Iraq War vet Jason Moon heals with music

Vet uses music to heal -- but says he's no 'hero'
MARTHA IRVINE
AP National Writer
Monday, July 9, 2012

GLENDALE, Calif. (AP) — Don't call Iraq War vet Jason Moon a hero. Don't phone him on Memorial Day or July 4th or Veterans Day to say thank you.

Instead, just listen as he strums his guitar and sings about the "things I've seen I won't forget," about the sacrifices, emotional and physical, that a warrior must bear.

It can get raw, as it did one evening in a backyard in suburban Los Angeles, a recent stop on a concert tour that has taken him all over the country.

"All this welcome home, good job, we're-so-proud-of-you bull---- is wearing thin," he said, half-singing, half-speaking, as firelight flickered on his audience's faces.

There was a brief pause, then laughter — a moment of understanding shared veteran to veteran.

To some of us, words like those — and a rejection of hero status — might sound ungrateful, even disrespectful. We live, after all, in an era when "supporting the troops" has practically become a requirement to prove one's patriotism. We put yellow ribbons on trees and magnets and stickers on our cars, or at least we used to. We talk about heroes and bravery.

Americans haven't always embraced their war veterans, so we've been determined to get it right this time.

There is, however, a sense among many of today's vets, and those who deal with them, that we often haven't done so, despite the best intentions.

"When I was in Vietnam, nobody welcomed anybody home — or they spit on you, or worse. Now everybody has a parade, or welcomes you. But it loses the impact," says Larry Ashley, a Vietnam veteran who's now a professor specializing in combat trauma at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

"It's like a pendulum. It's like we're overcompensating for a guilty conscience."
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