A Decade of War
Now, we rebuild the peace, at home
Reconnect
the pieces, at home
Reintegrate
body and mind, heart and soul,
families, communities,
a whole culture, veterans and civilians
we make the (inner) peace, the (collective)
peace, A Decade of War
not over yet we build a
Community
safety, healing and
nourishment
with our sweat, our tears, our love and our
laughter
shoulder to shoulder
We Come All The Way
Home
together
-- dedicated to Bob Briggs, Russ Anderson, and Jason Cooper
11-11-11 Benefit
Board member Mark Pinto is busy planning a benefit for Coming Home on Veterans Day, 11-11-11, that will include an art auction, art show, and a concert at the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse in Berkeley. Please join us! Learn more here. At the benefit, we are also planning a community program for veteran and civilian families and children based on the intergenerational communication ritual pioneered at our family retreats last summer. Learn more here.
Coming Home & ServiceNation
Coming Home has become a coalition member of Mission Serve, the ServiceNation’s civilian-military initiative, connecting civilian and military communities through public service. Public service is a natural extension of Coming Home’s own mission facilitating reintegration at the individual, peer, family and community levels. We welcome this affiliation and look forward to working together to help veterans “come all the way home.” Explore ServiceNation.
Equine Assisted Wellness Workshop
In collaboration with the Concord Vet Center, the East Bay Collaborative, the Presidio Riding Club, we held a daylong workshop focusing on equine-related approaches to treating the unseen wounds of war. It was a great success and we are planning two additional events utilizing this integrative modality. The first will take place in early 2012 in collaboration with Notre Dame de Namur University, the Dorothy Stang Center for Social Justice and Community Engagement, and NCEFT (the National Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy) at their beautiful facility in Woodside, CA.
“The Common Good”
Coming Home Board member Chaplain LTC (Ret) Steve Torgerson’s perspective aired on KQED radio a few weeks ago. It is a message for the ages, and ours in particular. Click here to read Steve's Perspective.
A Life Remembered
Please read about Bob Briggs, a truly remarkable human being and former Coming Home retreat participant, on the AW2 blog. Bob’s sudden and unexpected death shocked and saddened all who loved him and created a deep sense of loss. We are so grateful to have had the time with him that we did. Click here to read "A Life Remembered"
Food for Thought
Some new reads: Minefield’s of the Heart: A Mother’s Story of a Son at War, by Sue Diaz; The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of our Soldiers, by Nancy Sherman; The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Makings of a Navy Seal, by Eric Greitans; What it is Like to Go to War, by Karl Marlantes; and Combat and Operational Stress, ed: Dr. Elspeth C. Ritchie. I add War and Redemption by Larry Dewey to this list; although it’s not new, I recommend it (ADM Mullen found it valuable, too).
Travels and Meetings
I attended a terrific conference, Caring for Rural Veterans: A Community Response, in Bend, OR. This free training event for mental health providers and first responders, a joint collaboration of the Portland VA Medical Center Rural Mental Health Program and the VISN 20 NW Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center, was intended to increase access to available resources. It was a truly community-building program, remarkable for the diversity of the participants, the upbeat tone, and the amount of information shared and networks built. I met many wonderful people among whom was Larry Dewey, author of War and Redemption, recommended above. The two keynotes, by E. Cameron Ritchie, and Patricia Watkins from the National Center for PTSD were superb. Above I recommended the next textbook edited by Dr Ritchie, available here, and want to add the ongoing seminal work by Dr Watson, as well available here.
I also visited Washington DC and New York, where I made rounds through the Pentagon, the Hill and the VA, continuing to develop relationships with potential strategic partners, in the interest of cooperatively “joining forces.”
Sincerely,
Joe
Dr. Joseph Bobrow, Roshi
Founder and President