Mending Mental Gaps: Negotiating Combat Trauma via Visual/Textual Humanities

FAIN: AV-298497-24

University of Texas, Permian Basin (Odessa, TX 79762-8122)
Myra Lee Salcedo (Project Director: September 2023 to August 2024)
Rebecca Susan Babcock (Project Director: August 2024 to present)
Rebecca Susan Babcock (Co Project Director: March 2024 to August 2024)
John Fisher (Co Project Director: March 2024 to August 2024)
Marlon Fick (Co Project Director: August 2024 to present)

A two-year project for 60 veterans that utilizes visual arts and multiple text formats to discuss healing after military trauma.

Veterans, active military, and (in separate forums) the West Texas community. will engage in war-themed literature, especially with visual literacy in the way of graphic novels and comics, poems, non-fiction and fiction. Unique to the project is the fact that various branches of the U.S. Military are creating pre-deployment graphic novels and comics (visual works) that replace text manuals. In addition, national veterans' affairs organizations are offering post-deployment animated visuals to mitigate military stress. Themes include honor, camaraderie, displacement, mental gaps during moments of trauma, and the second shock of homecoming. Veterans will spark engagement by reading reflections from their journals of experiences to encourage further groups and dialogue. The words of participants will be recorded for the visually impaired if they so desire. Conflicts will largely focus on the Vietnam War, and those in Iraq and Afghanistan.