Here at The Warriors Wall, the choice of a topic to write about is, of course, always yours. But every couple weeks you’ll find a new suggestion in The Idea File that just might lead to a story you’ve been wanting to write, meaning to write, but weren’t quite sure how or where to begin. It’s my hope this could be the place where that story starts.

My connection to war and its stories goes beyond my work as a freelance journalist. In 2002, my then nineteen-year-old son joined the Army, the infantry. He served two tours of duty in Iraq at the height of the insurgency and returned home in 2006 with a Purple Heart.

From my family’s experience of the war, chronicled in the book Minefields of the Heart: A Mother’s Stories of a Son at War (Potomac Books, June, 2010) and from the ongoing experience of leading writing workshops for war veterans at the San Diego Vet Center, I’ve come to know in a very real way the therapeutic benefits not only of writing about difficult times, but also writing through them. And it is an awareness of those benefits and a desire to share them that has led me to post the writing prompts you’ll find here at the site.

I recently learned of a project that offers veterans who write poetry an opportunity to have their words be part of special art exhibit in galleries all over the country.

Here’s a brief description of that project from the website of the Wick Poetry Center, one of its sponsors:

“For the last decade, the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam has collected artwork on the theme of peace and war made by Vietnamese children. From this collection, we’ve selected about sixty images to showcase—for the first time—in galleries across the United States. Alongside the paintings and drawings, we’re also planning to exhibit original poems written by American students, veterans, and professional poets.  We invite you to respond to these provocative images of peace and war.”  

To view those drawings and paintings and to learn more about the project’s details and deadlines, click here.

There’s a window here in my home office that invites me to look up from the keyboard of my computer and look out. And when I do, I see the papery trunk of a tall tree in the corner of the front yard – a melaleuca. It’s been a steady and growing presence there for more than twenty years. In some seasons, it’s a roost for blue jays; in others, a home for hummingbirds. But always, for me, a towering indicator of the passage of time. When I look at it now, it seems impossible that it once fit into a five-gallon Evergreen Nursery container and the trunk of a Toyota Tercel.

Trees. In a short poem by the same title, the poet Mary Oliver offers this reflection on the topic:

Do you think of them as decoration?

Think again.

Here are maples, flashing.

And here are the oaks, holding on all winter

to their dry leaves.

And here are the pines, that will never fail,

until death, the instruction to be green.

And here are the willows, the first

to pronounce a new year.

May I invite you to revise your thoughts about them?

Oh, Lord, how we are all for invention and

advancement!

But I think

it would do us good if we would think about

these brothers and sisters, quietly and deeply.

The trees, the trees, just holding on

to the old, holy ways.

Today I invite you to write a story, one connected with your time in the service, a story that starts with or includes the image of a tree. Maybe it’s a mangrove tree that hid a sniper in the jungles of Vietnam. Or a palm along the banks of the Euphrates that rustled with the winds of Medivac choppers. Or a plastic Christmas tree that decked the hall of a base a world away from home.

Trees. Start there and see where the image takes you.

With the writing group at the San Diego Vet Center yesterday I tried out a new prompt at our first workshop meeting of the new year.  And I was delighted at the range and depth of the writing that resulted. The best writing prompts, it seems to me, are the ones that can open a door to all kinds of stories, a prompt that can lead a writer back to a childhood memory as readily as it can bring up a recollection of a boot-camp sergeant or a reminiscence about a long-lost buddy.

Yesterday’s prompt was simply this: “Tell me about a clock you looked at for a long time. Write for twenty minutes.”

In the readings afterwards we heard about heirloom grandfather clocks and trusty Timex watches, no-frills clocks on the walls of hospital rooms and on the bedside tables of snoring grandmothers. But more than just descriptions of things that tick and tock, yesterday’s stories ended up saying something – in between the lines — about the passage of time, the transitory nature of life, and the mystery of it all.

I invite you to see where this prompt takes you. Write in your blog for twenty minutes. Share with us a story of a clock you looked at for a long time.

It used to be that tattoos were out of the mainstream, something you might glimpse on the arm of a Hell’s Angel or on the bicep of an old uncle with a shady past.  But today it’s not uncommon to see an ankle tattoo on a soccer mom or an arm-length of “ink” on a professional football player or a pretty cherry blossom on the shoulder of a young bride. And more than a few soldiers have come home from Iraq and Afghanistan with a “tat”. . . or two. . . or three.

Each tattoo, in its own way, tells a story. If you have one or if you are close to someone who does, tell us its story. You might start by describing that tattoo in as much detail as you can. Why was that design chosen? What did it mean at the time? What does it mean now?  Share with your colleagues here at The Wall the story of a tattoo.

This time of year, more than most it seems, is a time of remembering. And even though it’s December, 2009, at different moments in the next few weeks, for some of us it will once again be “Christmas, 1969” or “1992” or “2004.” Dickens was right. No matter the year, at some point during Christmas Present, our thoughts will be visited by the Spirits of Christmases Past.

Is there a particular holiday memory that stands out for you as a veteran? The irony of hearing “Silent Night” in a combat zone?  A care package fruitcake that tasted like home? A sergeant turned Santa? A holiday leave with a deployment looming?

Here’s an idea for your Warriors Wall blog: Pick a Christmas you remember well and take us back there with you. What does the memory of that holiday mean to you now? I invite you to share with your fellow veterans here at The Wall — in the spirit of the season – a memorable Christmas Past.

Your story could be featured in a new section – still in the planning stages — of the Warriors Wall homepage called “Pick of the Posts.” It will be a place to bring attention to selected blog postings, especially those written in response to suggestions from The Idea File on the site.

Wishing you the peace of the season – this year and always.

In this video (click to watch) soldiers in Afghanistan tell NBC correspondent, Richard Engel, about the mementos they always carry with them. From a child’s Legos to a girlfriend’s picture to a grandfather’s dog tags, these objects serve as good luck charms, modern-day talismans, or at the very least, treasured reminders of a place called home.

When you were in the service, did you carry a memento with you? Describe it for us. Tell us the story of a small thing that meant the world to you. The thing you carried.

How much can you say about your life in just six words? That’s the idea behind this prompt borrowed from the book, “Six-Word Memoirs.” The challenge is to sum up your experience or your philosophy in six well-chosen words. Topics can range from life to love to war to work to relationships to, well, you name it. Six words can sometimes suggest a much larger story or pack an emotional punch as powerful as a good poem.

With the writing groups I lead, this is one of my favorite exercises. The end results run the gamut from thought-provoking to laugh-out-loud funny. Here are a few examples:

Three hots. One cot. Numerous orders.

Decades of misery dispelled by forgiveness.

Found true love, married someone else.

Despairing no more. Learning to live.

Home is never the same again.

Yes we can, but only together.

Want to cook for somebody. Anybody.

Searches for meaning. Also reads People.

Sex in the morning. Screw coffee!

For every bomb, build a school.

She died when I was twenty.

Big Mac. Large fries. Diet Coke.

To sum up this writing prompt in just six words: “Get the idea? Write yours here.”

An “aha moment” is one of those moments when you suddenly come to a new realization about life, the world, your country, yourself. A moment of clarity. A flash of insight that leaves you thinking, “I get it. I understand.” A moment like that can also leave you feeling a little – or a lot — wiser than before. Aha moments are often game-changing or even life-changing.

In this poem by Yusef Komunyakaa, a veteran visits the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, and in the very last line comes to a quiet realization, an “aha moment” that’s implied more than stated. The war has left him changed and his sense of loss is real and undeniable. But the image at the end of the poem says to him and to us, “Life can – and does — go on.”

Facing It

Write the story of an ”aha moment” of your own – from any time in your life.  Share with us what how and where it happened, and what you realized from the experience.