Do you know anyone who has served in the military? Do they talk about it? When I was in Middle School/High School soldiers were coming back from Vietnam and having a very difficult time. It seems like our country has gotten better at supporting our soldiers, even if we don’t agree with the wars. What you do you think?

Every time I plop a bunch of LEGO in front of students for unstructured play a majority of students will make some form of a gun or other weapon, and this is not just the boys. Even when I prompt them to build something else specifically, some will make a gun anyway. When they play on their devices the vast majority are playing some shooter game. In that I personally lack the gaming-gene, it’s hard for me to understand why they are always playing shooter games and making guns. But I’m sure, as a kid, I made my fair share of guns out of sticks or parts of mom’s vacuum-cleaner. 

I told my students when introducing this prompt, that when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s that joining the military was thought to be a good way for people growing in minority communities to eventually go to college or at least leave their neighborhoods and see the world. My dad talked about serving in Korea and Japan and I could see the Asian influence in his home landscape designs. But I don’t know if he actually saw any combat. The Vietnam vets that I met as a young adult and when working at the Phone Company in the early 80s had nothing good to say about their experiences and like the veteran in the video, had a tendency to “self-medicate.” I’ve heard it said that an unexpected consequence of soldiers getting much better medical care is that because of the higher survival rate, more soldiers are in need of care for the emotional/mental trauma of having survived. 

I long for the day when students will convert their weapons into tools for sharing, beauty and creativity and not violence.  How do you feel about veterans having to deal with the consequences of serving our country? 

Source: PBS Newshour Student Reporting Labs, https://studentreportinglabs.org/youth-reporting/advice-from-a-veteran-on-how-to-talk-to-someone-with-ptsd/