Art & Healing

-I'm kind of interested about drum therapy.

Are you guys down for, like, doing a little session together?

Can you explain it to us a little bit?

-Sure.

Yeah.

So, you know, what we do... One of the reasons drumming works so well is 'cause our bodies are always in a state of vibration.

You know, our cells, I mean, everything.

So what we find in drumming is once we get a beat going... ...after about two minutes, all of our biological rhythms are going to start to entrain to that.

-The beat of a drum, the firing of clay, and the fluid movement of dance can artfully express the feelings and emotions that veterans cannot express in words.

-The minute you get off the bus, they're starting to strip you of what makes you, you.

They take your clothes, they take your belongings, they lock them up until the end of basic training.

They give you a uniform that looks like everybody else.

They start to teach you how to talk.

They start to teach you how to do little things like brush your teeth and make your bed, so you do it like everybody else.

And so you slowly find that these individuals who had individual styles, individual quirks start to operate like everybody else.

-I realize, and I know a lot of veterans, we set aside our creative self when we serve.

And it's unfortunate -- I don't think a lot of us get back to it.

You know, it's like, that's why it's like when we were talking last night, like the three of us, our mission is to bring veterans back to their creative self, which to me is an expression of our highest self.

-How do your art -- How does your art touch people in a way?

Because obviously, not all art touches in a physical way.

-I did my first solo exhibition, and it had 12 sculptures.

And it was literally like 12 sculptures that represented moments or chapters in my life that changed me.

And I think that was the first time I...

I was able to self-heal and self-reconnect my emotional cables.

And I think that to me was the moment where I was like, I want to be able to offer to other veterans to be able to reconnect to themselves.

-Hi, I'm Stacy Pearsall, retired Air Force staff sergeant, and today, I'm sitting down with Trevor Meyer, Maria Salazar, and Román Baca, three veterans who are helping their peers find their voices and their peace through the arts.

"After Action."

-♪ There will be life ♪ ♪ There is a road ♪ ♪ Marching on ♪ ♪ Coming home ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] - [Presenter] Major funding for "After Action" is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

With the generosity of individuals, corporations, and foundations, the Endowment is proud to sponsor "After Action".

♪♪ -Trevor, Maria, Román, welcome to LowCountry Acres.

Thanks for coming out, and thanks for being here today.

I want to start with a little bit of background information.

And I'm going to start over here with you, Trevor.

Can you tell me a little bit about your path to the military, what you did in the service?

-Sure, absolutely.

You know, so my path to the military -- I'm a Navy veteran -- really, you know, started with my father.

He served in the United States Marine Corps.

He's a Vietnam veteran.

And so, just, you know, growing up with a Marine, around a Marine, you know, definitely made me, you know, take notice of the service.

Even though I'm a lifelong drummer, military didn't seem like something that I would have been interested in, but as I got older and realized that I needed more discipline and kind of wanted to follow in the footsteps of my dad, you know, the military seemed like the right choice.

-For centuries, drums were used by the military to communicate in combat.

But now, drums are used to heal people wounded by war.

After leaving Navy service as a Corpsman, percussionist Trevor Meyer co-founded Warrior Beat, where he combines the art of drumming and his military experience to help alleviate the suffering of fellow veterans.

-It was actually my father who talked me out of the Marine Corps and into the Navy.

A Corpsman named David R. Ray saved his life in Vietnam and was then killed shortly after and received the Medal of Honor.

And so, my dad said, "If you want to go in the service," he's like, "Be a Corpsman.

They were the best."

He's like, "In Vietnam, those guys just did everything."

Probably the best advice my dad has ever given me.

So I took him up on that and became a Corpsman.

-So cool.

-So you ended up with the Marines anyway.

-I did.

Yes.

-Okay.

Alright.

-I unfortunately did not end up with the Marines for long enough.

Being a Corpsman, that was my goal, was to be with a Marine Corps unit.

But I served in a time, a relatively peaceful time just after the first Gulf War, pre-9/11.

So I ended up in the Naval Hospital in Okinawa for several years and worked in the department of an intensive care unit and then transferred into the department of neurosurgery, which was a very educational experience in the Navy.

Yeah.

-What about you, Maria?

What's your story?

-So, my story...

I guess my sense of service comes from my dad as well.

He was a police officer in Peru, so I grew up watching him.

The climate in Peru at the time when we moved here was very heavy with the terrorism, so we ended up, you know, migrating here.

So, when 9/11 happened, something clicked for me.

And I felt like this time I was old enough to protect my family and my new home, and, you know, so I joined the Marine Corps.

It's been, I think, one of the best experiences of my life.

It's changed so much for me.

It's made really great connections, you know, and even after years that we've done out of service, every time we see a Marine, you know, like, "Ah!"

You know?

So, it just connects, right?

-The art of ceramics dates back to at least 24,000 BC, and humans have been shaping and sculpting pieces ever since.

At Claymore Vets art therapy studio, founder and Marine Corps veteran Maria Salazar uses clay to connect with service members who've been disconnected from society.

She combines her experience as a combat veteran, her art therapy degree, and personal artistic abilities to help others achieve post-traumatic growth.

How about you, Román?

-So, before the military, I was a classical ballet dancer.

I started dancing when I was just out of high school.

Started with musical theater and tap and jazz and ballet, but made a move to study primarily ballet because I enjoyed the physicality, the emotional connection, the rigorous study.

I worked as a professional ballet dancer for years, but once I started doing large-scale performances, I found that some of the socially charged pieces I did when I was studying weren't in the repertoire, and we were doing performances that put butts in seats and not performances that talked about the world.

And so I felt this calling, like both of you, to do something bigger, to participate in something that contributed to the greater good.

And my grandfather was in the Army.

His brothers spanned the four other services.

And so I also wanted a challenge, and I joined the United States Marine Corps.

-Nothing is more diametrically opposed than ballet and the military.

But for Román Baca, they're forever linked.

Upon enlisting in the Marine Corps, Román served as a machine gunner and was later deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, all the while keeping his experience as a classically trained ballet dancer a closely guarded secret.

After leaving service, Román co-founded Exit12 Dance Company, where he shares veterans' stories through the art of dance.

That seems like quite a leap, literally and figuratively.

[ Laughter ] -Pun intended.

-Yes, pun very intended.

And I'm curious, you know, to go from somewhere in the dance world is -- And, well, everybody here has an artistic sort of bent to their life, right?

You were all artists in some way before joining the service, and nothing seems more ill-fitted than art in the military.

But I would say each and every one of you also have a family legacy in the service.

So did one drive the other?

-Yeah, absolutely.

So, like, for me, like I said, I'm a first-generation immigrant.

So my dad is like, "You can either be a doctor or a lawyer."

I'm like, I hate blood.

I can argue pretty good.

So I'll be a paralegal, right?

I mean, but I've been painting since I was maybe eight, nine.

So I've been an artist all my life.

-Mm-hmm.

-I wanted to be an artist, but my dad was like, "That's not a job," right?

So, it was like, okay, what do I do?

So, I became a paralegal.

And then when 9/11 happened, I was just like, okay, I have to do something bigger.

But definitely, me wanting to make him proud of us, and also because of his sacrifice to bring us here, I wanted to give it back to him, you know?

And so that's how I became a paralegal, but even when I was going to join the Marine Corps, he didn't want me to.

I'm the first female of my family to even be in the military, so, you know, and everybody was like, "Are you crazy?"

I'm like, "Ah, yeah."

[ Laughs ] -What about the artistic part of you?

How did that mold itself into your military service, or did it not?

-In boot camp, I used to have visions of doing choreography down the squad bay.

And so I wanted to keep that sort of art alive through service.

But I got a care package from back home.

I was dating a ballerina at the time, and she sent a photo, a booklet of photos of us dancing together.

-Oh.

-And some of the guys, like, looked over my shoulder as I was flipping through it after mail call.

And two of the guys thought it was the best thing in the world.

They asked me tons of questions.

And one of the other recruits stopped talking to me at that point.

And, empathetic person, I thought that was because I had divulged my past and what I used to do for a profession.

And so then I bottled it up.

I didn't tell a single soul after that, until Fallujah, that I had danced.

-You know, for me, it was a total denial of my artistic self going into the Navy.

I didn't tell anybody I played drums.

You know, granted, I've been drumming since the age of four.

And that was my passion.

I always wanted to be in, like, the next Led Zeppelin, and next Beatles.

And so when I went to the Navy, I didn't tell anybody I drummed.

I remember they asked, "Who -- Is there musicians here?"

We have the Navy band auditions."

And I'm like, "Mm, not even gonna tell anybody I play."

And it was very difficult for me.

And so for my entire military career, I just -- I don't drum, I don't do art.

I am a Corpsman, that is why I'm here, and that's what I want to excel at.

And it was very difficult.

It wasn't until I was in Okinawa, one of the surgeons, he invited me out to a club.

He played sax and he's like, "Why don't you come along?"

And I'm like, "Okay," and there was a drum set there.

And he's like, "I'm gonna" -- I'm like, "I play drums."

He's like, "Well, get up with me."

I'm like, "Okay."

I got up there and did my thing, and he's like, "Whoa!

Why are you not doing this all the time?"

And I was just like, "'Cause I can't."

It's a passion, and so I'm all in on whatever I'm doing.

And for me, it was like, I'm all in the Navy and being a Corpsman, so I'm going to set that aside for now.

And really, that, you know, inspired me for Warrior Beat was I realized, and I know a lot of veterans, we set aside our creative self when we serve.

-Yeah.

-And it's unfortunate -- I don't think a lot of us get back to it.

You know, it's like, that's why it's like when we were talking last night, like the three of us, our mission is to bring veterans back to their creative self, which to me is an expression of our highest self.

-What do you think separates us from that creative self?

What is that process in the military that begins that separation in some ways?

-Well, I mean, just from the get-go, boot camp, right?

Their mission is to disconnect our emotional cables so that we can be mission-ready and capable of doing the things that we need to do to survive, right?

But when you're out of service, there's no retraining you back to being a human.

There's no retraining you back to your emotional intelligence, and, you know, like, almost even permission to, like, love your family, right?

Because when you're deployed, what is the first thing they do?

Like, mission.

Don't think about them, 'cause you know, your mind, you need to be 100% here, right?

So, you already disconnect from everything that can possibly harm you and make you weaker, right?

So then when you come back, you have -- you go through the motions of pretending like you're present, but you're not really connected again, right?

And so I feel like the art does that because it opens a door to your subconscious, and, like, your defenses get a little lower and then you're actually able to connect with yourself first.

And then in turn, you end up connecting to others.

You know, it's a gradual process, but I think that connecting to who you are and your feelings and how you process life needs to be the first step, and art does that, you know?

-I think, building on that, one of the things that I'm looking at is what military training does to the individual.

You have the military taking control of what we know as the big-"C" creativity, that imagination, that creative force that we all have.

But then they also take control of the small-"C" creativity -- your daily decision making, your daily problem solving.

The minute you get off the bus, they're starting to strip you of what makes you, you.

They take your clothes, they take your belongings, they lock them up until the end of basic training.

They give you a uniform that looks like everybody else.

And then they add to that by taking your hair or prescribing how you're going to wear your hair for that amount of time.

They start to teach you how to talk.

They start to teach you how to do little things like brush your teeth and make your bed, so you do it like everybody else.

How to walk, drill, how to use military tools all the same.

And so you slowly find that these individuals who had individual styles, individual quirks start to operate like everybody else.

And then what they do last is really interesting, and something we build on creatively.

They take the one thing that we hold dear, and one of the first things we're given as an individual, and it's our name.

And they give you what everyone's going to call you by a rank and by your last name.

I didn't know a lot of my Marines' first names until, like, we went to Fallujah and had nothing else to talk about.

And my buddy.

he's like, "My name's Joe.

Call me Joe."

And I'm like, "You don't look like a Joe."

[ Laughter ] -You know, it's interesting that you said that because I hadn't realized that, but yeah, like, one of the first things that they do is they take your power of saying "I."

Like, you cannot say, "I need to go to the bathroom" or "I need"... Like, there's no "I."

You don't exist.

-I'm curious.

What was your mental health journeys?

We've all had a mental health journey or a military journey where we have these catalysts that lead to why we fell back on our art.

-Probably just, you know, the idea of vocation and not seeing that path as a Navy career as my vocation.

It was -- it would have been a job.

And there's a big difference between a job and a vocation and a calling.

And I knew that that path as an officer in the Navy was not a vocation.

And I think that was the impetus for all these development of mental health problems.

Sure.

-Yeah.

How about you, Maria?

-It's interesting that you said that because one of my favorite quotes is that when God has given you a calling, he's going to keep calling you until you answer it, right?

And I think that's why your body was projecting all this stuff.

For me, I shoved everything down.

I was like, "I got this," right?

Like, when I came back from Iraq, I had my daughter, and I was like, "Well, now I got to worry about her."

So don't worry about me, right?

And it just kept going and it just kept going.

It wasn't until I found myself in the ER thinking I'm having a heart attack, and it was really a panic attack, that I was like, "Okay, maybe I really do need help."

Like, this is -- you know, it's not a mental thing anymore.

It's actually projecting into my physicality.

And it's a really hard pride pill to swallow, right?

Because until you accept to yourself that, like, "Hey, I need help," right, you can't start on your healing path, right?

But one of my friends said, when you're downrange or when you're in combat, right, and you run out of ammo, we have no qualms about saying, like, "Hey, I need backup," right?

"I'm out of ammo.

I need backup."

Why do we have such a hard time saying that to each other?

Like, "Hey, I'm out of ammo.

Like, I need help.

You know?

Can you back me up?"

-Román, I'm curious about your mental health journey.

-I exited the Marine Corps right after our deployment to Fallujah.

And I... As we spoke about earlier, like, the Marine Corps just pushes you out.

You know, like, if you answer a question on this mental health assessment as you're leaving in one way or another, we could keep you longer.

And you know, in a lot of ways, I just wanted to get back to life.

And I was also not interested in going back to the arts, or I thought the arts had closed that door, or the door was closed because of the military journey.

And so I was floundering.

And I was kind of looking for an example of how -- of what to do post-war.

And so I looked at my grandfather.

My grandfather served in the Korean War.

After he got back, he settled down with my grandmother, bought their house that they lived in for the rest of their lives.

He got a good job at the post office and built a family.

And I was like, "That's...

I guess that's what my grandpa did.

I guess that's what I'm gonna do too."

So I started checking those off my bucket list.

And in my eyes, things were going amazingly well.

And it took my girlfriend, who's now my wife, to sit me down and have one of those "talks."

And she's like, you know, "We got to chat."

And I thought it was one of those, like, "see ya later" talks.

-Mm.

-So we sat down and she said, "You're not okay.

You're not the person I knew before the war.

The person I knew before the war was this artist who was happy-go-lucky and full of life and vibrant.

And now the person in front of me is just depressed and anxious and angry and violent, and you're making people afraid of you."

And that wasn't the person I wanted to be.

And she challenged me and she said, "If you could do anything in the world and you didn't have to worry about anything else, what would you do?"

So, I looked at her and I said I would start a dance company.

Because I had always wanted to become a choreographer.

I always wanted to lead a company.

And she didn't skip a beat, looked at me, and said, "Let's do it."

And so I went back to the arts.

And the reason to start the dance company for me was to get back to the creative, was to start flexing my creative muscle.

And then it turned into a way to start telling stories that I hadn't been able to reconcile from war and from the military.

But everyone in my circle will tell you that that was my first step in my healing journey.

-Yeah, I think, like him, I had been stuff-- like, pushing everything down for so long.

Everybody tells you like, you're not the same person, you know?

And you see it, but you don't want to admit it to yourself.

And, like, it's so hard to make sense of it because you remember who you were before, right?

And so it makes you even more angry, 'cause, like, why am I -- why am I like this now, right?

For me, it was like a divine timing because one of my corporals, he had completed his life, and he worked in my section, you know, when I was in the Marine Corps.

And so it hit me really hard because I had spoken to him the week before and he never said anything.

Like, he never said, "I need backup," right?

"I need ammo."

Like, he never said anything.

So it really hit me hard because I felt like we're letting each other down.

Like, forget the VA, forget all the institutions that have all this red tape.

Like, what are we doing for each other, right?

We robotically say, "I got your six," but do we really, right?

So, I was like, I want to go back to school for art therapy, right?

Because art has always been the one thing that helps me filter life, but I wanted to understand the psychology behind it, and I wanted to understand the knowledge and how I can, you know, bring that platform to our veterans.

And then Ceramics 101 was a required class for my degree.

And I walked in and I was like, "Oh, my God, what is this mud?"

And, you know, it's...

It literally felt like I was a fish out of water and somebody threw me in the ocean, and it's like, I feel at home, you know?

When I was doing my thesis, I did it on the therapeutic benefits of working with clay with veterans with PTSD.

And as a side component to this, I did my first solo exhibition, and it had 12 sculptures.

And it was literally like 12 sculptures that represented moments or chapters in my life that changed me.

And I think that was the first time I was able to self-heal and self-reconnect my emotional cables.

Because as I was creating each sculpture, I was going back in time and remembering how I felt, and you know, even smells and sounds and stuff like that.

So, like, in the process of me creating this exhibit, I reconnected myself, you know?

And I think that to me was the moment where I was like, this is what we need.

This is what I...

This is my calling.

This is what I want to be able to offer to other veterans, to be able to reconnect to themselves.

-You know, for me, talking about mental health, you know, struggles getting out was -- and I know a lot of veterans struggle with this -- is alcoholism.

Like, I came out of the military with a vicious, vicious alcohol problem.

That's how I dealt with my PTSD.

That's how, you know, that was... And it took decades to get free from that.

For sure.

Because a lot of veterans that I work with through Warrior Beat also have substance abuse issues, alcohol, and unfortunately, now, with the younger generations, it's even more severe.

It's methamphetamine, it's crack cocaine, and it's heroin.

And all my close veteran friends that I've lost in the last five years, it's been heroin.

It's taking the toll.

And now the viciousness of addiction.

-In the last year, we've lost two people from my old unit to suicide.

And, you know, these are the things that we have to sit down and ask ourselves.

Why aren't we being more open about it?

Because for me, I came back from Iraq.

I was struggling.

One of my girlfriends said to me, she's like, "You don't party with us anymore, you don't go out," and I'm like, I don't want to do those things.

I'm not comfortable in my own skin right now.

I did seek help from the Air Force mental health, as I said before, which was an absolute failure.

Didn't even get past the gate.

Went to go see a chaplain who didn't show up to my appointment, and that didn't work.

You need two people to participate.

And then I started going to the vet center and getting talk therapy, which worked for a while, and I had a great talk therapist by the name of Pat Chase.

And she really got me through another deployment.

And when I came home, I felt like I was in a pretty good spot, but what I didn't realize was I had a lot of emotional trauma that I was carrying with me, all the bags that I was carrying, like you, Maria, saying, "I've got this," but I really didn't.

And ultimately, with the physical injuries that I had sustained, I wasn't able to do my job anymore.

And so the military took that from me, took my career.

At least this is what it felt like in that moment.

And the VA started giving me drugs.

And I felt like I was just drooling on the couch, and couldn't do photography anymore.

And I met this veteran at the VA, who inspired me to start putting the camera back in my hands and taking portraits.

And I think that was what I really needed.

You mentioned, like, there are things that always tell you where you need to go back to.

I felt so outside of myself during that time that I thought about suicide.

And if I'm being really honest, it was not anything for me to drive down the road and say, "Wow, I'd really like to just drive right over this overpass and just be done with this pain."

But I think if we can articulate that openly, and this is my truth, this is my reality.

That's what I was dealing with in that moment.

But I'm glad I didn't.

With every veteran that I photographed, every veteran that was in my seat really validated the pain that I was feeling and those emotions, and I knew I wasn't alone on that island, and that I could get to the other side, or at least learn to live with my new normal.

So, anyway, that was my art journey.

[ Laughter ] But photography was what...

Photography is what injured me, but photography was what healed me at the same time, so...

I want to talk a little bit about your journeys into your nonprofits and what you're doing now to help other veterans.

Can you tell me how that works in your sphere of art?

-So, when I started choreographing about the war, I started putting things that I had experienced onstage, primarily things that I didn't understand from the war zone.

Altercations that we had with locals or things that happened that I thought were wrong through my lens that I wanted to reinvestigate.

And I did that by putting it onstage in front of a public audience.

And it wasn't until one of my Marines visited and watched one of the shows and I was telling him what built this, the experience that we had had together.

We were in Iraq, working with some locals, and we identified that one of the locals had a weapon.

And so we called out our quick reaction force, who came out with violence and aggression and took this individual to the ground very... in a very animated manner, in a way that, like, you might see on YouTube.

And from my perspective, I saw it as too much force.

And so I put it onstage.

And as I was relaying this to my fellow Marine, he was like, "That's not the perspective I saw it from."

And he saw it from the perspective of keeping the Marines safe and the people around them safe, and to take control of the situation, that's what was needed.

And that was the moment when I figured out that our work needed to be more than just my perspective.

So we started inviting veterans into the studio with us and started using prompts and creative writing activities to share things that they wanted to share too.

And then in that process, somehow, they also moved with us.

And so what we do now is we bring veterans into the dance studio, and we go through a myriad of creative and imaginative activities to turn things that they believe in, things that they want to express, things that they want to tell the world into a public performance, filled with theater, music, dance, creative writing, poetry.

And it's not always the military story explicitly that they want to share, but it could be something that is sparked from that journey that fills the performance and that communicates to the audience something important that we want to talk about.

-So, for me, it was another one of those serendipitous moments, right?

I was really lucky that and when I was in the university, we had a full-blown ceramics studio.

And my professor, Frank Olt, he was very supportive and wanted to bring this out to the veterans.

So, I was part of Team Red, White & Blue in New York City, and we connected with one of their volunteers who work with Samaritan Village in New York.

It's an in-resident home for veterans that have substance abuse issues, they've been released from incarceration and stuff like that, right?

It's a whole full-year program.

But the first six months, they basically get re-acclimated and stuff like that.

The last six months, they start bringing them out into the community, like résumé building and stuff like that.

And so part of their six months they would get bused out to my studio in Long Island, and we would do workshops with them, right?

Or I would go into the residence and, you know, work with them.

One of the -- one of the biggest anecdotes for me was, there was an Army veteran who he hadn't seen his daughter in like two years, and she was like three, because of substance abuse, right?

And he was really struggling with it.

And so we were creating mugs, like on the wheel, you know?

And he got so frustrated with it at first.

'Cause when you work with the wheel, like, you have to really center yourself, right?

There's a perfect medium.

You can't be too hard or you can't be, like, let the clay push you out, right?

So it is frustrating at first.

But then I had one of our volunteers.

She was a speech -- no, an audio therapist.

So she's used to working with difficult populations.

And so she pulled him to the side.

No, 'cause he left.

He was like, "I'm done" and threw it, and I was like, "Ooh, okay, right, let him cool off," right?

But then she went out and talked to him and brought him back, and, like, she taught, you know -- she, like, hand on hand, helped him, right?

And he did like three bowls that day, right?

So fast-forward to when we were done, like, we glazed it, they came back.

Like, usually when they would come back, we have a barbecue, everybody hangs out or whatever, right?

So, I bring it out to him.

I'm like, "Look what you did," right?

He's like, "Man, I did this."

Right?

And then he was like, "Now I can have cereal with my daughter on Saturday mornings and watch cartoons."

When we experience trauma, a lot of times our brains lose the ability to create words for what we're experiencing.

But through art, you can do that without actually having to talk about it.

And when you were saying before, how can we change the narrative?

I think conversations like this, but also creating a platform where the civilians could come into a world and there's that conversation happening visually, right?

So, I do a lot of, like, veteran art exhibits for that reason so that other veterans who are wanting to explore their art more can share.

-To piggyback a little bit on that, I think what we do in the arts is extremely powerful because words limit.

-Mm-hmm.

-And language limits.

I had the opportunity to go back to Iraq in 2012 as a dance teacher and work with Iraqi youth who had been affected by the war.

And coming there and sharing the story of how I had served in their country as a Marine put the fear in their eyes of what that meant.

And then telling them that I was, I put that aside, and I was a dance teacher, and we were going to dance together, we're gonna create music, and it opened up a new world of understanding and collaboration.

-You know, for me -- And I have props for this.

Boom!

I don't walk around with this on my leg all the time.

But I went in 2015, I went into the VARC program at the Cleveland VA for substance abuse.

And while I was there, it was a 30-day inpatient program, took my sticks and my practice pad.

And during the day, the program was incredibly well structured.

I can't speak highly enough about, you know, the Cleveland VA's rehab program.

But what happened is at 4:00 when the hospital would close, everyone goes home, and then you have like 200 veterans in a domiciliary fighting over a TV.

So there was no structure.

It was just like, "Well, you can't leave the compound.

See you in the morning!"

And so I would sit in the lounge and just start tapping.

You know?

And while everyone's fighting over the TV, I'm in my private area and just you know, just doing my thing.

And veterans would walk by and, "What are you doing?"

"Tapping."

"That's pretty cool."

"It is, isn't it?"

"Looks relaxing."

"It's pretty relaxing.

Yeah, it is."

You know, so it kind of got the idea planted in my head that while drumming was something that I identify with it, I saw the impact on other veterans who were just walking by.

And my therapist, her name is Susan Revak, just an incredible therapist.

And she was also a drummer, Navy veteran, and she had a djembe.

And so she challenged me, like, "Trevor, how are you going to continue to express yourself as a drummer but not put yourself in these compromising situations, playing clubs and bars where you know you're gonna start drinking again?"

I thought about that one.

Hmm.

And so, seeing the other veterans' response to just this, the percussiveness of this, I started to think about, well, drum circles.

And as a drum set player, I had a big chip on my shoulder against drum circles.

No, thank you.

I don't play hand drums.

I use sticks and a drum set, and that is it.

But actually, I went and I was trained by a gentleman named Arthur Hull through Village Music circles.

And Arthur is the first one in the 1960s to take the drum circle and formalize it.

And he started doing corporate team building with massive companies.

And so, seeing the way he structured it, I realized, I'm like, okay, so this is something in a therapy setting with this kind of structure, the way that Arthur trained me how to do certain things in a drum circle.

I'm like, If I go back and I tweak this and take all the stuff out of drumming that would offend a veteran, this would be incredible.

And so that's what I did with Warrior Beat.

Kind of like to say I took the hippie out of the drum circle and made it very neutral.

It's not about how much I can play.

It's about teaching other veterans to express themselves creatively.

And that's it, like, reconnecting with our creative spirit.

I believe that, you know, our highest selves, we are creating, and it's that nonverbal language like you talked about.

There's so much depth that we can express beyond words.

And also helping veterans reconnect with their kids.

My favorite group that I run is the veterans reintegration group for families.

You know, to see veterans and their children having these creative breakthrough moments together.

You know, for a child to see their mom and dad, who they might have, you know, been having problems connecting with, reconnecting after a deployment, combat or otherwise, you know, but Mom or Dad was out of the nest for a significant period of time.

How do we reconnect?

And they see their mom or dad sitting there playing on a drum, laughing like, "I'm not a really good drummer."

Well, yeah.

None of you are.

And then the child immediately is like -- they see that opening, and they're in.

They're in.

And it's just incredible.

-I love that you said, you snuck in there that veterans say, "Oh, I'm not a drummer."

And I think it's probably, art is so intimidating because most people think they have to have artistic talent for art therapy to work.

-I think for us, if you want to strike fear in the heart of a person, just tell -- ask them to dance.

So we just did a project in New York City.

And we had 14 amazing veterans join us for this project.

It was over eight weeks, and so we met for eight weeks building a performance that we produced on the Intrepid Air, Sea & Space Museum in New York Harbor.

It's an aircraft carrier.

And the way we built the performance is through a series of choreographic tasks that builds movement for everyone, that we string and assemble together into a piece.

And so I set everyone off on the task, and I walk around the room to just check in with people to make sure that they're not having a problem or they're getting started or just to see what they've created to be interested.

And over in the corner was one veteran, and he was standing up and he was making a gesture kind of like this with his eyes closed.

And I walked over and I said, "Can I help?

You seem stuck."

And he looked at me and he said, "Román, I don't know how to do this.

I don't know how to ask -- how to create what you've asked me to create.

The only way I know how to move is the way the military taught me."

And I looked at him and I said, "Let's start there."

And so he went off on his task, and the phrase that he created was much like a close-combat rifle course.

And we paired him with this older veteran that has been working with us since 2011.

And this older veteran had the same reaction many years ago when we asked him to do the same task.

But this time, this veteran had created a movement that was of light and air, and then kind of dropping the water on the floor.

He would look down, and then he would lift up again and he would look down.

And when they all taught their movement to each other, it started with this very aggressive advancing on a target and deconstructed into this movement of release and abandon.

And it was absolutely beautiful.

-There's a particular veteran, when you asked, like, here's an example of, like, the impact.

I was doing a drum group for World War II veterans at a local nursing home in my hometown.

And one of the residents, Captain Bob Withee is his name.

Captain Withee flew the P-51 Mustang over the Pacific.

And he was 96 at the time when we were doing the drum groups.

And Captain Withee loved the biggest djembe I had, and would put it in front of his chair and he would just take his mallets and just get into it.

And he would always say afterwards, he's like, "I just love this."

He's like, "This is the first time in my life I get to hit this thing and make as much noise as I want, and we're all doing it together, and it's so -- it's just amazing."

It's like, wow, I never expected that generation to really identify with the drumming, especially advanced in years.

And I'll tell you, the day before Bob passed away, I went and sat at his bedside and played the djembe.

And to see the peace... You know, and I asked him, like, "Captain, is this bothering you?"

"No.

Continue."

And just, okay.

Just gonna sit here and play for you.

Yeah, just to see the generational span that art impacts, the generational...

It's from the oldest to the youngest, you know?

Art is creative.

We are creative beings, for sure.

-Mm.

-It makes people accessible.

-Mm.

-When they're able to share their art with others, it opens up room for conversation, room for questions.

With the older veteran, we were doing a performance at Sugar Loaf in upstate New York, and we had finished the performance.

I was leaving the performance to go talk to some veterans that I knew that had come to see the performance.

And there's this young man standing there.

He's about 20-something years old.

And he introduced himself, and he was the older veteran's son.

And he said, "When I saw that you were going to be here, I had to make this performance, and I had to see you, and I had to thank you for the change in my dad."

And they had developed such a wonderful relationship because he was able to see through the art that the veteran created something he wasn't able to experience being his son or just being around him or listening to him.

But he could actually participate fuller in his life.

-I had an experience with my mom when I did the first -- my first solo exhibit.

She came to help me set up.

It was just me and her.

Like, when I had done, everything was hung up, all the sculptures are up, and she was in the middle with me.

And then she started, like, looking at everything, and she started crying.

And she was like, "This is how you've been feeling this whole time, right?"

Like, for her to receive what I was trying to express without me having to say a word.

And she was like, "I finally understand what you've been trying -- what you've been bottling up," right?

And I think part of that, too, is that we don't want to traumatize our loved ones.

Right?

It's like, I carry enough pain already.

Why am I going to share something with you that then you're going to be in pain for me?

And then that goes to hyper-independence again, like, I got this.

I'm going to protect you because I don't want you to feel what I'm feeling.

And it's like a vicious cycle because then they feel disconnected from you.

They feel alienated, and, like, they're not able to help you, right?

-Do you all find, when you're leading programs, that there is something different between the generations, generationally, say a Vietnam veteran versus an Iraqi Freedom veteran?

Or do you feel that their traumas are same, just different by a time frame?

-It's an interesting question.

I think there's a difference in the generations.

And I'll give you an example, because like the World War II veterans I've drummed with -- and it's not their age.

It's not that they've had time to overcome their combat experience.

It was the ethics of the war.

They came back from World War II having accomplished something tremendous, defeating fascism and Nazism and, you know.

And then as we get past World War II, every conflict we've been in since, the ethics can be questioned to some degree.

And so what I'm finding is, especially with the Vietnam-era veterans, is there's a sense of shame and guilt that I don't see so much in some of the other veterans.

And again, I really developed Warrior Beat with the Vietnam veteran in mind because of my father.

And I'm like, I want to create a drumming program that anything that would trigger a Vietnam veteran has been taken care of.

And if I can get that generation, every other veteran will be able to find their place in it.

-I was going to ask you about that because from somebody who's been blown up a couple of times, percussion for me... My husband could be driving and accidentally hit a water bottle, and that would send me through the roof, just that sudden shock or that sound.

So I'm curious, how does that influence the crowd?

How do you work around that?

-In the first minute of a drum circle, you know, I get in and I explain things.

I'm like, here's some hand signals.

I use volume up, volume down, keep playing, no wrong notes, no wrong rhythms.

And then I get the groove started, but I keep it quiet.

You know, and then I'll bring it up to a volume and set it, and so everyone in the group knows it's not going to get louder than this.

It's like, it can't -- you don't want your ears ringing, hearing damage, triggers from explosions, all that stuff.

So you bring the volume up slowly, and then you get into that where they're really engaged and suddenly they're playing a lot louder than they think they can tolerate.

But because they're in control of making the noise, and they are also in visual contact with everybody else making the noise, what I found it does is it helps people with noise sensitivity triggers start to desensitize that because you start to realize that not every percussive sound is dangerous.

-Mm.

-You know?

And over the course of just a few weeks, you know, maybe four sessions, people with tremendous noise sensitivity triggers are coming up and saying, "This has helped me tremendously."

-It's a funny thing when you said about what will trigger a Vietnam veteran, right?

When I founded Claymore Vets, I specifically picked Claymore because it's a nomenclature that all of us pick up as soon as we hear it, right?

What's a Claymore, right?

-Yeah.

-It's an explosive, right?

But it's a little bit of a play on words for me because I want to change the paradigm that civilians have that we're reactive and explosive and destructive, right?

We were trained to be that way.

But in our core, we're creatives, right?

And so the tag line for us is, like, art towards the enemy.

And your enemy is whatever your personal demons are, right?

But when I was doing for Memorial Day weekend, I was at the Intrepid for the whole weekend, and we created like a mural, a painting of the Intrepid when it got commissioned, like for the 80th anniversary.

And, you know, they print out these huge banners and it's like, Claymore Vets, right?

And every single Vietnam vet would come in and they're like, "Do you know what a Claymore is?"

I'm like, "Yes, I do, and I'm glad you picked that up," because then it opened up -- it opens up the conversation to talk about this, right?

And it's like, yes, you know, we are considered explosive.

But I want to change that paradigm.

I love that Vietnam veterans are always like, "Do you know what a Claymore mine is?"

I'm like, "Yes.

I do."

-[ Chuckles ] Right.

-Has your dad taken part in your drumming circles?

-My father, yes, he has.

And again, you know, my father being a Vietnam veteran, I kind of used him as, you know, a testing person.

I'd bring up ideas to him.

I'd get his opinion.

"Ah, that's stupid, or I don't know about this or that," you know, and kind of take those into consideration.

And he has come to the drum groups and enjoyed them.

Yeah, 'cause again, growing up, you know, in a household with a Vietnam veteran, a Marine -- and I think there's a huge distinction growing up with a Marine Vietnam veteran.

You know, my experience as a Corpsman, even training with the Marines, it's like that mindset and mentality is so different.

It's so different.

And we were estranged for many years.

It wasn't until later in high school, that all of a sudden, he showed back up again.

And so when I say estranged, I mean nothing.

Is he alive?

Is he dead?

I don't know.

And so, seeing, you know, when he's at his best, someone who is actually loving and a fun dad... Like, my dad's fun.

He's just fun and makes everybody laugh.

But that is hiding something really terrible.

Because one of the things my dad experienced in Vietnam, and I know some of our troops still get forced into doing, is search and destroy.

You know, and in Vietnam, the Marine Corps search and destroy was you go into a village and you kill everything.

The women, the children, the elderly -- everything dies.

It's in the free-fire zone, so it's not even a war crime.

It's like, you just shouldn't be here.

And so, my dad, when he talks about that snippet of his time in Vietnam, that's when you see something comes over him where it's like you know that's when he crossed an ethical line.

You know, it wasn't when they got overrun and it was just the Marines versus the Viet Cong.

That's supposed to happen.

But when you walk into a village and you start killing the women and the children... And it's not just Vietnam we did it in.

We did it in Afghanistan, we've done it in Iraq, 'cause I've talked to Marines who, again, then they go and find my dad.

I'm like, "You got to talk to my dad."

You know, this is...

It's a unique experience to be in a Marine Corps search and destroy team.

It's just, it's so heinous.

So heinous to put our youth in that situation.

You know, and that's the problem is that they're children.

My dad was 19.

-You said a really good point that I think a lot of us struggle, and it doesn't matter, like, what generation you served in.

You talked about, like, the ethical part of being in the military, right?

And so when you combine how young we are when we go into the military -- you know, you said your dad was 19.

Most of us went in, we're like, what, 19, 20, right?

We don't even have our frontal cortex developed yet.

So all of our identity gets pulled into that.

And then you add that moral injury, right?

Because in the military, you have to be okay with taking somebody else's life.

There's nothing -- you know, there's no way around it, right?

So, as a human being, when your uniform comes off, how do you make peace with that part, right?

And that's why I think all of us struggle so much with that because our humanity gets chipped away, you know?

And so, it's hard.

I think it's for me, for example -- you were talking about how, like, the guilt.

Back when I was in Iraq, I thought we were really helping them.

You know, I was like, "Yeah, we're here, we're going to save them."

Now, I have a lot of guilt for the part that I played in it, right?

And then you mentioned something about when you worked with the children in Iraq.

I recently was at the Chicago Veteran Art Triennial, and there was a modern dancer who was from Iraqi descent.

He was in the Kurdish region.

He was 12 years old when we invaded.

And so, maybe, I don't know, like, to me... ...how we affected the children has always been the hardest part for me to get over, right?

And being able to talk to him and tell me it's okay, that it wasn't -- it wasn't my fault specifically, right?

And in a way, like, yeah, we affected their lives, but also, like... for that one person, we might have made a difference, right?

He's a dancer.

You get killed for being a dancer in Iraq, right?

So for him, we made a difference.

-With all of the sort of ups and downs that come with doing therapy, what can others glean from the art therapy that you are doing and maybe bring that back into their communities?

What's working and what needs to get out there a little bit more?

And what can communities do to foster that?

-A lot of the programs we have running right now are through the VA, which is incredible.

So, you know, you can go -- if the VA is running the program, you sign up, they give you a free drum, which is awesome.

And so, I'd like to see veterans, you know, well, more active at the VA, just in general.

Like, especially under this new Whole Health modality that the VA has been promoting the last few years.

There's so much they offer -- drumming, dance, yoga, art therapy.

I mean, there's just a plethora of wonderful activities.

You could do something creative basically every day at the VA. You know, take advantage of that, you know, please.

If you're a veteran, you know, find one, two, maybe three different types of therapy that you're passionate about.

And I think that's so important.

-I think one of the things art does is allows connections.

And I think if there were more opportunities for veterans, their family members, their friends to do an activity together that they're interested in...

It doesn't have to be dance.

It doesn't have to be drumming.

It doesn't have to be sculpture.

It could be watercolors.

It could be a theater, improv class.

It opens up so many conversations that don't have to do with art, and so many connections that don't have to do with art, but art creates the space for it.

-I think one of the things that we really need to do is, like, be there for each other like we were in service, right?

Like, a lot of times, you know, I feel like when we come back into the civilian world, we get so isolated.

But we also don't reach out to each other anymore.

We get so focused on this.

This is my square and this is where I am, right?

But for example, I would be -- if you tell me, like, "Hey, I want to go try this new thing out," right?

Even if I don't want it, I'd be like, fine, because my sense a service to another -- I'll go try it out with you, right?

And so I feel like, there should be more of that within our own community to support each other to experience new modalities, right?

Because it's like the biggest form of insanity is doing the same thing every day and expecting a different outcome, right?

It's like, we're tired of being tired and hurt and in pain.

But then we have to own up that the trauma wasn't our fault, but it's our responsibility to get better.

So how do we create a path for us to thrive after trauma.

Let's go back to basics, where we had each other's backs for real and be like, "Hey, I can tell you're not feeling so great.

Let's go do drumming.

Let's go try something."

You know what I mean?

So I think the change has to come from within our community.

And luckily, we're having very receptive civilian communities that are opening up safe containers for us to engage in that matter, so... -What I love about art, it is subjective.

-Mm-hmm.

-Mm.

-And it's freeing in so many ways because it doesn't have to be a straight line.

And it's just like therapy.

It doesn't have to be linear.

And it's just like healing.

That's also not linear.

And so, for every veteran out there who's on the path of healing and on that journey, we're all here as living proof that that journey continues, and it's a wonderful one, and it comes with ups and downs, two steps forward, one step back.

But they're not on that journey alone.

And so, I wish you the best of luck on all your journeys in supporting the veterans in your programs, and to all those veterans who are struggling at home to let them know they're not alone.

Thanks, everybody.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for having us.

♪♪ -♪ There will be light ♪ ♪ There is a road ♪ ♪ Marching on ♪ ♪ Coming home ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪