Lawrence Winters (Larry Winters) -- Making and Un-making of a Marine

Lawrence Winters (Larry Winters) -- Making and Un-making of a Marine: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Long Time Gone

It's been a while sense I have have blogged there have been many things pulling my attention. Most of them veterans related. I have been speaking to vet group and doing workshop of my own as well as educating my self at others. It has become more clear to me lately that what is missing in the healing equation for vets when the come home with PTSD or some other war related wound is that society has no idea how to deal with them. There is no issue in the all of mankind that is bigger than war. It boils right down to the fact that war is about life death and lots of pain and we are to small to be able to encompass such a huge frightening thing as war so we stick out small ostrich head with our ipod earplugs into the softest pile of sand we can find and hope when we pull it back up the vets will have gone away. Problem is that they don't, they are still there and infact the have begun to infect all of us with their pain. The missing peice is a way to see the war issue from a larger perspective then we have. In order to generate any hope in the conditions of war and the afteraffects of war we need to have a vantage point of the soul, higher self, or God view or we remain stuck in the trenches looking at each other with hate and rage and hoplessness. The chaplin has become a pivital role in the miliatary and their job is to get men stabalized so they can return to battle. What a job this has to be for consious men and woman to ask their fellow human beings to offer up their lives for causes that have become so complicated that no one seems to understand them.

Just a few thougth that have been stirring would love to have some feed back.

Larry

There are a number of new UTube's on my website

My Webmaster has really put a lot of hard work into getting some very interesting UTube shows on the website makingandunmaking.com. I'd love for you to check them out and to give comment. There are many valuable links and a good deal of important information on the site look at it carefully.

Be well

Larry

So You Support the Troops and Not the War

OK, let's think about this for a few minutes. You say you support the troops but not the war. Have I got that right? Great! I thought that's what you said. So let me just make sure I understand what that means; support the troops, that is.

I was once a troop during the Vietnam War, and I would have seen support as you showing up for me. You would have honored me when I was sent to war to risk my life to keep you safe. You would have followed the war as it progressed to see where I was and how I was doing. You would have written me letters and prayed for my safety. You would have welcomed me home when I got back. And you would have thanked me from the bottom of your heart for standing between you and the enemy.

You then would have asked me what I needed, and how was my health. You would have wanted to know what you could do to repay me for the effort that I put in to keep our country safe. Your primary interest would have been for my welfare. You would have wanted to comfort me from my battlefield fears; you would have asked if you could pay for my medical bills; you would have helped my family when I was gone; and, you would have told me that you honored me for my sacrifice. You would have asked me for forgiveness for not going yourself and you would have offered forgiveness for the killing I did in your name. That must be what you mean when you say you support the troops?

Hey where are you going we just started this conversation? Come on back I want to hear about why you don't support the war.

Larry Winters

These two poems are a must read

If You Are Lucky in This Life

If you are lucky in this life
A window will appear on a battlefield between two armies.

And when the soldiers look into the window
They don't see their enemies
They see themselves as children.

And they stop fighting
And go home and go to sleep.
When they wake up, the land is well again.



By Cameron Penny,
who was a 4th grader in a Michigan school when he wrote this poem.
The poem was originally published in 2001.


______________________________

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Hopi Elders Speak

by The Elders, Hopi Nation, Oraibi, Arizona



We have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour
Now we must go back and tell the people this is The Hour

And there are things to be considered:

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.

It is time to speak your truth.

Create your community.
Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination.

The Elders say we must let go of the shore, and push off and into the river, keep our eyes open, and our head above the water.

See who is in there with you and Celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all, ourselves.

For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over.

Gather yourselves!

Banish the word "struggle" from your attitude and your vocabulary.

All that you do now must be done in a sacred manner
And in celebration.
"We are the ones we have been waiting for...."

Doumentary Body of War

Everyone needs to understand what War does to an individual soldier watch this new Documentary by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro “Body of War” when it comes to you. http://www.bodyofwar.com

http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com. I’d love your feed back on my

blog site makingandunmaking.blogspot.com

Larry

Penumbra

Penumbra

by
Larry Winters

A tangle of branches poked at the gunmetal sky. The cold a blade held against the exposed flesh of Simon's forehead. The thirty below temperature made the windblown trees rattle at octaves he'd never heard before. When Simon started walking, the snow squealed under his boots like he was crushing small rodents. The hair in his nostrils froze and ice was caked on the outside of the scarf he'd tied over his face. Simon had seen no one on Mountain Rest Road for miles. The two houses he'd passed had lights on but no one was outside; there were no kids playing in the new snow; the cars in the driveways still had snow on them. Standing alone under the night sky, the darkness was his.

Simon had things to think about. He'd been struggling all last night and the whole day with what happened during yesterday's afternoon nap. He felt desperate to sort out the vision that had come before him. If his mother was still alive, she might have been able to explain what it all meant; but she'd died on Christmas day two years ago. She would have had some idea what the specter standing before him was, and why it smelled like someone had peeled an apple in the room when it left.

Simon had rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands, but it was still there, a soldier in battle gear. A bolt action rifle hung over one shoulder, mud on his knees, a bandoleer of rounds draped across his chest. Simon had blurted out, "What the Hell are you doing here?"

The soldier stared at him and said, in a cockney accent, "They sent me to look for a tree, a Christmas tree."

"Who sent you?"

"The sergeant did! We got three men who've been gassed. They won't see Christmas tomorrow?

"Come on man. I know it's Christmas tomorrow, but you're talking like there's a war in my backyard."

"I need a tree now!"

Running his hand through his hair, Simon asked, "Do you know where you are?"

"Verdun!"

"No, man, for God's sake, you're in New Paltz NY. It's 2007 and it's the coldest day in 100 years."

"Listen, I don't have time for your jokes, there's a war going on. Have you seen anything green, I've got to bring something back for these men?"

"Wait here a minute." Simon got up from his chair tugged his coat on and went to the garage. Taking the handsaw off the hook, he ambled through the frigid air into the back yard to the edge of the forest. With a few powerful stokes he cut down a scrawny white pine about three feet tall. Shaking the snow from its limbs he carried it back to the house.

When he walked into the living room there was no one there. Where the soldier had stood there was a pool of water and some clumps of mud. He looked at the tiny tree in his hands and walked to the back door and tossed it into the snow bank, writing the whole thing off to a dream. Sitting back down in his comfortable chair, he pulled the blanket up to his shoulders. As he was dozing off a sharp knock on the back door startled him. He heard the door open and, "Thank ye, good man, may God bless ye, he sure as hell has forgotten the likes of us this Christmas."

Throwing off the blanket, Simon leaped up and ran to the back door, the tree was gone; there were his footprints and another set leading towards the mountains.

This must have been the tenth time he had let this remembrance run through his mind. He was now in a section of road where there were no houses and he cast his eyes to the heavens searching. Before his mom died she'd pointed up at the night sky and told him, "I'll be looking down on you, so don't get yourself in trouble. When you look at the stars on a clear night one of them will be me." He didn't think much about this because she'd always been weird, but he let his eyes hunt the winking stars.

Suddenly he smelt apples again. He then remembered his mother telling him how his grandfather couldn't eat apples, because it reminded him of the smell of gas in World War I. Looking towards the mountain he saw a penumbra surrounding the Mohonk Tower. There were flashes coming from the far side of the mountain like heat lighting in the clouds or heavy artillery blasts. He lifted the ear flap of his hat and thought he heard distant rumbling.

He thought being in the cold would clear his confusion, but it was growing worse. Something inside him knew that his mom was watching. He remembered one cold winter when she told him, "When it gets really bitter cold strange things can happen with how we experience time." Looking straight into his eyes, she said, "You've heard how the sounds of whales travel a single layer of molecules in the ocean water and can be heard hundreds of miles away. Something like that can happen when it gets really cold. Eskimos know about this, when it gets down to a certain temperature they can tell when something important is happening to a family member miles away." He remembered making a joke and saying, "Yeah they make a cell phone call."

She smirked and said, "That's not what I'm talking about. Why don't you open to what's right in front of you? There is so much more for you to know only if you would allow it. Stop trying to fix everything and just be. Another thing you should know is that time can become so condensed from the cold that the past and present can become frozen together. History and present day get pressed so close they blend into one another."

"Right Ma, you mean after you die if it's really cold, I might get a chance to see you again?" He was trying to make another joke, but suddenly felt bad that he'd mentioned her dying."

"Maybe," She'd whispered.

Simon wondered if that was what was happening now. Was the apple smell from deadly gas lingering on the soldier clothes? Was history and present forced together by the chilling temperatures? Should he be paying more attention to the fact that his country was fighting in two wars right now, and that men and women were going to spend tomorrow's Christmas day like the soldier who'd stood in his living room?

Looking back at his footprints he knew it was time to turn back towards home. Warm in his jacket, he now understood all that his mother had wanted him to.

Push On

Peter Seeger once sang.

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

Words and music by Pete Seeger (1967)
TRO (c) 1967 Melody Trails, Inc. New York, NY

The War grinds on with young life being stuffed into its great maw and death and carnage left behind. Those of us watching clamber for answers on how to stop it or how to see it as having a worth while reason for happening. No answers seem to appear that make any difference. We stare stunned as it crawls along consuming hearts and minds at a veracious pace.

A big circle of fools stands on the shore screaming, “Push on!” They’re on dry land with their hands on their hips directing those who they do not know to press on on. The flood water is rising, our knees are no longer visible, the waters at our waists, and we shove deeper into current. This same group of fools Bush, Cheney, and Brown all stood mute watching Katrina make the Big Muddy flow backwards drowning the heart beats of so many New-Orlenins. No mud on those boy’s shoes.

Larry

Whirl- winding

I have been whirl-winding for the past several weeks and not able to enter anything in the blog. Now I have landed and am reflecting on where I have been, and what I have done. Two weekends ago I was invited to Mentone Alabama as a workshop leader for one hundred and ten men. There has been a men’s gathering meeting there for the past fourteen years. Author and men’s group leader John Lee is the primary organizer, Robert Bly the poet, and Robert Moore the Jungian scholar we were there to reflect on Robert Mores book The King, The Warrior, The Magician, The Lover. Robert’s book is referring to male psychological archetypes. I was obviously there to speak from the warrior perspective.

It was fantastic to be in the presents of so many open hearted men. Robert Bly spent time with me looking over my poetry and was very supportive. John Lee a long time friend presented some of his current new work which focuses on the topic of passivity. His new book will be outstanding; he is addressing a topic that is relevant to all of us.

What is left of the men’s movement is small but strong and potent. To be around men who are looking beyond their own egos is so unusual that I left being affected for several days. There were many men who brought their son’s. It was really nice to see these young men working on their issues.

War is on these men’s minds, several vets came to my workshop and we discussed Vietnam as well as the current wars. I was asked several times “What can I do to help support the vets?” The answer I most often gave was, “Be there, listen, witness, don’t turn off or turn away, offer your presents.”

Things to come on this blog will be some talk about the Grand Rounds I gave at Four Winds Hospital on the topic of PTSD. I will also report on my trip to Tallmadge Ohio where I was the key note speaker and workshop leader for the The Warrior's Journey Home. Stay tuned.

Be Well

Larry

Veterans Day

Veterans Day

A day to remember my War.

A day to feel in my heart, Marines I once knew.

A day to pray for lost peace.

A day to remember that I was not welcomed home.

A day to remember my old war prayer

to commit to life with the same intensity that I feared death.

A day to see that many people do not honor veterans.

A day to hear the flag snapping at the wind.

A day for my soul to shed its uniform and stand naked in the mirror.

Oath Taker and Oath Breaker

On October 3, 1967 I took the following oath to join the United States Marine Corps:

"I, Larry Winters, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and, that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Lately I've begun wondering if you, the folks I was protecting from those communist insurgents, ever took any kind of oath? The answer to this question is no. If you were born in the US, you took no oath of citizenship. If you lived outside the country and applied for citizenship, you had to take an oath.

By the time I got to Vietnam I did not believe we should be there; but I did my duty and fought. I took my oath seriously, as did many who felt as I. I was recently investigating oaths and what they have met historically and I found out that in the past oaths were considered solemn statements that had to do with the truth, allegiance, promises, honor, ethics and the preservation of life. Many oaths invoked a divine witness. In my searching I was looking for something I was calling a "citizens oath". I was hoping to find a citizen oath that dedicated the oath takers to taking care of those who were injured while protecting the citizenry in times of war. What I discovered was a citizen oath from ancient Greece called the "Athenian Ephebic Oath". The Ephebic Oath was sworn by young men the ages 18-20 upon induction into the Ephebic College.

To read the full article please go to my website makingandunmaking.com

Semper Fi Parents

Today I spoke at gathering of Semper Fi parents. I opened by saying that Semper Fi means "Always Faithful." This would be a good oath for the American public towards it veterans. There was a strong military presents in the room with a Marine Gunnery Sargent who spoke about the Iraq War and gave various reasons why people should be honored to be involved with the Marines.
I spoke about PTSD Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There were several parents in the audience that had lost sons in the Iraq war. I had a number of conversation with parents that asked me to sign my book to a son in the war or recently back from war. They were concerned that their kids were suffering from PTSD and wanted to where help was available.
This was a sobering experience for me, its been a while since I'd been in a room with so many Marines and there need to justify what they were doing and had done was palpable. There was an undertone of pain and loss, but to touch this would have left parents and Marines with a feeling that the sacrifices were perhaps in vain, so the tenor was kept positive and patriotic.
I do honor those men and women who offer their lives to protect our country, but I do not honor the turning of our heads from what they have been asked to do, and our expectation they the become who they were before the left. Healing and forgiveness need to be primary elements for the recovery of the traumas of war, not the bowed out chest and the lifted chin and the Marine stance of bring it on.

Be Well

Larry

The Making and Unmaking of a Marine is now on Amazon

The long wait for my book to hit amazon is over. If you would rather give amazon the 60% instead of my publishing company Millrock Collective then you may find my book on the big book seller. If you'd like to help the smaller publisher you can get The Making and Unmaking of a Marine on my website makingandunmaking.com I welcome all feed back.

Larry

Poems Can Heal

There is a chapbook that was just published by Vietnam vet named Dayl Wise. There are 18 vets that have written poems including Dayl. The title of the book is Post Traumatic Press 2007 poems by veterans. It can be purchased by emailing dswbike@aol.com. I have several poems in it and of course highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in understanding what war does to human beings.
Poem

When a man kills another man
he must dig two graves.
One in the earth for the dead man.
One in his heart for his spirit,
or he will not return.

Larry Winters

Homeless Vets

This past Wednesday I spoke at Montrose VA in Peekill NY. The topic was homeless veterans. There were sixty people there many from the Montrose staff including homeless vets, who by the way asked several questions, and made some important statements about there personal plight. There were also folks there from the VVA and other veteran related organizations in the community. The talk went well, my main focus was helping them to role reverse with the vet in order to understand them better when they show up in their offices unwashed, drug addicted, and angry that at once time they offered their lives for this country. Here is a little of what I said, “Yes we have a volunteer army; these men and women did sign up. Did they know the truth about what they were getting into? No. Nor did we. And yet the revelations since then has not slowed down the number of jobless volunteers enlisting. So what would support to our returning soldiers look like? To start with, let's acknowledge that they offer the ultimate - their lives. This deserves the highest honors we civilians can bestow: Care, concern and acceptance when they come home.

War is a powerful initiation. No one comes back from it the way they left. We must accept this and stop expecting to see the same young people we sent off to war return home. Their wounds, both physical and psychological, have altered them. These changes need to be integrated and healed so veterans can find productive roles in society.

Our veterans are more than soldiers who served. They are our warriors who protected our country. In today's high-tech gigabit world there is a danger in seeing our soldiers as little more than "war-bits." It becomes easy to forget that a human being is holding the joy stick in a M1 Abrams tanks and that the video feed is a killing field. Video games can be turned on and off. In war, when the power switch is turned off it's never turned back on.”

It was my experience that many at the VA are folks who are working hard with an overload of clients; they show interest in trying to understand the perspective of the vets they serve.

At the end of the workshop one of the administrators approached me about buying my book “The Making and Unmaking of a Marine”, she agreed to supply her staff with books. This of course made my day selling ninety book warmed my heart and opened my mind to seeing that here were folks that had a true interest in hearing what returning soldiers feel. If you haven’t read the book yet please put your order in the website is makingandunmaking.com

The New Website makingandunmaking.com

I want to say a little about the incredible support I have been getting from my friend Mike from www.HillsideAS.com. He has worked tirelessly on the site. His belief in helping the Veterans cause goes beyond the call of duty. Mike is also one of the actors in the play I have written titled “Nothing Means Nothing.” We have done one animated reading at Pumpkin Hollow NY for Soldiers Heart organization and are hoping to perform the play in January 2008. It is only with the help of folks like Mike that we can get the message out that vets need support, honor and our concern when they return from war. I raise my arm in a sharp salute to Mike for his commitment to caring for the pains of war. If you have the opportunity please check out the new website at makingandunmaking.com.

Larry

The Military Oath Soldiers Take

"I Larry Winters do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

I have been thinking about the above military oath I took Oct 3, 1970 when I joined the United States Marines. Right now for the first time in my life I started wondering what oath did the citizenry I was protecting from communist insurgents take. If born in the US the answer is none, if you applied for citizenship here there is an oath you must take.

Then I started wondering if oaths were commitments that people still took seriously? Historically oaths were solemn statements that had to do with the truth, allegiance, promises, honor, ethics and the preservation of life. May oaths invoked a divine witness. As I contemplated this question of oaths I thought that maybe I’d missed the oath I was supposed to have taken as a young US citizen, my education was quite lackluster and maybe I was out the day we studied citizen oaths. Or was it as simple as the US constitution was the oath we all were given to live by. Maybe I never really understood that this was a deep commitment that should guide my personal life and behavior. Doing some research on this topic I found that there is no citizen oath for those born here in the US. I also found that there was a citizen oath in ancient Grease called the Athenian Ephebic Oath. The next installment with start with the Ephebic Oath. Comment Welcome

How to Speak with Vets

I was asked by my friend Ed Tick author of WAR AND THE SOUL to give him some of my thoughts on a chapter he is working on in his new book, the chapter title is “How to Speak with Vets”

“How to Speak with Vets”

No one can speak to vets if they haven't listened to vets. The kind of listening is with more then the ears and mind, it is what you Ed Tick might call soul listening. Many can hear the facts, assess the circumstances and analyze the difficulty and then come up with a game diagram, program or treatment plan. It is the unusual listener who has taken the time needed to hear why soldiers can’t talk about war. If one has listened long enough, opened themselves enough, they may learn to pick up the subtle tones of the oblique tenor of war. It is also important to understand what is being said in the punctuating silences. Souls speak to each other in many ways other than words. Silences’ are often the most articulated statements and if heard as simply empty moments one has missed the message. Taking time, tolerating silences, waiting, witnessing, and staying in the room, are tools a vet therapist needs to know well. It has so much more to do with not speaking then speaking. If the vet feels heard, if a vet feels safe, if a vet feels not judged, if a vet feels honored, he may let you speak to him.

Ed the part that you may not be able to see could be honor. You do honor vets. Honor is a shape sword and cuts through many layers of the “Gordian Knots” of war. It is one of the strands of brotherhood that soldiers have between them. It is a doorway that civilians are allowed through. Honor is part of the fabric of identity. Please let me know how you might feel about how this subject.

Hard Question

I spoke at a Veterans for Peace conference this past Saturday. My talk was about PTSD and how it is as much a society disorder as it is an individual disorder. Most of the folks in the audience were hard core fighters for peace, sprinkled in were a few vets for peace. Many of these folk seemed to have a bit of a hard time finding compassion for vets. a Comment that was made in the question answer session at the end was, "Why should I thank the vets for what they did, when I did not send the to war? I did not vote for the politicians that sent them."
I must admit this was not an easy question to address. What I said was, you are a member of the society that sent these men and women to war. You may not have voted for those who sent them but this does not excuse you from the responsibility for there care and healing when they come home. If history repeats its self returning vets have shown up in high number in the homeless population, in the addicted population, in our homes with incident of domestic violence. You and I as members of this society are paying with our dollars for this social unrest. We may not have voted to have a crack addict rob our home but it happens.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Post Traumatic Society Diorder

PTSD Workshop

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Post Traumatic Society Disorder

We have given our veterans behavior a name, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. In 1980 PTSD became a diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM II at that time. This was seen by many health care professionals as making great strides for combat veterans now they were eligible for the treatment they had urgently needed since the ending of the War five years earlier. Finally effects of war trauma on soldiers which had been previously called “Shell Shock,” or “Solders Heart,” became legitimized and the VA was held responsible to treat this disorder.

I believe what was unseen at the time is that by declaring PTSD an illness of the individual and placing it in the mental health manual for the treatment of individual illnesses, we affectively isolated the problem into the category of a personal treatment. This places the onus of healing on the patient and the patient’s treatment team.

I will be presenting the above material on PTSD at the

The 9th annual Kateri Tekakwitha Peace Conference

"Hope and Resistance - Transforming the Course of History" will be held on Friday evening, August 17 and Saturday, August 18, 2007. Please join us in this Interfaith conference, featuring Stephen Eric Bronner and Fr. Louis Vitale OFM at the National Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine in Fonda, NY. All are welcome!

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Post Trauma Society Disorder?:
A Deeper look at PTSD By Larry Winters
Location: Dinning Hall

PTSD is a diagnostic term that comes out of the DSM-!V, a mental health manual. It stands for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I propose that PTSD should stand for Post Trauma Society Disorder.

This workshop will look at our returning soldiers and the obligation our society holds in healing these men and women. In fact this obligation goes well beyond parades, VA hospitals, and military metals. If we as a society don't reach down into our souls, we will never understand our returning men and women with PTSD nor the continuing disorder in their lives. PTSD is also seen as infectious adversely effecting our families, community, and nation. Until we fully accept our societal responsibility neither our returning military personnel nor our nation will have peace.

Questions we will ask in this workshop:

• What do these men and women soldiers need?
• How can we learn to listen to pain we'd rather turn off?
• What do we do with the pain they will deliver to us?
• What does honor really mean?
• How do we accept the life and death reality of what our soldiers have done and must live with?
• How do we remove politics from our souls and see our soldiers as human beings?
• What does it mean to have a warrior in our house, at our work place, and in our communities?

Larry Winters was born and raised in New Paltz, NY. Larry entered the United States Marine Corps after high school and served in Vietnam 1969-1970. Twenty-five years later, as a licensed mental health counselor at Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, NY, Larry Winters returned to Vietnam with other heath care professionals to study Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the Vietnamese people and to make peace with his past. Larry is a widely published poet, men's group leader and group psychotherapist. He has recently published his book titled "The Making and Un-making of a Marine". If you wish to know more about Larry or his book feel free to email him or check out his blog at:
Email: winters.lawrence@gmail.com
Blog: makingandunmaking.blogspot.com