A Soldier’s Heart - Perfect Way to End Semester

A Soldier’s Heart - Perfect Way to End Semester
collijes at 12:11 pm on Wednesday, April 16, 2008
It took all semester but I have found the perfect connection. I realized I had not drawn any connections from Podcasts so I went to a site and pulled up one entitled “A Soldier’s Heart”. It is a podcast interview with Brian Delate, a Vietnam war veteran turned director. He recently released a movie called “Soldier’s Heart” in which he dives into his own experiences and feeling from all of his own war experiences.

The first thing he mentions in the interview is right from what we discussed in class about O’Brien. Delate says he realizes he wasn’t done with his own story. He goes into detail about everything we have talked about throughout the semester. If this wasn’t the last day for post I would have loved to watched this dvd. He says the movie is about dealing with his own issues regarding father and son, and how his Dad never wrote to him. He talks about the importance of letter writing ( Since you Went Away) and how he looked forward to those and how it gave him hope. Delate’s A Soldier’s Heart is O’Briens The Things They Carried.

Delate talks about the importance of storytelling, which was a key topic and theme we arrived at in class from O’Brien.He begins to tell what his homecoming was like and the “reintegration” into civilian life was, to which I immediately thought of Born on The 4th of July and Ron’s character and his homecoming and how difficult it was adjusting for him. He describes how he moved to NY and would have consistent nightmares. He has also had to dealt with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Shell Shock. He has
go here for more
http://collijes.learnerblogs.org/2008/04/16/a-soldiers-heart-perfect-way-to-end-semester/

Last year I received an email from a college professor wanting to use one of my videos for a class. I told him I was honored he wanted to use mine, but there was one condition. I wanted feedback. My videos are free use to all. While I get a lot of requests to use them, I hardly ever get feedback on what happened after they were seen or the reaction of the people watching them. Since this was a college class, I was very interested in knowing if it got through to them or not. The professor emailed me back. He had one of his assistants walk around the room while they were watching Hero After War. He said, "either they all suddenly had colds or they were all crying." I knew I did my job.

The great thing about college students is that they want to know what is happening in the country. They know there are college students all over the nation who happen to be veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as children of Vietnam Veterans. Emails come from students as well as teachers and when I get them, I get a warm feeling in my soul telling me the work I do is worth it but more, I get hope because they care enough to learn about something most of them will never know.