucks and get to work on time and pay less than whatever for a gallon of gas, then I'm gonna bitch and moan and cry. Everybody is so fucking spoiled. I think the majority of Americans are a bunch of whining pussies. People watch too much fucking TV, like ridiculous amounts. Like, do I even care who's on Dancing with the Stars? I didn't even know that was a fucking show. People are like, uh-huh, Dancing with the, and I'm like, are you fucking retarded? What did you have for dinner yesterday? A Big Mac, go fuck yourself. So when that kid is like grinding on my sidewalk, he's like, dude, it's not cool. It's easier for me to like, watch him over a fucking cliff and even worry about it. He is worthless at that point to me. And when you've pulled out Marines who just got their legs blown off out of the shit and he's only like a few years older than that douche with his skateboard that's never gonna do anything with his life, it kind of makes you not give a fuck about hurting that retard's feelings. Yeah, my sister doesn't like some of the shit that I say. Well, I mean, they're thinking of sending me back and I'm like, if I fucking go back, shit's gonna be different. Like, I'm gonna fucking kill some people. I don't care. I'm not gonna be doing this shit the same way I was before. I mean, cause there's people that need to be shot and there's all these rules and shit and stuff that we can't do. So if I go back over there and I get to fucking shoot and blow up, I'm gonna fucking kill somebody. I'm gonna get the job done. Elizabeth doesn't like it when I say stuff like that. And going fast on my motorcycle, she says I'm like living like I'm already dead or whatever. I need to get a weapon. I would feel much better. Like, seriously, if I had a gun, I would feel really better. Like, I would be able to protect myself or something if something happened, you know? Everything you people get excited about, he's fucking pointless. Like fucking recycling. Go anywhere else on earth and there's just so much shit burning in the streets. There's so much crabs like burning everywhere. You look at like an old car burning in the streets and the smoke it generates and you're like, yeah, I'm so glad I recycled that motherfucking milk bottle. You know, it's pointless. If you're so bored with yourself that you can get excited about recycling, then you need to get a hobby. One person recycling some fucking soda cans makes about as much sense as a tyrannosaurus rex trying to take a shit on a napkin so as not to make a mess. What should we do? You want my honest opinion? Everyone that is pissing us off, we should nuke the shit out of them and turn their country into glass and then build it in our own fashion. You know, right now, I'm just happy that I'm not being shot at, but at the same time, I'm kind of upset that I don't have anyone to shoot. It's like, yeah, I do wish I had a relationship, a girlfriend, I do, but how do we marry these two extremes? Like back in the day, all women wanted to be with a gladiator, right? Well, try to take a gladiator to goddamn dinner. But for the most part, it's like, you're training in a certain way to do certain things and then you're just supposed to turn that off and go back into society with the rest of you pussies? Have you seen their tattoos? I have some of them on my phone. Here, let me show you. This is John's. It's a morning band. He said it hurt like hell to get it. And here, these are Charlie's. This is on one arm and this is on the other. It says, brothers in arms never forgotten. A few weeks ago, Charlie had a flashback. It started with him not feeling right. He said that he just wasn't feeling like himself. He was angry and he couldn't control his emotions and he did go to someone in his command. I don't know who, probably like a lower ranking guy and the guy was like, suck it up, you're a marine. And I'm sure Charlie was like, it's not a big deal. I lived, I'm making that up but I feel like that's probably what happened. And he was out in the field. He was just incapacitated. He was in the middle of the flashback and he couldn't get himself out of it so they took him out and they took him to medical. However it was, whatever douche told him to suck it up, it makes me furious. All of this tough guy, PTSD is for pussies. I know, I know it's not all like that. A lot of them do take it very seriously. Charlie's commanding officer did pull him out and he's getting help, but Jesus. Charlie wouldn't even go to the doctor after the IED when his eye was all fucked up. He was having problems with his vision but he wouldn't go. Probably because he was comparing what happened to him to what happened to his family or his friends and he probably felt like a wuss saying anything about himself. The very same week that Charlie gets taken out of the field, John fell apart. He was home alone and he said he'd been drinking by himself and he drinks, he drinks a lot. And he was sitting out on his balcony and he realized how exposed he was out there, you know, all the positions where a sniper could be. And he's sitting on his balcony in San Diego, California and he's looking around for snipers and he became absolutely convinced that someone was gonna come in his house and kill him. So he got his guns out. He had a shotgun pointed at the door. I mean, thank God his roommate didn't come home but he knew that he was losing it. He knew it wasn't real, but it seemed and felt so real that he knew the only way to stop it was to kill himself. So John texted Charlie, I'm having a really hard time. Can you come over? And when Charlie got there, John was really drunk and he had all of his guns out and he was talking about how he was gonna blow his head off and how life wasn't worth living. So Charlie stayed with him until John felt, you know, fell asleep and whatnot because he was drunk finally and then Charlie called my mom and told her what was going on and then we were there the next morning. And when I first saw John, when I first got there, he was like a zombie. I didn't say anything to her. I just said, I'm here and he said, thank you. There's no way that I can be his psychiatrist and I can't patronize him or tell him that everything's gonna be fine and to get over it. I gotta tell you, that weekend we were more terrified for John's life than any of the other times that he was ever deployed. When they're deployed, you try not to think about it, but you do. I mean, you prepare yourself for the possibility that they could get hurt, that they could die. But you know, if they get hurt or whatever over there, well, at least it's the bad guy's fault. But if something happens here, whose fault is that? I don't know what to do. I mean, really, what am I supposed to do? That excerpt is from about two thirds into the play. It ends with Charlie and John in recovery and preparing to deploy again. The ending is left rather ambiguous without any big statements about war or any conclusions about our main characters. But rather, everyone is getting ready for the next one, as the CEO says. When KJ interviewed the CEO in 2009 and since the publication of this play, the real person has given KJ and Emily permission to say his real name, Colonel Brian McCoy. You will have seen Colonel McCoy's work. He was the commander who organized the pulling down of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad, that very iconic moment. Colonel McCoy was interviewed on CNN soon after and said, we're celebrating in the end zone too soon. And the next one, if we're in this war for 50 years, then someone's gotta get ready for the next one. At that time, this seemed impossible to KJ, being in a war for 50 years. Two River Theater produced the world premiere. And after that, it went to New York for an off-Broadway run, the Baltimore Center stage. It continued to have a life at theaters across the country. But it had another life altogether. During the New York run, William Nash, who had been a captain in the Navy, and now a psychiatrist running the Navy Marine Corps Combat Operations Stress Control, invited KJ and her company to present re-entry at a conference of military leaders. After the presentation, the first person to speak with KJ was General T.S. Jones, who said, we can use this play to talk about the issues we're facing. That led to several tours. Our NIFA funding allowed us to design and build three separate touring shows, and Alpha, which would go into theaters and tech in two days. A Bravo, which involved two computers ready to plug in and play and could be done in any room that had a PowerPoint capability and took half an hour to tech. And a Charlie, which was simply five actors, a narrator, and three stools, which we took to bases as well as VA hospitals. With each, American Records worked directly with command and the play was required attendance for troops returning from deployment. They didn't know they were seeing a play. All they knew was that they were being ordered to attend post-deployment resiliency training. American Records has done over 50 performances on base and hospitals, including Camp Pendleton, Camp Lejeune, and Paris Island Recruit Depot. When base presentations first began, American Records was simply presenting the play. But an important lesson was learned the hard way at Paris Island Recruit Depot. Many of the drill instructors had served multiple combat deployments, and all DI's were ordered to attend the re-entry performance. It was later reported that a DI left the performance rather triggered by the material and wreaked havoc on his recruits that afternoon. Now, DI's usually wreaked havoc on recruits, but this DI was upset enough to be noted. So that evening, a new system was developed that American Records then used at all post-deployment bases. KJ introduces the play, always says, we are not suggesting with this material that this is everyone's experience. This is just reflective of those we interviewed. She lets them know that chaplains and mental health workers are standing near each exit and invites participants that if they need to are welcome to step out at any time and chat with someone. After the presentation, a commanding officer gets up and shares their personal response to the play to lead by example. That's followed by a town hall type discussion in which KJ asked, based on your experiences, were there characters you identified with? And if I were to rewrite re-entry part two, based on your experiences, what else should go into the play? Last, command, chaplaincy, or mental health leads the group in breakout sessions to talk further. KJ also let the audiences know that she and the actors will be around after the group discussions if they want to talk to them in private. This usually leads to many very private and intimate personal chats. KJ was commissioned to adapt the play to Army experiences and re-entry then toward Army bases in Germany and Italy. Two years ago, the Navy commissioned KJ to develop an adaptation focused on issues facing sailors. Here's an excerpt from the Navy script which has been performed at Navy bases in California and Virginia. When someone says, thank you for your service, I say thank you and move on. The way people respond is personal. Everyone is different. But the way I look at it, I don't know who it is who's saying thank you. They might be a combat veteran themselves or they may have lost a child. All I know is that they're thankful. I'm a seabee. My first deployment, well, two things about that first deployment. No, no, no, strike that, three things. One, as a female in a predominantly male career field, you have to overcome a lot of stigma. They think you're there for a Friday night date or to get married, that you're lazy, that you need to be coddled. One time, I'm carrying AM2 matting. This is very heavy metal panel stuff used for rapid runway repair. And I'm carrying it with another person. And everyone's expecting me to drop it. But it was the guy. He dropped his end. Oh yeah, he got ribbed big time. Meanwhile, I had bruises up and down the backs of my legs, but it was worth it. The second time, second thing about my first deployment, I grew up in a tiny town in Minnesota and I basically never had been anywhere. So then you're thrust into this culture with people you barely know it takes a while to find your way. Then third thing, coming back from my deployment when you're single, you don't have a husband or a wife for that support and my family wasn't military so they couldn't really understand what I was doing or what I went through. That's pretty isolating. One guy in my unit though, he was from Africa, like Africa, Africa. And his family is still there. So he had no one, zero there for him when he got back. Luckily we had an ombudsman who was very much in there, making sure he wasn't too isolated. When you first get off the ship, you have to kind of reintegrate yourself into the world. You have to get adjusted to the fact that not everything is painted gray. Not everyone wears the same clothes. There are colors like red, green and blue that exist. So you kind of have to readjust your mind to being in the real world, like don't go to the mall at first or don't go to Bush Gardens or Disney World the day after you get back. You'll have just an awful time. And my son, I didn't know him until I got back. He was born in February and we went pretty much straight out to sea. If we weren't at sea, we were working 13 hours a day, so it didn't matter. So I never knew him. I would get pictures almost every day. The iPhone really helps out. And if she's gonna change her hair, that's what she's gonna do. I mean, military spouses have to be independent. She pretty much runs the whole house, pays the bills, handles the money. I don't really have a hand in it. She goes, Tony, this is how much you can spend this month. And I go, okay, sounds good. And that's pretty much it. The first deployment, my wife, she was an hour late when I was getting home. And I didn't know where I lived. Well, at least I know I can sleep on the ship. But it was like, if she doesn't come and get me, there's no going home. Cause we're in Japan, we didn't have a place to live. I kissed her goodbye in the Navy Lodge at 5.30 this morning, in the morning, and then I get on the ship and I'm gone. And in the meantime, she buys a car, she gets an apartment in Japan, she purchases like $6,000 worth of furniture. And I'm like, whose furniture is that? And she's like, ah, that's ours. When I was on cow pens, we were in Japan for like 25 months. On the enterprise, I was away for 27 months. And that doesn't include all the field exercises and first year of military, she and I were geobacheloring. She was in one place, I was in another. My first year in the military, I saw her maybe four weeks out of it. That's why I chuckle at the people in Hollywood who are like, well, it's irreconcilable differences. He lives in New York and I live in LA and it was too hard to make it work. You're making millions fly across the country for a weekend, you know? I don't get that luxury. For us, I'd love to tell you that I've done it all right at every step of the way I did it, but then I'd be lying and I'd have to go to confession. I write letters, like honest to God, break out a piece of paper, pen, and put it down and mail it. Last deployment was an eight month deployment. I took a stack of cards with me, an anniversary card, a birthday card. We left in March, her birthdays in September. I tried to plan it out. And I knew how long it would take for the snail mail to get there. So I'd have to back it up like three weeks to a month. I'd number them, because you never knew when a letter was gonna get there or where. I also try to send care packages home, put in whatever the heck I can find. Shirts from the ship store, gave my son an enterprise hat. Denise said my son wore it every day for the first week. She wasn't even sure he took it off when he took a shower. We were all sitting around one night just having some wine and telling stories about our husbands and the reactions that they'd have when they got home. And this was a really close knit group of wives. And we'd been through a couple of deployments and some babies being born and things like that, so we could really open up. But I told them very jokingly how the first deployment, I have very cold feet when I sleep. Honestly, like ice cubes. And my husbands are warm and very soft. So I wedged my toes in between his calves because he's like a giant hot water bottle. And he freaked. He'd only been back maybe a week, first deployment. Cause my toes are so cold that they woke him up out of a dead sleep and someone was touching him as well. So he throws the covers up and he comes right up, like ready for action, ready for an attacker. Totally, and I'm like, and this group's like, ah, that's happened to me. And this one girl, you could see she was relieved that she wasn't the only one who had a story like that. And some other things happened and I was like, screw this, we need someone to come in and talk to us about PTSD. The signs and the symptoms and what really goes on in the brain and the chemicals of why PTSD happens. Maybe someone from Fleet and Family or Focus or the clinic, whatever, the point is that everybody had a story to tell and everybody else was like, yep. I realized how these stories were so common but the wives weren't even telling them amongst themselves because we don't want the other wives to think he's crazy. Even though we know we're all in the same boat. Something that most civilians don't know is that sailors serve on a lot of disaster relief deployments. With combat it can be very intense for like 20 minutes or two hours and then eight months of boredom. On disaster relief, it's very stressful most of the time. I mean, you're doing things from picking up body parts, going to a blown up plane and picking up bodies or going to a flood zone and recovering people's lives and personal possessions. Knowing that that person's life is never going to be the same and those images, they don't go away. The first week back from a disaster relief deployment, you have to adjust to the fact that you're in a different world. You're in a world where if gas prices go up 10 cents, things are really bad. Not a world where people can't get water unless they walk 10 miles. I think it's natural to feel guilty and grateful at the same time. Some of the more difficult ones are when you go to a disaster site and you're not allowed to help as much as you can. And so what you've got to understand when you're young and when you're new is that you're not the one making the decisions. There's a lot of political choices you can't control. It's following orders and doing the best that you can. You know, a lot of expeditionary soldiers were deployed helping other people on the planet while their own families were suffering during Katrina. So the absolute paradox and the absolute irony of being out there and handing out food to people that are having a hard time in life and knowing that your family may be in trouble, I mean, it's just something that takes a very long time to get over. And coming home, it takes a while. It's not uncommon to come back and look at everyone as though they have an agenda because when you see the worst in people, butchering women and children because they don't worship the right God or they wanted to go to school, sometimes you just project that onto humanity itself. So that's part of it. Learning to trust society again after seeing the worst of the world. But you know, my wife, my kids, I want them to understand some of the things I've done but I don't want them to experience the hardships but to step off under that bridge wing and look up onto a cloudless night and you see the stars and not one or two out there but thousands. You see the milky way and it's bright like someone took a piece of gold lace and stretched it from horizon to horizon. I share that with my kids. The fact that I'm out there and looking at a dolphin in the eyes and it's playing in front of you. I share that. I think I've learned to be happy with much and I've learned to be happy with little. So whether you're sitting on a flight deck in 130 degree weather or sitting behind a desk, you have to realize that what you're doing is what you're doing and it all matters. You may not see the results but then again, you may. There are people in all of those places that need me. I loathe being on a ship when it's in the yards. It's awful. Ships are meant to be at sea and you know when you've hit the point where the crew and you've been in port for too long, you know? You're trying to go home at night or hours or just as long as in port is when you're at sea and you're trying to go home to your family and it's never a pleasant time. I think there's a difference between happiness and joy. I think happiness, a lot of times, people based on outside things. I'm happy, I got a new car. I'm happy I'm going home. And that lasts for a little while until you get a scratch on the car or you have your first fight with a spouse. You know? I think I'm joyful, which comes from the inside. Because there's been times when I'm not happy, per se. I mean, I'm not happy when my mom fell and broke her hip and I'm on deployment and I don't get to go home and I couldn't be there with her when she passed. I think a lot of people get wrapped up and try to pursue happiness and they miss joy. I may not be as happy as some people but I feel a greater sense of joy than most, I think. Knowing that I've done something that makes a difference. A big part of American records focus now when it comes back to reentry is to pass the torch to others doing similar work. Work that serves as a reflection for the community it represents. And as a bridge between community and others. To that end, KJ has asked me to say a little bit about my own work. I would like to discuss two challenges that I believe we as an artist community should consider in our interactions with military populations, whether active duty or veteran. The first challenge, which I mentioned yesterday and wrote about in March's edition of American Theater Magazine, is that we need to reexamine our representations of military bodies on stage. In the last decade or so, most of the works about veterans have focused on the mental and psychological issues that military men and women face after returning from overseas deployments. And I wanna recognize that when veterans began returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, these discussions were essential. In light of the suicide rate amongst veterans, they still are very important. But, as I mentioned in the article, the oversaturation of PTS stories can have a negative effect on the abilities of veterans to reintegrate into civil society. The homogenized image of the PTS soldier is now a signifier for any veteran returning from deployment. This is real world consequences. For example, Gulf War era two veterans, which is anybody who served after 9-11, are less likely to find employment than their non-veteran counterparts. Although the unemployment number for this group is lower than it was in 2010, this is only because the Obama administration placed a high priority on hiring veterans in public service positions. The number one reason why most private employers cite for not hiring Gulf War era two veterans is fear of PTS. They are worried that the veteran they just hired will one day have a flashback and decide to re-enact the battle of Fallujah in their workplace. So I'm asking for us to reframe the way we witness the stories of veterans on stage. As a community of artists, we need to stop thinking about veterans as people we need to help and begin thinking about them, us, as people with so much to contribute. In some places, as yesterday's discussion demonstrated, this is already starting to happen. This leads me to my second challenge. The golf between communities and military communities, between civilian communities and military communities in my view, unacceptably wide and continues to grow. Let me be very clear. This condition is not only harmful to the veteran reintegration efforts, but more broadly, it is dangerous to our society. This chasm leaves our veterans isolated and opens our military up to misuse by those in power. Toward that end, I have used my position as a local coordinator for Warrior Chorus Austin, Texas to focus on opening the conversation between veterans in the Austin area and the local civilian population. The Warrior Chorus is a national program funded by the NEH managed by Akila Theater out of New York and administered in three cities, New York, Los Angeles and Austin, by local chapters of veterans from each area. The Warrior Chorus uses classical texts such as the Iliad or Agamemnon as entry points for discussing our lives in the military. Over a 10 week period, we created the workshop, we created and workshopped our own stories and recently have begun engaging local audiences with them. As local coordinator, I was given autonomy over the direction of our group. Instead of following the well-worn path of discussing trauma, I wanted the participants to have more agency. I wanted them to search for moments in their military time that, although seemingly mundane, made an impression upon their memories. I wanted them to explore the quotidian nature of military life. For example, I wrote about my last static line jump as an active duty soldier. Another veteran wrote about her experience as a female Arabic translator. Still another wrote about one day when he was part of a security detail guarding the rebuilding of a road in Iraq. By doing this, we are not only disrupting the narrative of the PTS veteran, but we're also challenging the hyperviolent and victim narratives that currently inform most civilian audiences. So with that, I want to open everything up to questions for the remaining time we have left. 10 minutes? So we have 10 minutes for questions and obviously this, you know, we can continue to discuss and break some things, but we'd like to go ahead and open it up. And please raise your hand and I'll bring you the mic. First of all, I really want to applaud the performance and what you're portrayed. I am Dr. Michelle Stephanelli and I work with Veterans Administration in VACO and we had the opportunity and the humble pleasure of having re-entry at the caregiver conference. And I really have to tell you that it really falls into what you were saying about collaboration and really getting out to the community and letting everyone embrace and understand and educate. So I think that as you said of a charge, I think that our charge in the community is to really step out of the box and to partner with the arts. And thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else? The story about the chaplain and that for people who didn't grow up on military bases that chapel, everybody goes to chapel and then it plays a really critical role and the chaplain is really a moral leader for everyone there and so it was the first time it was brought up so I just want to say how much I appreciated that. So much of the power of the work is fostering an expanded social dialogue. I wonder if you've thought about putting this work out in other community scenarios, whether it's workplaces, schools, I know you're at an academy. How do you think that would work and is there a way to kind of shift the perspective of veterans from victim to contributor? I think that's an enormously important opportunity. I can't speak personally for KJ. This is her work and I know that at this point she's kind of backed away from it a little bit and taken a step back. As a form and what I really appreciate about the way that KJ and Emily set this up is that the focus is so much on the agency of the story from the individual and the massive volume of areas that it looks at. It's not just about the trauma, it's not just about the soldier, it's also about the soldier's family and it's about all of these different areas, these things that are weaving in and out of the daily lives of these veterans and the veteran families. I could say personally, my research for, as I mentioned yesterday, I'm working on my PhD and my research right now is in looking at the way that theater is being used by displaced Syrians in Jordan. And I think that this kind of model, when looking at that is one of the models that in my opinion at least is missing from the current, I wanna say curriculum because that's essentially what the international organizations use when they talk about using theater in refugee spaces. So it's missing from the current curriculum. The stories that are coming out right now are primarily being driven by the international organizations. And although they say they're giving a lot of agency, that agency is very, very clamped down and ultimately is up to or subject to the approval of the international organizations. So I would love to see work like this happen in that realm personally. Thank you for your reading. And I say that partly because having seen reentry at center stage and then last night having seen that show both fully produced and like last night, there's something about this setup that is so intimate, confronting, amazing. I don't know if it's because it's my second time seeing it but one thing in particular I noticed in myself is you know we come to love you, you, each of you. And we love the words. And then I'll speak for myself, I stop loving the words. You really make me think through the dilemma of love because especially when you start in the latter part I'm like, well wait, I don't agree with this. You know, yes I'm laughing, I don't want this. And then I'm stuck with, well what do I do about that? So I feel like I'm really in, it's like I'm in the living room with you trying to work that through and I hadn't had that experience before when I saw it. So it's really challenging to sort of be in the midst of this so yeah. So I wanted to ask about your story collection process and how you went about collecting the stories and getting the permissions in terms of the verbatim stories. The stories are all compelling and familiar and really wonderfully told. But what's the process that you use for collecting the stories? So as I mentioned, this is KJ's work. Now we're presenting it for KJ because she could not be here today. And it's work that really needed to be out there. So I can't speak personally to her collection method. Reentry was created through interviews. When you see the full production you basically see the bars. You see the CEO giving his speech and all of those things are what KJ and Emily did in person. And then by making the commitment to use them verbatim she took them back to make sure that this was an image that they were willing to have portrayed. And as Bart said, they had to wait till much later for permission to use some of the names. But the fact that they came back later and said yes, now it's possible to use my name speaks to the veracity of the process and the commitment that they made to telling a story that was, that continues. I mean, it continues even though it has changed service, it has changed individuals, but the process is the same. It is their story, it is their words. It is not Emily and KJ trying to put their spin on those words. And in fact, that's part of why it was not political. It is their willingness to give over to that story. Can I say something in response to that as well? I'm not sure what the full production actually looked like because I never got to see a full production. It didn't come to my base. But in this space with the PowerPoint behind it and knowing the amount of clarity with the words and the 2%, only 2% changing, it feels very much to me like, I don't wanna say textbook, but a very closely aligned performance ethnography style of collection. Like the idea at heart and the focus at heart being of witnessing to the stories as opposed to representing the stories. And that was part of what drew me when I started delving into the work that she had done. I'm gonna go here and then to Brittany and then we're gonna wrap it up. Margaret Lawrence from Dartmouth College. We were fortunate to be part of the New England tour of reentry as a fully staged performance. And until then our relationship with our community's veterans had been pretty small. And in fact, we have one of the country's largest PTSD research centers through the medical school. So this was a moment where not only were we able to have a presence there, but the entire medical faculty came to meet KJ and on their turf and it was really quite powerful. And I'm intrigued Andrew by your own sense right now of this narrative needing to not replace the PTS story, but to evolve to the next stage. And I'm really, it really links to something that we're learning. Maybe we can talk more in the round table about this, but about our community's veterans that they don't, they really are willing to participate and engage with us, but they do not want us to be giving them things because they're trained in a culture of service. So we're now grappling with, well, what use can they be back to us? What even is that? We don't even know how to speak that language and maybe we can talk more about that later. Hi, thank you so much for bringing this to us today. It was incredible to see this amazing work and it's so honest and relevant to what's happening. And so I personally, I'm on a resiliency team for suicide prevention intervention in the Massachusetts National Guard here and we have almost 7,000 soldiers that we respond to. And we do take this as a model and it's so great that it's being used elsewhere and in such a, like across the country and in other bases around the world. And I really think that this is a great model to use and we'll go to veterans and ask them for their stories and then take it. I've gone to every unit in the state and done this and it elicits these incredible responses but also it brings back flashbacks for them and we'll have therapists and psychiatrists outside the room and they go and do the same thing. So, and I've received resiliency training and this is what they teach us to do. So this is something that's growing and becoming more and more used widely across the country and we're actually receiving training from civilian organizations which is where the idea came from, great concept. So it's a great circle to be learning from military to teaching civilians and civilians are teaching military and we're using that cyclical teaching thing and it's just, it's great to know that it's happening elsewhere too and it's growing. Well, unfortunately we're gonna wrap it up. Let's give another round of applause to Bart, Kat and Andrew. Thank you so much. And as you all know, we're just at the start of our day so these conversations will continue. We are 15 minutes behind which was an intentional choice so we are now moving the break from, right now it's 10.45 please be back in this room at 11 and we are gonna switch the room over like I said at the top of the session so please grab all of your things and vacate to the lobby as quickly as possible. Thank you so much.