-
Creative Arts for Veterans
Former Veterans History Project graduate student Caleb Pittman recently reached out to us to share information about a new initiative that he is working on to support veterans’ wellness: The Creative Arts for Veterans (CAV) Book is an interdisciplinary (human rights, social work, and art therapy) designed therapeutic guidebook to aid in improving well-being through arts-based exercises infused with social work and art therapy practices, veteran narratives, and supplemental veteran-centric wellness resources. CAV Books are accompanied with art supplies (oil pastels, water-colored pencils, paintbrush, pencil sharpener, and charcoals). Evidence based research shows that arts-based wellness can reduce symptoms related to isolation, anxiety, depression, loneliness, post-traumatic stress, military sexual trauma, transition…
-
Stories: Connecticut Servicewomen
The 20th century saw the United States military undergo rapid transformation, implementing a variety of newfangled equipment, modern tactics, and developed new doctrine. One such change was the integration of women in the U.S. armed forces. Transcending Apple Pie and Motherhood: Women in the Military Recent historiography has delved into the adoption of women in the military. From the Second World War to the Invasion of Iraq, historians have spoken of the military’s utilization of women as a (wo)manpower resource, the military integration policies of the Cold War, and the prohibition of women from direct combat. This presentation contextualizes the service of Connecticut’s female veterans, showcasing the veterans’ individual roles…
-
Vets Town Hall
From Peter Moran, the VHP’s former graduate student worker, currently at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History: On November 5, we will be hosting a Vets Town Hall. Veterans of any era who served in any capacity are invited to stand before their community and speak for up to ten minutes about what it was like to serve their country. Non-veterans are encouraged to attend and listen. This event is non-political, and all perspectives are valued. There will be no question-and-answer period or debate on American foreign policy. Attendees will simply listen and learn about what it was like to serve in the wars that this nation has chosen…
-
Stories: Albert C. Stewart
Albert C. Stewart was one of only a handful of Black officers in the Navy during the WWII era. He served as a Lieutenant at the tail end of the war in the Pacific Theater on the fleet oiler USS Sabine. Initially, Stewart was drafted to be a weatherman for the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American pilots and airmen who fought in WWII as part of the Air Force. However, the military already had the two Black soldiers who would serve as weathermen, so Stewart was put back in the general draft list. In the meantime, he graduated from the University of Chicago. Unlike white college graduates, who…
-
Remembering July 27th
“That is my fear, that the ‘Forgotten War’ will really be the forgotten war.” Robert Dornfried, August 11, 2013. For millions of Americans, the Korean War is lost among the 20th-century wars. Stuck between the famous, global Second World War and the well-documented, controversial Vietnam War, the Korean War is lost and forgotten by many. More than 5,700,000 U.S. servicemen were involved in the Korean War, many were young men who served during the Second World War, enlisted as they were too young to serve their country during the Second World War, or were drafted. The Veterans History Project has archived many of these veterans’ tales of the Korean War.…
-
Operation Overlord: Robert C. Hunt
“Ten minutes to Six, I think it was, the USS Texas opened fire on the beach and that was the beginning of the battle for us.” Robert C. Hunt On the 6th of June 1944, the Western Allies; the United States, Britain, and Canada initiated Operation Overlord, the invasion of German-occupied Northern France. The combined assault consisted of the largest Armada ever assembled, over 7000 allied ships and approximately 160,000 soldiers, and tens of thousands of paratroopers dropped behind the beaches and fortifications. Connecticut Veteran, Corporal Robert C Hunt was one of the many soldiers who waded ashore in the first hours of the invasion. Hunt was part of the…
-
Stories: No Interview? No Problem!
The Veterans History Project boasts hundreds of interviews of veterans in America. However, not every person within the collection has an interview. The lack of interviews can be for a number of reasons such as they passed away before an interview was conducted. However, this does not mean they cannot provide insight into the past. In many cases, their relatives were able to provide documents and pictures of that person. Jerome Glaser, born on the 22nd of May, 1898, and died on the 6th of April 1985, left an abundance of documents behind after his death. While he was not a veteran of the Second World War, his documents show…
-
PTSD Series: Modern Warfare
Veterans of Middle East Wars I put my arm around and talk to him when ever I could. Kevin brown In the Middle Eastern Conflicts of the twenty-first century, soldiers face the same stressful, traumatic experiences as the previous veterans. As with the previous wars, soldiers relied on each other, they aided one another and helped to cope with the circumstances. In his interview, Colonel Kevin Brown, a veteran of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf described an encounter with a soldier who was part of a traumatic event. A bullet hit a soldier’s femoral artery, ricocheted out, and hit the Platoon Sergeant in the chest. The medic save the…
-
PTSD Series: Vietnam
Vietnam War Veterans In the second part of this series, we will look at the Veterans of the Vietnam War. Vietnam veterans were the first applied with PTSD. The term was coined in 1980, five years after Vietnam, by the American Psychological Association because there was an increase in attention to mental health in academia. Studies of holocaust survivors, world war accounts, comparisons of Homer’s Iliad and Shakespeare’s Henry IV to modern examples of PTSD, and 1800’s psychiatric journals were the focus of the 1980s to the 1990s, and have become more relevant for veterans overseas since 9/11. In the collection, the Vietnam veterans tell their stories of returning home…
-
PTSD Series: Second World War
Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder This is the first post of this 3-part series of veteran-related PSTD. The twentieth century saw millions of Americans, men women, and children, mobilizing for war. Unlike previous centuries, the wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries were a marriage of combat and industry, nations built bigger and bigger guns, armed millions of their citizens, and new technological advancements lead to new armament innovations such as tanks and planes. Returning veterans came home changed, their previous personalities and lives were altered by their experiences overseas. The constant traumatic, stressful, and deadly circumstances afflicted the mental state of millions of men and women with what is now known as Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder…
