Veterans' truth project
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Veterans' truth project ("VTP") is a project of ROiL
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[edit] Aim of Project
The aim of the project is "Telling the realities of the military in wartime in order to raise awareness, educate, and promote peace with recent veterans and their communities."
ROiL believes that most Americans do not understand war or military service.
It believes that only soldiers know what war and the "real" military - the military that doesn’t get featured on the evening news or shown in recruitment commercials - is like.
The problems, as perceived by ROil are that:
- Kids keep signing up without knowing what it's really like.
- Veterans keep coming home to communities that don’t understand what they have been through.
- Americans go about their daily lives, oblivious to the fact that a war is being fought on the other side of the world.
Veterans’ Truth Project is a collaboration of veterans, writers and performers for social change and creating a performance piece based on the stories of recent veterans that attempts to:
- raise public awareness about the realities of the military service and current wars;
- help young people make informed decisions about whether or not to serve;
- demystify the military experience, and;
- connect veterans and their communities.
VTP will draft creative adaptations of interviews and testimonies on such subjects as service in a time of war, hazing, military social life, returning from war, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Stories and experiences will become vignettes and/or a full-length play. Under ROiL’s artistic direction, a cast of actors will tour with the show to communities in the eastern U.S., including high school students. Audiences will engage in a talk-back session with the community’s veterans, who can answer questions, discuss the reality of the stories and engage in dialogue.
The Vietnam War era saw many dysfunctional, homeless and substance-addicted veterans as a result of their experiences and of an insensitive homecoming. Already, hundreds of thousands of soldiers return home from Iraq and Afghanistan wounded and in psychological distress, only to wait on a list to be seen by a counselor, and feeling isolated from their families, friends and communities.
ROil believes similar problems should not be allowed to happen again.
[edit] Structure of the performance
This performance brings the audience members through some of the challenges veterans are faced with in the military as well as at home, educating people who haven’t been in the military, acknowledging the experiences of those who have, and connecting veterans and the rest of the community.
The post-performance talk-back session allows veterans to give a face to the play of someone in the community, to answer questions and to share their own experiences. Veterans are personally heard and validated by their own communities, and the audience then has an opportunity to try to relate to what they’ve gone through. These conditions of mutual willingness and understanding can revolutionize our returning soldiers’ experiences back home.
[edit] Composition of VTP
The Veterans’ Truth Project is a collection of members of the Ithaca, NY anti-war community, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Veterans for Peace (VFP), Peace-Out.com, and the activist theater group, ROiL.
[edit] Why tell stories and why do a performance?
Many veterans are already speaking up about their experiences and become active about stopping war through such groups as the ever-growing Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), started by a recent, young Iraq veteran). However, not everyone who is affected by the war attends peace rallies to hear these activist soldiers. This performance will reach the general public.
ROiL's process of creating a performance has roots in the Theater of the Oppressed techniques developed by Brazilian artist and activist Augusto Boal. Through movement, games and structured interactions, workshop participants learn to translate their experiences into the physical language of the body. They might explore themes like conflict, power, rejection, and exclusion, as well related themes such as support, alliance, recovery, and relief. The content of eventual performance pieces develops organically as group members bring their own stories to life.
Collaborative work challenges each member of the group to take personal risks, to share openly of themselves, and to actively support others. Individual experiences are honored and synthesized to translate into a common group experience and thus a performance topic. With a performance, the group invites an audience to respond to the issues raised, creating a dialogue that may continue long after the performance has come to an end.
Without personal stories from those who’ve been there, reports of U.S. and Iraqi deaths in the newspaper are just numbers; people don’t realize that we are in war if they aren’t personally affected by the reality. VTP means to convey stories from the soldiers to the public, to the youth who sign up without being informed, to the people at home who don’t understand what they’ve experienced.
