ABSTRACT
This chapter is an expansion of an essay I wrote for a portfolio of fine art prints and essays in 2014, Celebrate People’s History: Iraq Veterans Against the War, a collaboration between some 60 veteran and nonveteran artists and writers to commemorate Iraq Veterans Against the War’s (IVAW) ten-year anniversary. Collaboration is the thread of the current chapter: in theme, subject material, its very composition, and its nascent end goal. Many of the following words have been given to me by the veterans who have been generous enough to let me follow their journey-words heard in many conversations and interviews from participants of Combat Paper New Jersey workshops, or found in the poetry of Warrior Writers,1 two of the most active organizations in the emerging veterans’ art movement.2 I have also asked Kevin Basl, an Iraq War veteran and facilitator with both organizations, to carefully read what I have written, in order to maintain respect for the cultures of the military and veterans in the telling of their stories. To get close to these veterans is to be touched and inspired. They have let me into their community to film them, interview them, listen to their stories, and make art with them and for that I am grateful.
