We publish new stories and poems about the Vietnam War and healing from trauma by veterans Everett Cox and Steven Gunn.
Tag Vietnam war
Review: “Coming Home in Viet Nam”. Poems by Edward Tick
San Fernando, CA: Tia Chucha Press, 2021. 187 pages
Seeking the most powerful healing practices to address the invisible wounds of war, Dr. Ed Tick has led journeys to Viet Nam for veterans, survivors, activists and pilgrims for the past twenty years. This moving and revelatory collection documents the people, places and experiences on these journeys. It illuminates the soul-searching and healing that occurs when Vietnamese women and children and veterans of every faction of the “American War” gather together to share storytelling and ritual, grieving, reconciliation and atonement. These poems reveal war’s aftermath for Vietnamese and Americans alike and their return to peace, healing and belonging in the very land torn by war’s horrors.
Download and read the review of the book here
“Suicide monologue”. A testimony by Everett Cox
One steamy night, the summer of 1969, at Marble Mt. Air Base near Da Nang in Viet Nam, a rocket exploded near me and I died. There was screaming, explosions, dust, smoke, chaos; I had no torn flesh, no blood in the dust, but I died.
My flesh did not die but I had shattered. In death, I became a ghost. In life, a shadow. The ghost dominated the shadow. That domination has meant self-destructive behavior, an obsession with suicide and suicide attempts. Self destruction. Who, what is self? My body? My heart? My spirit? I had to destroy all that might be self. I had to destroy self completely, my complete self, even though there was no complete me.
Read full text here
Veteran healing: “Strong-Hearts”, by Glen Miller and Scott Hutchinson
Scott Hutchinson has been a Pastor in the United Church of Christ for the last 30 years. Scott’s formal education includes professional degrees in Divinity, Counseling and Human Relations, and Social Work. Prior to full time ministry, Scott was a counseling professional. Scott’s areas of focus and expertise include forgiveness, trauma healing, and peace education. Scott is co-founder of Touchstone Veterans Outreach and of the COMPASS Healing Circle. He has experience in two war zones as a noncombatant.
Glen Miller is adjunct professor, Fox School of Business, Temple University. He teaches Business Ethics and a course in Leadership. Glen served as a Ranger Team Leader in Vietnam from 1969 – 1970. Glen lead two Ranger Teams into Cambodia at the beginning of the invasion, May 1, 1970.
More than forty years after combat and warzone peace-building, the authors helped form a group that is creating space and place for healing from war wounds to the soul. The organizing leaders called the group Touchstone Veterans Outreach. They talked and mused and connected with others that were interested in the mystery of war healing. In short, they did not turn away but towards the pain wrapped and sealed within the bodies and souls of veterans…
Read full article here
“The Emotions after War in Viet Nam. Poetry from my Reconciliation and Healing Journeys”, by Edward Tick
Seeking the most comprehensive and holistic healing of war wounds possible, I have been leading annual reconciliation journeys to Viet Nam for veterans and other war survivors every year since the twenty-fifth anniversary of the end of the war in 2000. Encounters between survivors of all sides squeeze long-ago memories and feelings out of American and Vietnamese alike. Through poetry I record the voices and stories of women and men who lived through extraordinarily close encounters during war and again on meeting today. These encounters show the depths and complexities of our emotional lives during times of warfare and its aftermath when we can transform fear and hatred into understanding, compassion and love.
Read Ed’s poems here
Dòng suối quê hương (The Streams of Our Native Land): a poem by Trần Đình Song
Dear readers of Close Encounters in War, we are delighted to publish another poetic contribution about the Vietnam war, this time from the perspective of a Vietnamese veteran: Trần Đình Song, who served in the Southern Vietnamese Air Force and was in the re-education forced labour camps after the war. This beautiful poem was written in 1966, and although the horror of civil war war haunted the Author and his country, his words are full of love and hope. We publish the poem in its original version, accompanied by the new English translation that the Author made with his friend and member of the CEIWJ Editorial Board Edward Tick.
Dòng suối quê hương (The Streams of Our Native Land), by Trần Đình Song
New publication: “Community, Diversity and Reconciliation in Remote Vietnamese Villages” by Edward Tick
Survive & Thrive: A Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine, 5, 2 (2020)
dangerous and heavily bombed Ho Chi Minh Trail during the war. The author is sitting next to Tran Dinh Song, a southern air force veteran; Kate Dahlstedt, therapist, is standing behind.
ABSTRACT
The American War in Viet Nam created
significant divisions among their population. Factions include southern Army of
the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) veterans, northern People’s Republic or North
Vietnamese Army (NVA) veterans, Viet Cong (VC)veterans who were essentially
militia, non-combatant Pioneers – largely women, Agent Orange victims. All
these are now treated as one people, one family. Some government prejudice and
denial of benefits remains toward ARVN vets, but as we will see not among the
common people. We turn to our American experiences in the Viet Nam of today of
otherness, differentness, moral responsibility for the war, the possibilities of
reconciliation between former foes. How do the Vietnamese experience us? And
what is our experience of being the outsiders from our country that formerly
invaded this land?
Download the open-access article as PDF for free HERE.
Poet, author, psychotherapist and international activist and guide, Edward Tick,
Ph.D., (www.edwardtick.com) is author of four nonfiction books, including War
and the Soul, and two volumes of poetry. A specialist in war and trauma healing
and the cultures of Viet Nam and Greece, Ed uses the humanities, literature,
cross-cultural and ancient psycho-spiritual-cultural practices for healing.
Close Encounters in War: Testimonies and Autobiographical Essays
We present in this section a collection of testimonies and short essays from veterans, therapists, witnesses, practitioners and others who have experienced close encounters in war in person or through their work and connections.
Everett Cox: What He Did Not Say Then (April 11, 2023)
Everett Cox: Suicide monologue (May 14, 2021)
David Klein: Soul Operation (February 24, 2021)
Kate Dahlstedt: Wave (December 27, 2020)
Thayer Greene: My “Close Encounters” in World War 2 Combat (December 27, 2020)
Pat Guariglia: From a U.S. Marine to His Vietnamese Counterparts, with an Introduction by Edward Tick (December 27, 2020)
Close encounters in war: Poetry
We present in this section a collection of poetical contributions that explore the topic of the close encounter in war.
Edward Tick: Potatoes (November 22, 2022)
Svitlana Povalyaeva: Poems for Roman (November 9, 2022)
Margaret Stetz: Dirt (January 12, 2022)
Peter Yeomans: Two Poems (June 4, 2021)
Scott Casey: You died today (May 4, 2021)
Kate Dahlstedt: Sentry (April 21, 2021)
Humberto Ak’abal: Selected poems from In the Courtyard of the Moon (Tia Chucha Press, 2021) (March 26, 2021)
Edward Tick: The Emotions after War in Viet Nam. Poetry from my Reconciliation and Healing Journeys (March 17, 2021)
Yoav Ben Yosef: Smol Yameen (March 9, 2021)
Trần Đình Song: Dòng suối quê hương (The Streams of Our Native Land) (February 22, 2021)
Charles “Sandy” Scull and Brent “Mac” MacKinnon: Selected poetry and prose by Sandy Scull and Brent MacKinnon from the volume Agent Orange Roundup. Living with a Foot in Two Worlds (Bookstand Publishing, 2020) (December 27, 2020)
Edward Tick: Selected poetry and prose by Edward Tick (December 27, 2020)
Issue n. 3 (2020) of the CEIWJ is online
We are delighted to announce that issue n. 3 (2020) devoted to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as Aftermath of Close Encounters in War is online.
The full issue and single contributions can be downloaded as PDF here:
Issue n. 3 (2020): Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as Aftermath of Close Encounters in War
Close Encounters in War 