Veterans and active military personnel will channel their experiences into literature and film during the weeklong residential Veterans Writing and Filmmaking Summer Seminar presented by the University Writing Program.
Veterans Writing Project founder Ron Capps and I WAS THERE Film Workshops founder Benjamin Patton spoke to faculty, staff, veterans and military service members about the necessity of a living history of military experiences at a reception for the program on Thursday evening at the Mount Vernon Campus.
The residential summer institute will be held from June 16 to 22, at no cost to participating veterans. The programming will focus on the often difficult transition from military to civilian life.
Students in the seminar will present both their written and filmed works at the end of the program.
“We can use these stories to bridge the gap between the veterans coming back from the war and the people that sent them there,” Mr. Capps said.
A 25-year Army Reserve and combat veteran, Mr. Capps has written for “The New York Times,” “TIME Magazine” and more.
His workshop was approved as a three-credit course at GW in 2012, and this summer, the Veterans Writing Workshop will begin publishing books under an independent imprint titled BCG Books.
Both Mr. Capps and Mr. Patton will manage the summer seminar, which empowers military service members to take ownership of their experiences through prose, poetry and short film, and encourages them to use their stories to educate the 99 percent of Americans who are not active duty military.
This marks the sixth writing workshop at GW geared toward the military community since the 2011 launch of the Veterans Writing Initiative. It is also GW’s first veterans program to include a filmmaking component.
“At the heart, it's about narrative,” said Mr. Patton, who is the grandson of the famous World War II Gen. George Patton and co-author of “Growing Up Patton: Reflections on Heroes, History and Family Wisdom.”
“I’m replacing a pen or a pencil with a camera because that’s an element of this generation you can’t overlook; it’s the medium of this generation,” he added.
I WAS THERE Film Workshops is a part of Mr. Patton’s larger nonprofit, Patton Veterans Project Inc., dedicated to assisting former soldiers and their families dealing with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The crowd was riveted by two short films produced by veterans for the I WAS THERE Film Workshops at Fort Carson in El Paso, Colo. The first featured combat footage from a helmet camera and the second, a short documentary, demonstrated the principles of the program— listen, collaborate, empower— and how they affected one soldier’s ability to find a new identity upon his return stateside.
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Julius W. Becton Jr., the former president of Prairie View A&M University and former superintendent of D.C. Public Schools, gave remarks following the viewing and praised GW for offering veteran-specific programming.
“I believe this is the kind of program that can be a successful model for other institutions,” he said.
This year, there are nearly 1,000 veterans and dependents using GI Bill benefits at GW with nearly half of that population receiving additional benefits through the Yellow Ribbon Program, and according to Derek Malone-France, the executive director of UWP, GW is prepared to use its resources and expert faculty to continue providing programming for veterans.
The Veterans Writing Workshop and the summer seminar are made possible by a donation from Joanne Holbrook Patton, MVS ’48, widow of Maj. Gen. George S. Patton Jr.