![\"Shawn](\"https:\/\/artsci.washington.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/scale_475_wide\/public\/English_RedBadgeProject_ShawnWong1_525.jpg?itok=0wul_L0s\" "\\"Shawn")
<\/div>\n<\/div>That \u2018something\u2019 became the Red Badge Project<\/a>, which provides soldiers with the tools to tell their own stories in their own way. \u00a0Skerritt, who served in the Air Force, and his neighbor Evan Bailey, a former Army captain, co-founded the nonprofit four years ago with the help of Wong and two other accomplished storytellers, Brian McDonald and Warren Etheredge.<\/p>\n Wong, McDonald, and Etheredge lead Red Badge classes and workshops, with Skerritt visiting frequently. The students come from the Warrior Transition Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), a battalion of injured soldiers transitioning to civilian life. \u201cWe are basically part of their medical therapy,\u201d says Wong. \u201cIt\u2019s writing therapy. I often say that I\u2019m practicing medicine without a license.\u201d<\/p>\n Having taught creative writing at the UW for more than three decades, Wong assumed he could use the same teaching approach with the soldiers. He quickly discovered otherwise. \u201cEvery one of the soldiers is angry, from really angry to pretty angry,\u201d says Wong. \u201cThey have experienced a lot of trauma and the trauma is very recent. So while in my UW classes I rarely talk about myself and what I\u2019ve been through in my life, in these classes I talk about the traumas in my own life and how I\u2019ve dealt with them. They listen very intently.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The thing that impresses me is how honest everybody is in what they put down on paper. Once they realize they can say and write whatever they want, they really make some progress.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As a non-veteran, Wong initially worried how he would be received by the soldiers. To his surprise, they like the fact that he is a civilian, particularly since they are transitioning to civilian life. And because nothing from class ends up in their Army record, they feel comfortable speaking freely. \u201cWe don\u2019t ask them to write about anything in particular,\u201d says Wong. \u201cWe don\u2019t ask them to write about combat or trauma. I\u2019ll put out a writing prompt, and it\u2019s up to them to decide what to write about. The thing that impresses me is how honest everybody is in what they put down on paper. Once they realize they can say and write whatever they want, they really make some progress.\u201d<\/p>\n That progress presents in surprising ways. Wong recalls a National Guard soldier who had suffered more than half a dozen concussions from roadside bombs and had lost motor function in his fingers. He\u2019d been a middle school teacher before deployment but was now unable to type and had trouble writing by hand. \u201cI would say he was the angriest of all the students,\u201d says Wong.\u00a0 Doctors told the soldier his injuries were likely permanent, but after taking the Red Badge Project class multiple times, he regained the ability to type and write\u2014and got his old teaching job back. \u201cBefore he left, he told us, \u2018I don\u2019t know how to say this, but you saved my life,\u2019\u201d recalls Wong. \u201cThere are moments like that when you realize the importance of what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Wong can point to other examples, including a soldier whose uncontrollable tic disappeared whenever he wrote in his class journal, or a soldier who was silent and aloof in class for days until one day he shared a story that was immensely personal and heartbreaking. \u201cOne of the things the soldiers have told us over the years is that they find our classes safe,\u201d says Wong. \u201cThey realize it\u2019s a safe place.\u201d<\/p>\n Since launching in 2011, the Red Badge Project has expanded to include a Women\u2019s Group led by writer Sonja Lea, and a class in Walla Walla made possible through funds raised by the Walla Walla Veterans Center. The Walla Walla class is taught by local college faculty, trained by Wong and other Red Badge Project volunteers.<\/p>\n Wong has found the Red Badge Project to be more satisfying than he ever imagined. \u201cEvery time I\u2019m in class I learn something new,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can\u2019t hear the soldiers\u2019 stories and not be affected by them. In the beginning, I didn\u2019t know what to do with those stories. I carried around that weight. I\u2019d wake up at night, worrying about the soldiers. But as I became more confident with my teaching and I could see that I was helping them, that made it better. It\u2019s the most challenging teaching I\u2019ve ever done, but also the most rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n The bottom line, says Wong, is that the soldiers now feel free to tell their stories. \u201cWhile they can\u2019t always control what happens to them, they can control the message<\/em> of what happens to them,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd that\u2019s probably more important than anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n .\u00a0\u00a0 .\u00a0\u00a0 .<\/p>\n The Red Badge Project now offers a class at the University of Washington Tacoma with the support of UW Tacoma’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences. For more about the Red Badge Project, visit <\/em>theredbadgeproject.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Shawn Wong will\u00a0speak about\u00a0the Red Badge Project at a\u00a0talk sponsored by the Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau on April 2 at 4 pm at the Clinton Library on Whidbey Island. The talk\u00a0is free and open to the public.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When actor Tom Skerritt learned that more American soldiers were committing suicide than being killed in Afghanistan, and that many felt no one was listening to their story, he was determined to help. He called several friends, including novelist and screenwriter Shawn Wong, UW professor of English. \u201cWe know how to tell a story and…<\/p>\n\n
![\"Soldiers](\"https:\/\/artsci.washington.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/scale_475_wide\/public\/English_RedBadgeProject_Hands_350.jpg?itok=rVfXDmGo\" "\\"Soldiers")
<\/div>\n<\/div>![\"Shawn](\"https:\/\/artsci.washington.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/scale_475_wide\/public\/English_RedBadgeProject_ShawnWong%2BTomSkerrit_PhotoBy-JohnnyBivera_350.jpg?itok=7TyS19VD\" "\\"Shawn")
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