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Digging into the Operation Recovery Campaign

By Nicole Baltrushes

As a member of Civilian Soldier Alliance, I came to this base town to support service members' right to heal. I wanted to meet service members where they're at, and Ft. Hood is one of the best places to do it. Ft. Hood in Killeen, Texas is the largest US military installation in the country, with over 75,000 active duty service members, half of whom are deployed at any given time. I arrived in the middle of July. The 1st Cavalry, 1st Brigade had started deploying to Iraq and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment was beginning to return from a year-long deployment.

I joined up with the Operation Recovery Campaign Deployment Team, a group of veteran and civilian organizers, working out of the Under the Hood GI Coffee House just off base. This campaign aims to stop the deployment of traumatized troops and support service members right to heal from Military Sexual Trauma (MST), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

Between 20% to 50% of all service members deployed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan have suffered PTSD. In 2007, the VA reported MST rates of 22% among female veterans registered with the VA. Suicide rates among active-duty troops, are twice as high as that of the civilian population, and veterans with PTSD are 6 times more likely to attempt suicide. There is clearly an epidemic of mental health issues within the military and still the Department of Defense is not following its own regulations about these issues. Someone has to force them to implement these changes.

"If soldiers don't feel empowered to hold their commands accountable to regulations regarding these issues, no one will," said Malachi Muncy, an Operation Recovery Organizer and Veteran of the Texas Army National Guard. Malachi deployed to Iraq twice and has been working with other IVAW resident organizers to build power in the ranks of active duty soldiers at Fort Hood to stand up for their right to heal.

In order to build this campaign, the Operation Recovery Deployment Team does outreach to active duty soldiers five days a week. Passing out flyers about the Operation Recovery Campaign and Under the Hood Café we would ask questions. We want to listen more than to talk. We ask about their experiences with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Military Sexual Trauma, and Traumatic Brain Injury. We ask about access to health care. We ask about their concerns, their questions. We ask what they think needs to change.

The weekly GI Rights training and free Barbeque that is hosted at Under the Hood Café on Thursdays is another opportunity to transform the space and ourselves. This past week the event brought us all together as a community of organizers as we prepared the food, cleaned, made signs and final outreach blitz to get people out. The evening transformed from screen-printing workshop to conversations about the rights and options of AWOL soldiers, to a musical performance by myself, to a porch jam session, and then back to screen printing.

Organizing in Killeen, we are lucky to get the chance to build community and have these conversations with active duty soldiers. As Lori Hurlebaus, CivSol resident organizer explained, "We get to talk to the people in the best position to imagine solutions because they have the most intimate experience with the problems."

Together we can build a community of support and resistance in the belly of the beast.

Nicole Baltrushes is a Civilian Soldier Alliance member from Chicago who has been working in her own community to break down the disconnect between our wars and everyday life. Nicole visited Under the Hood Café as a guest organizer in July, 2011.