›› TALKiNG PiCTURES
War and remembrance ‘Welcome Home’ gives veterans a voice, and a verse... by D av i d Te m p l e t o n
Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate post-film conversation. This is not a movie review; rather, it’s a freewheeling, tangential discussion of life, alternative ideas and popular culture.
“I
feel like I’ve been crying for the last 90 minutes,” whispers Mary Kay Sweeney, executive director of Homeward Bound of Marin, the county’s primary provider of shelter and other support services for homeless folks and families. On a Thursday in the middle of the Mill Valley Film Festival, Sweeney and I have just seen Welcome Home, an astonishing and powerful documentary about a group of military veterans,
speak up through the words of the poetry they are required to write daily. As they open up to one another and themselves, some truly remarkable things begin to occur. As Meade suggests at the beginning of the film, many world cultures initiate their warriors by preparing them for battle, honor them as they are sent off to war and then welcome them with reverence and respect when they return, recognizing that they’ve witnessed things that are horrific and have achieved a sense of experience and wisdom. Included in that welcoming back is a willingness on the part of the community to listen to the stories the returning warriors tell. Recognizing that our culture today has no mechanism for truly
‘The Welcome,’ as it was originally titled, won the ‘audience favorite’ documentary honors at last month’s Mill Valley Film Festival. Director-producer Kim Sheltong, above left, with her crew.
all wrestling with post-traumatic stress welcoming returning solders, the concept disorder (PTSD), finding their individual behind Meade’s poetry-camp program is voices during a week-long writing retreat. to provide an alternative to the ancient Sweeney notes, once the standing ovation welcoming ceremonies. At the end of the for filmmaker Kim Shelton ends, “They film, the veterans all converge on the town should really hand out Kleenex when they of Ashland, where 500 residents pack the show this movie!” local theater to listen to the warriors’ rivetWelcome Home (formerly titled The Wel- ing, raw poems, songs and stories. come) was filmed in 2008 Welcome Home will be in the mountains above screened again as part of a Ashland, Oregon, and folfundraiser for Homeward Welcome Home lows 24 soldiers of varying Bound, Tuesday, Nov. 8, The benefit screening, ages and both genders, all supporting the work of at the Lark Theater in Homeward Bound of Marin, veterans who’ve served in Larkspur. takes place Tuesday, Nov. 8 at Iraq, Afghanistan or Viet“I’ve seen a lot of mov7:30pm, at the Lark Theater in nam. Inside the large meeties about war, heard a ing room of a camp-like Larkspur. A Q&A with the filmlot of stories about war,” retreat, the veterans gather makers follows. For informaI tell Sweeney after the tion, visit www.hbofm.org for daily sessions with aufilm, as we settle in at the thor/mythologist Michael Aroma Cafe next door to Meade. After a bumpy bethe Christopher B. Smith ginning fraught with reluctance, suspicion, Rafael Film Center, “but there are some anger and hurt, the participants gradually stories told in this film that I’ve never
Michael Meade, standing, and his poetry camp were inspired by cultures that treated their warriors as sages when they returned—something America doesn’t do.
heard before in my life.” The amount of ward Bound, and this movie shows how pain these people are carrying, and the powerful that can be. choking reluctance to share their stories “But the work that Michael Meade is with others, is as gripping as a thriller, and doing,” she goes on, “as shown in this as moving as a Shakespearean tragedy. But movie, is absolutely astonishing! I think ultimately, the healing they experience, there’s so much in our culture we need to finally, from being heard by their peers, learn about welcoming veterans home. I and welcomed so enthusiastically by the loved how he said, at the beginning, that people who come into Ashland to hear when the warriors return, we have to be them speak, is powerfully positive and able to see that their experience is a gift, brimming with hope. that they all have gifts of wisdom and “There is something dramatically wrong experience. They have stories to tell. We with our culture,” replies Sweeney, “that don’t want to hear those stories, though. we allow so many people to be in so much We forget that telling us their stories is part pain, that we refuse to extend so many of the way they will be able to heal.” people a sense of participation and worth “And it’s not enough to just tell their stoand welcome.” ries,” I comment, thinking of the veteran in Sweeney began her work with Home- the movie who makes it perfectly clear she ward Bound 19 years ago, launching what does not want advice or feedback, that she was expected to be a foursimply wants her peers to month pilot program. hear her. “They have to Then she fell in love with know,” I remark, “there is the work, and has been someone willing to hear working with homeless what they have to say.” people ever since. As we “That’s my main job,” wait for our drinks to Sweeney says, “listening appear on the counter, to people. That’s not easy, Sweeney tells me that apbecause it often doesn’t proximately 10 percent feel like enough. We of the homeless adults want to fix it, whatever ser ved by Homeward the problem is. We want Bound are military vetthem to get on a path erans. Estimates put the that’s right, and we think number of homeless vetwe know what the path is. erans in America at about It’s such a challenge to re525,000. Of the 23 million alize that someone’s path, veterans currently living their journey, and the in the U.S. (a quarter of Sweeney turned a four-month pilot program pace they move at along whom live in California), launched in 1992 into one of the most that journey—that’s one in every 44 is pres- respected nonprofit agencies in Marin. theirs to decide. That’s ently without shelter. something we have to Currently, there are 16 vets who are honor. We can be companions on another utilizing Homeward Bound services. In person’s journey, but we can’t prescribe it, Marin County, Sweeney points out, it’s we can’t show the way. All we can do is be still mostly Vietnam vets who end up there with them as they take their steps. homeless. And sometimes those steps don’t seem like “After all these years,” she says, “that war very good choices—but we have to be OK is still haunting these guys. It’s interesting. with that. In watching this movie, I found myself “It’s their lives,” Sweeney affirms. “It’s constantly thinking, ‘We have to get better their story.” ✹ at listening. We have to find better ways to encourage people to tell their stories.’ We It’s your movie, speak up at have writing groups ourselves, at Home›› pacificsun.com NOVEMBER 4 - NOVEMBER 10, 2011 PACIFIC SUN 25