The Foreign Service Journal, October 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2014 59 AFSA NEWS AFSA BOOK NOTES Writing As Therapy: Retired FSO on Coping with PTSD On July 25, AFSA welcomed retired FSO and 2007 Rivkin dissent award winner Ron Capps to discuss his new book, Seriously Not All Right: Five Wars in Ten Years (Scha- ner Press Inc., 2014). The memoir details his experi- ences as a wartime observer during his 14-year Foreign Service career and as a senior Army Reserve ocer. Capps began the talk by reading a passage about see- ing war casualties from a Ser- bian infantry attack on a town in Kosovo. He recalled feeling helpless as an observer, a “tourist among victims.” Capps was witness to many harrowing events during his years of service: Rwanda from 1995 to 1998, Kosovo from 2000 to 2002, Afghanistan and Iraq from 2002 to 2004, and Darfur from 2004 to 2007. Haunted by the brutality, he developed depression and started hav- ing violent, graphic dreams. While in Afghanistan, Capps says, he realized he needed help. He sought treatment and, for a time, got better. However in 2005, while on a United Nations mission in Sudan, he relapsed significantly, spiraling into a deep post-traumatic stress disorder episode. He began to drink heavily and even attempted suicide. Capps read an excerpt about that period: “I was filled with a sense of failure and frustration, a sense of conclusion. It felt as if I had reached a logical place in my life to end it.” A well-timed phone call from his wife inter- rupted the attempt. He realized that he was “seriously not all right” and needed more help. He returned to the United States and retired in 2008 to seek treatment for PTSD. Throughout his struggles in some of the most danger- ous places in the world, one thing remained constant: writing. Separate from the crisp, value-neutral reports he regularly sent toWashington, Capps filled journals with uncensored notes of what he was seeing and experienc- ing. He used these notes and journals to write his book. “I found a way to write my way home when medical treatment wasn’t working for me,” he said. An excerpt from his book speaks on the heal- ing process of writing: “It was the first time I let my guard down about how messed up I was, because of what I had been a part of, and had witnessed firsthand.” Inspired to help other veterans cope with PTSD and shed light on the disease, Capps created the Veterans Writing Project (www.veterans writing.org/ ) in 2011 and is currently the organization’s director. The nonprofit pro- gram oers free writing workshops and semi- nars to veterans and their family members. In a question- and-answer session after the talk, Capps discussed how he’s dealing with his PTSD today: “I haven’t had any ‘seriously not all right’ days in quite a while.” He also touched on his work at theWalter Reed National Military Medical Cen- ter in Bethesda, Md., where he teaches weekly writing classes to active-duty service members with PTSD. “There’s a stigma attached to asking for mental health care,” he says. “The whole idea really, for all of us, is to get beyond the idea that mental health care diers from health care. It’s just health care.” To view Capps’ talk, please go to www.afsa.org/video. n –Brittany DeLong, Assistant Editor AFSA/JULIANSTEINER In early August, the first intern in a new joint program oered by AFSA and the Hispanic Employee Council of Foreign Aairs Agencies came toWashington to begin her internship. We are thrilled to welcome Gabriela Cardozo, whose internship is in the Oce of Environ- ment, Water and Conservation within the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Aairs. The AFSA/HECFAA internship is modeled on a program AFSA and the Thursday Luncheon Group have collaborated on since 1992. Each summer, it brings a minority college student to the Department of State for an internship. Cardozo graduated this past June with a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California-Los Angeles Luskin School of Public Aairs, with a focus on environmental and international policy. AFSA WELCOMES F I RST HECFAA I NTERN