Blood, Sweat and Tears
Class lets soldiers tell their stories by turning combat uniforms into art
At first, cutting up his combat fatigues into little bits gave Alvin Garcia pause. He was taught to revere the uniform, to honor and respect it. Not destroy it.
But as he turned it into pulp and ultimately a work of art, he realized he was honoring the experiences he had in the uniform by transforming it into paper on which to tell his story for his veterans-only art class, Combat Paper.
Winston Andraca helps fellow veteran and student Alvin Mathew achieve the proper saturation on the paper he made from his combat uniform. Through an ancient paper making process, the veterans are able to tell their war stories through art.
"It was a somber moment for me," he says. "It felt uncomfortable. But as I created the art, I relived that moment in my deployment. This class has given me the opportunity to decompress."
For Garcia, and others like him, the class offered even more than that. It offered a community.
"We came together as students and strangers and left as family. How can you beat that?" says Garcia, a 50-year-old junior working on his second degree, who was deployed to Iraq in 2009 and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
After bringing in Combat Paper NJ to campus for a workshop in 2012, Montclair State became the first university to offer it as a three-credit art course for veterans only in 2013, as a way to encourage them not only to deal with their experiences but to also share their feelings with others.
The course, taught by Montclair State alumnus David Keefe, who spent several years in the U.S. Marine Corps, including a combat tour in Iraq, offers both closed and open sessions. During closed sessions, the former soldiers share their experiences and feelings with each other. And in the open sessions, they work to create their art, using an ancient technique for turning cloth into paper.
"In the process of deconstructing the experience, we can reclaim it," says Keefe, who earned his MFA in 2009 and is the director of Combat Paper NJ, a program of the Printmaking Center of New Jersey in Branchburg. "It's a great way to repurpose the uniform and use it as a new way to tell our stories."
At the end of each course, there's an exhibit open to the public. "That's the whole point – to help veterans to go through a transformative process, giving them the confidence to engage the public and change the way people view veterans, and to help them understand what veterans go through."
The course is one of many ways Montclair State – named a military-friendly university by G.I. Jobs magazine for the last five years – reaches out to its more than 200 veteran students.
Veteran and instructor David Keefe talks with students in his fall 2014 Combat Paper course.
"The Combat Paper course has helped ease the transition from military to civilian life for so many veterans," says Denise Rodak, coordinator of Veteran and Military Resources. "I'm proud the University offers Combat Paper as a credit-bearing course, which helps veterans work toward degree completion."
“In the process of deconstructing the experience, we can reclaim it. It’s a great way to repurpose the uniform and use it as a new way to tell our stories.”
- David Keefe
Winston Andraca, a 25-year-old sophomore who spent five years in the Marine Corps and returned from Afghanistan last spring, says he learned more from the Combat Paper class than any other class he's taken.
"We share stories and experiences. There's no judging – everyone accepts what you've been through," Andraca says. "You not only learn about creating art, you learn more about yourself and you realize that you're not the only one."
At their exhibit in December, the students talked about what their pieces meant to them, what ideas went into creating the art and what memories it evoked.
Andraca's piece, "Live by the Gun," with its depiction of a gun behind the universal red-slashed "no" sign, prompted a lot of discussion. Marines are taught to "live by the gun" and trained to kill the enemy, but as a civilian, he says, he has moved beyond that.
"I'm not aggressive and don't want to be aggressive," he said at the show. "I'm not that way now. We don't live by the gun now."
Garcia's piece, "You Can't Burn the War Away," evoked a lot of emotion as well. In Iraq, he worked in the burn pits, where they destroyed weapons and equipment so they would not fall into enemy hands once the United States military left. One of his superiors had told him to burn the war away, but Garcia knew that was impossible.
Examples of some of the veterans' art
"There's no way we could burn the war away – it will be with us forever," he told his classmates, to nods of affirmation.
James Yee's work depicted the iconic image of the twin towers with text that asked, "Why did you leave? We are all different because you did." The layered meaning of the piece resonated with the soldiers, most of whom enlisted because of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and were changed not only by that day, but also by their service.
Part of the reason for the art exhibit at the end of the course is to let the public view the art and hear the stories the veterans want to tell.
"There's almost a disconnect between the nonveteran and the veteran," Keefe says. "We want to change the public perception of what the veteran is. And, although we're winding down, after 14 years of war, the veteran's story is still important."
So is the course, the student veterans say.
"The last few months have been so introspective for me," Garcia says. "I didn't expect that. Most importantly, this course has given me the chance to mold myself into something better than I was."