For a country with a national rhetoric so strongly centered around the glorification of armed service, it is incredible how few of us are acquainted with the jarring realities behind military life. With a rate of 22 veteran suicides per day, it is no secret that the United States has yet to address the many hardships that come with reintegration. From post-traumatic stress disorders to chronic mental illness, drug abuse to the lingering shadows of sexual violence, life after war can be as wrought with adversity as life on the frontlines. So why are so many of these issues considered taboo?
“Telling: Stanford” seeks to address this very question. Directed by Stanford alum Alex Mallory ‘08, the show represents part of a larger organization called “The Telling Project,” which works with veterans and/or relatives of veterans from around the nation to craft their stories into monologues and process these monologues into longer pieces of documentary theater. The project is centered around the many incongruities which lie in the discourse surrounding military service – the growing divide between civilians and the 1% who actually serve. The cast of the show is comprised of five Bay Area residents, all with vital insights to share.
From the onset, it is clear that these narratives are far from being uniform. While some people, such as Marine Officer candidate Leslie Bridges ‘17, express a strong enthusiasm for America’s military culture, the circumstances surrounding each individual’s enlistment are not always so idyllic. For Victoria Sanders, who served in the army from 1975 to 1976, the military was a means of escaping life as a single mother on welfare, earning only $2.10 an hour. For Randall Holmes, Human Intelligence Collector, it was an opportunity to earn a stipend to community college. For Bobby McLean, Special Operations Airborne Ranger, it marked a one-way ticket out of adolescent aimlessness. Reflecting on his decision to enlist, he tells us, “I wrestled with my meaningless life and thought about America. I began to think of myself as a patriot.” As each story unfolds, we begin to see the complexity of the military’s role in each person’s life.
Leana Litchfield, a Florida school teacher, spends her time as a Navy wife planning “mandatory fun” with the other ladies at her base and effectively operates as a single mother – while at the same time battling breast cancer and waving goodbye to her husband more times than she can count. Sanders, one of the few women at her base, describes the harrowing sexism that awaits so many women in military environments. She recounts fellow soldiers catcalling new recruits, harassing nurses and hanging their genitals out of barracks windows as she passed by. In one heart-wrenching monologue, she shares her experience of being violently sexually assaulted while at work one morning – a fate which, as of 2014, was met by 76% of women and 57% of men during their time serving. Her testimony is powerful, and the honesty and strength she renders brought tears to my eyes for the first time since I became a regular theater-goer. The struggles she faces to provide a better life for her daughter – even in the midst of custody battles and a dehumanizing military justice system – are humbling, and force one to reflect on the tremendous sacrifices which working-class mothers must make to survive in this world.
For McLean and Holmes, realities on the ground are no less horrific. Their testimonies are poignantly nuanced, from recalling the butterfly-laced excitement of jumping from a plane to the absolute helplessness of watching friends and commanding officers die off one by one. Unsure of where to go, how to proceed or even why they’re there in the first place, both men grapple with the heightened paranoia fostered in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where soldiers are explicitly programmed to shoot at any military-aged men in the near vicinity. In a stunningly rendered moment of emotional breakdown, McLean, having witnessed one senseless killing too many, sums up his disillusionment in one sobering statement: “‘Winning’ is such a childish word to use for war.”
As they struggle to adjust back to life in America, Sanders, Holmes and McLean all manage to process their trauma into activism. Sanders goes on to testify before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and openly criticizes the retaliation faced by survivors within military structures. McLean, who describes falling into severe depression and turning to drugs after returning home, works with patients who have been diagnosed with PTSD at the Palo Alto VA Hospital. Holmes, now a graduate student in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences, spends his time researching the effects of exposure to hexavalent chromium, which he calls our generation’s “own version of agent orange.”
After such touching accounts of transformation, it is admittedly somewhat jarring to see the show end as it does: with all five participants in a line, forcing a happy resolution onto a narrative which has not been particularly kind towards anyone. Even more troublingly, and without attempting to overshadow the trials and tribulations of our veterans, we as an audience are given little access to the voices of those who remain silenced: civilians from Iraq or Afghanistan, the many refugees attempting to flee their countries or even soldiers of color (who continue to face heavy racism at the hands of hate groups). Such a lapse in representation is no small matter – after all, America’s military campaign is a matter of life and death.
Ultimately, “Telling: Stanford” directly challenges many of our assumptions about those who serve. It forces us to replace the abstraction evoked by the word “soldier” with something tangible, and to acknowledge the ways in which American veterans are used and abused by the very systems which claim to uplift them. Altogether, this leads us to the question of who is actually serving. But answering this is only half the battle; the remainder will come from finding ways to incorporate their stories into our resistance, and learning to criticize violent institutions without simplifying the experiences of those they recruit.
Contact Madelaine Bixler at mbixler ‘at’ stanford.edu.