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Dear friends, At Coming Home these days we are in full summer family retreat mode. Over the Memorial Day weekend, May 27-31, we held our first retreat outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, in Middleburg VA, near Washington DC.
We just completed our first San Diego retreat at Mission San Luis Rey in Oceanside. Then we're off to Santa Rosa (Northern California) at the beloved Angela Center at the end of July and San Antonio at the Mo-Ranch Conference Center at the end of August. Space is limited but I understand there are still a few spots available in Northern California and Texas, so visit our website to apply if you're interested. The Meadowkirk Conference Center in DC was all rolling hills and meadows, just beautiful. We could hear the squeals of children floating down the river, stories about the perils and accomplishments of navigating the ropes courses, high and low, and poems and songs and slideshows created to share experiences among children and their parents. And we got to marvel in awe at a crackling lightning and thunder storm. Our core child and adult facilitators from the Bay Area provided seasoning and ballast and were enriched by terrific experienced facilitators from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and elsewhere. We were delighted to have 10 female and 10 male veterans who met separately in their own small groups. We are glad to share the impressions of one of our DC retreat participants, Bob Rodriguez, in this issue. A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hearing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen speak at the California Community Foundation and meeting his wife Deborah who is very active, along with the Chairman, in helping military families. She was encouraging and had heard about Coming Home through the Chaplains Steiner and Woodberry who advise her husband. The Coalition for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans (CIAV) yearly meetings in Washington DC were stimulating and connective as always, bringing together not just the 50+ grantee nonprofit organizations of the IADIF (Iraq and Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund) conference and panel, but representatives of the VA, SAMHSA, the DoD, the legislature and the executive, as well as and other stakeholders for important dialogue. Lee Woodruff and Col. Charles Hoge were keynote speakers and did not disappoint. We are honored that Col. Hoge agreed to be on Coming Home’s Advisory Committee. I chaired a panel on the oft-neglected Spiritual Injuries of War; please see our article for more information. In June I also attended an excellent daylong conference, The Brain at War, sponsored by the Veterans Health Research Institute (NCIRE). There was a panel entitled “Coming Home,” that featured Advisory Committee member LTC David Rabb, Marine mother and CHP volunteer Mary Dudum, me and others. More in our next newsletter. Comings and Goings We said goodbye to Lauren Rettberg, our office manager, who is considering a position abroad as a prelude to getting her MS in Nursing. While goodbyes are always difficult, hellos are always fun and we now welcome Aaron Walz as our new office manager and Mark Lachman as our first Development Director. Volunteers I have often said our volunteers are the lifeblood of our organization and with retreat season upon us I have to reiterate their great value and importance. Operation Homefront has been a terrific partner for us. Many thanks also to our office volunteers Sara and Penny. Finally, a wonderful surprise was the appearance of Carol Twitmeyer, from Dallas, who has a personal interest in PTSD and is helping with fundraising. Please see Carole’s article in this newsletter. If you can help Carol in her fundraising effort, please follow the link in her article to her fundraising page. Let me hear from you Please e-mail me and tell me how you are doing or how you enjoyed our retreats. Our time together forms great new friendships and we all would like to hear your input and news (Joe’s e-mail address). Resources At the end of each of my columns, I remind people that the Coming Home Project exists thanks to the generosity of foundations and of people like you. Our free programs do not cost participants anything, but they are not free -- they are quite expensive to produce. We ask you to consider how you can contribute to our efforts. Letting others know about our work, including people with means, gives them the opportunity to be of help. This is a gift to them as well as to us and those we serve. Your own contributions of time, energy and financial assistance are also of course most welcome: Click to Donate or Volunteer. Joe Dr. Joseph Bobrow, Roshi |
Taking our retreats to where people live and work is part of our becoming a best practice, a portal and a hub for integrative regional networks of care that also include counseling, classes and support groups. There are many different ways OIF and OEF families can plug in to our services.