Reaching our forgotten veterans

A retired pastor creates ministries of hope

By Tammy Warren | Presbyterians Today

Veterans experiencing fatigue, lethargy, depression or post-traumatic stress begin to gain energy and perspective as they hike with fellow veterans and civilians. Tom Davis

Why are 20 veterans a day taking their own lives? That’s the question the Rev. Tom Davis has been asking since August 2015, when a magazine cover on veterans’ suicides grabbed his attention. After all, he thought, aren’t these the same men and women who fought so hard to stay alive during active duty, as Davis did during his combat service in Vietnam?

Davis is a retired Presbyterian pastor and commissioned interfaith peacemaker in New Castle Presbytery, which serves congregations in Delaware and eastern Maryland. He worships on half his Sundays with a congregation he used to pastor, Hanover Street Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, and the other half in a service of silence at the Wilmington Friends Meeting House. It was during a Quaker worship service there that he felt a strong prompting to do everything he could to stop the epidemic of veteran suicide.

“During the refreshments hour, I went around asking Friends if they would join me in seeing what we could do about this terrible problem,” Davis said. They readily agreed to help. One thing led to another and later that year Davis founded the Interfaith Veterans’ Workgroup (IVW), a nonprofit that helps returning veterans acclimate to civilian life. Startup funds for IVW were provided by New Castle Presbytery, Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Wilmington and individual donors.

The IVW relies on a variety of interfaith spiritual resources and nonclinical interest groups to encourage returning veterans to use their warrior wisdom for peacemaking, especially making peace in their own souls. IVW currently has about 60 members, primarily from the Vietnam War era and recent wars. Membership also includes civilians. IVW’s interest groups focus on writing, mindfulness-based stress reduction, hiking, photography, prison ministries and veteran-to-veteran hospice visitation. New groups in video production and visual arts are in the planning stages.

The Rev. Tom Davis, a commissioned interfaith peacemaker in New Castle Presbytery, is president and founder of the Interfaith Veterans’ Workgroup, launched in 2015. Courtesy of Tom Davis

All IVW programs and interest groups aim to support the healing of returning veterans through activities that promote nonjudgmental listening, community outreach and camaraderie with family members, other veterans, community partners and interfaith friends.

“We set about to study what scientists were learning about how trauma affects the brain and what nonclinical treatment methods were getting good results,” Davis said, “particularly for post-traumatic stress and moral injury.”

While fear and anger are common symptoms of post-traumatic stress, guilt and shame characterize moral injury, a term first used by a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs staff psychiatrist, Jonathan Shay, during his treatment of veterans in the 1990s. Post-traumatic stress and moral injury have some symptoms in common, but some researchers consider moral injury a deeper wound, marked by shameful feelings of having violated one’s deepest sense of right and wrong because of what one did or failed to do in the line of duty. Davis suspects that moral injury may be the stronger factor contributing to veteran suicide.

Writing to heal scars

Al Mills knows about the psychological wounds that can torment veterans. Since serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq, he has struggled with post-traumatic stress. Mills, though, has discovered the therapeutic value of writing. He now leads the IVW writers’ group.

Mills’ mastery with words has garnered acclaim. In 2015, he and his twin brother, Nnamdi Chukwuocha, were appointed poets laureate of Delaware, the first sibling co-laureates in any state. They perform their work onstage as the Twin Poets.

The Twin Poets, Nnamdi Chukwuocha, left, and Al Mills, are U.S. Army veterans. Mills leads the IVW writers’ group. Cylinda McCloud-Keal

Mills’ passion for language is reflected in his passion for helping veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress.

“We just walk around thinking it’s just us going through the trauma,” he said. “I think the best part for me was just getting it out, sharing the message that we can be a light for others who are thinking there is no way out. There is a way out. I think that’s the key right there.”

At first, he said, veterans may be hesitant to share their writing, but once they see how good they feel by hearing from others, the group sharing starts to flow.

“Sooner or later we’re like pals, and everyone’s here to share. It’s a very supportive environment,” Mills said. “We know we are good people; we just did some bad things while we were over there. That moral dilemma is where we find ourselves.”

As co-poets laureate, the Twin Poets take their award-winning poetry and creative writing programs into schools, libraries, community centers, youth detention centers, adult correctional facilities and faith communities to inspire people of all ages to write. They use journaling, poetry and other forms of writing to help others learn to resolve conflicts, manage anger, set goals, find their passion and choose alternatives to violent behavior.

“It’s releasing that pressure valve, where we are able to just get it out, and it’s not just gnawing at you, not just eating away at your core. Writing gives you that release. It gives you that escape. It gives you that ‘OK, I can get this out positively without doing something negative.’ ”

Taking steps to fight stress

If writing is not one’s thing, then Jack Sanders has a bit of tongue-in-cheek advice for returning veterans: Take a hike.

Sanders, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and recipient of a Cherokee National Medal of Patriotism for his U.S. Army service, is the founder of the IVW’s hiking group. Each week he leads hikes of eight to 12 miles for veterans, spouses and interfaith friends. Group members also participate in hikes organized by the Wilmington Trail Club. Experienced hikers also take part in an annual Brandywine Trail Hike, about 36 miles end to end. “Hiking lets me communicate with God through prayer and thank God for the beauty of his gifts,” said Sanders, whose military service took him to Berlin during the Iron Curtain days of the 1960s. Sanders says God helped him overcome the trauma of military service.

Here’s an excerpt from a blog post Davis wrote after his first hike with the group: … when I got back from Vietnam, walking in the woods scared me. My imagination would start to take me back to a bad day in the boonies, so I had to turn around and head home. I refused to give up my woods, though. The next time out I’d go a little farther before turning around. Each outing, I’d get a little farther, until finally my woods were rid of trap doors to a different time and place.

Sanders also teaches an employability class that he developed for local prison inmates, some of whom are veterans. Participants who complete the program are guaranteed interviews with prospective employers upon their release.

In February, Sanders coordinated a prayer service at a local mosque to bring together leaders of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and the Islamic Society of Delaware. The interfaith aspect of the veterans’ workgroup is important to Sanders. His current goal is to establish interfaith discussion groups statewide for veterans and non-veterans to share their faith.

Help through meditation

Another IVW workgroup is helping veterans cope with stress and other issues through meditation, including mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). A group of IVW members who completed an eight-week MBSR course through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs now meets weekly to meditate and discuss techniques and insights for coping with concerns such as chronic pain, sleep issues and depression. Vets practice the techniques and journal on their own between meetings.

“I’m so grateful that I have mindfulness in my life that it hurts me when other people don’t have it,” said Bill Brown, a U.S. Navy veteran. “I’d be lost without it.”

A VA study published in “Military Behavioral Health” in 2016 found that veterans who practiced mindful meditation reported a 23 to 42 percent reduction in intensity of chronic pain. In addition to practicing MBSR, IVW members have participated in power breath meditation workshops, where they have learned a deep and slow breathing technique that confers physical and psychological benefits.

“I could be wrong, but it seems that not many Presbyterians meditate, at least not regularly,” Davis said, adding, “These ways of meditating are not religious alternatives to well-established faith traditions. My own experience convinces me that they do not ‘endanger’ one’s religious grounding at all.”

Visiting vets in hospice care

Davis and other IVW members also are volunteering in a veteran-to-veteran hospice visitor program, “No Veteran Dies Alone,” coordinated by Bayada Home Health Care.

“When they come back, generally warriors don’t talk,” Davis said. “They figure they wouldn’t be understood. They might be condemned for things they did, because making war is nasty. It’s not like in the movies. It doesn’t feel heroic. It just feels awful. So, that’s what makes one wise in a kind of hard way. So, warriors carry that wisdom, but then, most of the time, it’s not put to good use. All those stories are bottled up.”

Davis has begun visiting a 95-year-old U.S. Navy Seabee veteran of World War II who volunteered as a clown for many years after retiring.

“His mind is very sharp, and he is a joy to visit,” Davis said. “In his case, I don’t think he has this load of shame and guilt, but there are cases like that. So, a veteran is about ready to die and he’s carrying this terrible burden. He’s never been able to tell anybody about it. Then if he speaks to another veteran before dying, he’s able to die in peace.”

Davis said faith communities can do two simple things to help returning veterans: Ask veterans to share their experiences in the service and listen to them without judgment.

“It doesn’t matter where they served or what they did,” Davis said. “You honor them and show you’re interested by giving them a chance to talk about their experience.

“And, if church people can listen to stories that exhibit the breadth of human experience and behavior without judging, then the gulf between veterans and civilians can be bridged.”

Tammy Warren is a communications associate with the Presbyterian Mission Agency.

‘Getting back to the world’

The Veterans Freedom Mural honors returning veterans. Tom Davis

“Getting Back to the World,” a mural project in Wilmington’s Creative District, brought together IVW veterans and local artists convened by the Wilmington Renaissance Corporation. Designed by Philadelphia mural artist and community organizer Eric Okdeh, the art was painted in honor of veterans by fellow veterans, artists and community members. The mural is known locally as the Veterans Freedom Mural.

The mural incorporates reflections from all branches of military service and explores the challenges veterans encounter when returning to civilian life. Officially dedicated in 2016, it took 100 hours of planning; 50 gallons of paint, primer and sealer; 107 colors; 15 prep program participants; and more than 100 artists, veterans and community members to painstakingly paint 32 cloth art panels. Each panel, measuring 5 feet by 5 feet, was designed as paint-by-number, so participants did not need artistic training. Once the panels were dry, they were installed at Marcella’s House, a Wilmington residential facility for formerly homeless veterans.

“There’s a lot in the mural, words as well as images,” Davis said. The word “freedom,” he said, “refers not only to what we thought we were fighting for when we left home, but also to that deep freedom we have sought so painfully to regain — a freedom of conscience, a release from all that binds a warrior’s soul.”

Learn more

For more information on the Interfaith Veterans’ Workgroup, visit ivw.website or contact the Rev. Tom Davis at 302-507-6012, tcd123@gmail.com.

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