Documentary shows how program gives veterans an outlet for healing
10:00 PM, Mar. 31, 2012 |
Jesse Scollin, a Great Falls native and Iraq War veteran, riverboards on the Lochsa River last year as part of the Missoula-based nonprofit "X Sports 4 Vets" program that is being featured in Great Falls native Dan West's new documentary "A Brotherhood Reforged." The film will be shown at the Awareness Film Festival in Los Angeles on May 4. PHOTO BY DAN WEST
When 28-year-old Great Falls native Jesse Scollin signed up for
the U.S. Army 10 years ago, he knew that he would go into combat at some
point.
"I was just ready to go," he said. "I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into."
What the 2002 C.M. Russell High School graduate got was work as a combat medic in Iraq in 2003, experiencing things he struggles to describe even seven years after being medically discharged from the military.
He and other veterans are getting the chance to tell their stories through a new documentary being produced by a Great Falls-area native and Iraq war veteran about a relatively new program in Missoula that gives wounded and traumatized soldiers a sense of peace.
"A Brotherhood Reforged" was created by Sun River alumnus, recent University of Montana graduate and Army veteran Dan West.
The full-length documentary film chronicles the work of the new nonprofit program "X Sports 4 Vets," which brings any combat veteran to Missoula to experience high-intensity sports such as river-boarding, rafting and rock-climbing as a way of healing their emotional and physical injuries.
The film premieres April 21 in Missoula, and West also was invited to the Awareness Film Festival in Los Angeles, where the film will be featured with an Oscar-nominated veteran-related documentary.
X Sports 4 Vets was something Scollin, along with other founders such as Janna Kuntz Sherrill and many river and outdoor guides from the region, helped shape. Unlike other programs where a veteran might go fishing or hunting for a weekend, veterans who participate in the X Sports program spend six weeks in a course together. They learn things from professional guides, and then get on the river and work together at least once a week.
West, who wrote about the program when he was a journalism student at UM, spent the summer following the veterans in the program with his video camera. He also interviewed specialists across the country, who described the scientific benefits a program such as X Sports has on treating veterans with physical and mental combat scars.
"The more I learned, the more I realize I ended up advocating for the program," West said. "One of the things (the veterans) talked about was it being a brotherhood. It's a support network that I feel like a lot of people don't have."
Scollin said he and a couple of buddies signed up for the Army in 2002 solely because of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"We all decided we were going to join the military to protect our family and our culture," he said.
Scollin was on the ground in Iraq when the war first started in 2003, and he spent a little more than a year working there as a combat medic. He saw a lot — too much to talk about.
"How did it change me?" he said. "I don't have words for that, other than it (messed) me up physically, mentally and spiritually."
Scollin then was stationed at Fort Polk, La., until he was medically discharged from the Army in 2005, after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
At one point, he was on 14 different medications to treat his PTSD, and was unable to go to college in California because his GI Bill didn't come through.
He was 22, a war veteran and homeless.
Scollin began self-medicating with alcohol, on top of the seemingly never-ending prescriptions to treat his PTSD. He said he didn't really care if life stopped.
"For three years I was in a very, very dark place — in a hole," Scollin said.
He eventually made his way to Missoula, but it wasn't until 2008 that a light shone in the darkness — in a form none of his PTSD counselors anticipated would be helpful.
Scollin previously had gone rafting with his friends, but it was hard on his back. He then met Justin Walsh, owner of Bear Paw River Expeditions, who happened to be neighbors with Sherrill, a doctoral student in occupational therapy whose brother who had been to war. Sherrill's brother had given her a couple of river boards, and Scollin said he took one over to the Lochsa River and tried what essentially is river surfing.
"A sense of peace came over me when I was in the river," he said. "It was a high-intensity adrenaline rush with peace. It was combat without combat."
Scollin kept at it, and soon other veterans in the area learned about the activity. Scollin swears that being on the river is what saved his life.
"It prompted me to stop drinking as much, and go to the river for healing," he said.
West said that in the documentary experts explain the science behind how PTSD rewires the brain, and how programs such as X Sports are a healthy outlet for the stress that builds up inside people with PTSD.
"We haven't even hit the root of PTSD," West said. "That's what I heard over and over again."
In the river, soldiers make extreme decisions, such as how to survive the next rapid or avoid a big rock — much like the decisions they made to try to avoid bullets and bombs in combat.
It's a method of treatment the military needs to accept as a realistic approach to treating PTSD, West said.
"You're bonding around this experience," he said. "It's experience-based group therapy."
West didn't just stumble into the documentary project.
After working on a photo story for a journalism class, he became interested enough to get on the board of directors for X Sports 4 Vets. Later, the board was approached by a Spokane-based production company that wanted to make a documentary, but West said the production company wanted the small organization, which received formal nonprofit status this spring, to fund the production costs.
West, who had just received a degree in photojournalism, had all the equipment necessary to make a documentary, so he stepped down from the board to take on the project.
"I knew enough to know the story was very profound, but it just wasn't getting out there enough," he said.
However, West didn't have the money to finance such a project. He reached out to The Mission Continues, a nonprofit organization for post Sept. 11, veterans, and received a fellowship from that organization, which helped pay for the costs of production.
He said he wanted to have an objective view of the program as he documented participants on five river trips last summer. West listened to and documented each veteran's story. He said that each veteran he followed seemed healed — or at least at peace — when participating in extreme sports.
West contacted medical experts in the Veterans Administration, along with leading experts from places such as Marquette University. He wanted to know if a program such as X Sports could make a difference in veterans with PTSD.
The brotherhood and camaraderie that the veterans experienced during the intense sporting activities seems to help them gain trust in other people in their lives, West said.
"It's helping them relate to civilians better — to be able to trust them," he said. "In the military, you have to be able to make snap decisions. You get a bunch of guys together, and they've all got that same experience."
Not long after launching into the project, West realized the documentary helped to heal him as well. As a public affairs officer in the Army, West said that on his tour of duty he told the stories of his fellow soldiers. But he also was involved in combat — and suffered physical and psychological wounds as a result of the experience.
West said that after returning from war — and returning back to school — he often felt isolated and unable to connect. Meeting the veterans in X Sports 4 Vets opened his eyes to his own developmental needs, and he started seeking treatment.
"A lot of the stuff I've been shoving aside is actually PTSD," West said.
West was contacted by the Awareness Film Festival in Los Angeles, which is run by a nonprofit organization called Heal One World, as he wrapped up production on the documentary. He was told that each year the festival chooses a different pressing issue that organizers believe the public needs to be aware of as the topic of the festival. This year, the topic is veterans' issues.
West said his movie will show there at 7 p.m. May 4, with a panel discussion and question-and-answer session to follow the showing.
And he's terrified.
"I'd never tackled anything like this before," West said. "I went in wide-eyed stupid."
Scollin said he was never uncomfortable or hyper-sensitive when West was filming, maybe because West understood him. He said he is excited that the film is getting some attention, and that he gets to be part of the story — not for him, but because he believes in X Sports.
"I just look forward to it," Scollin said.
West said he will continue to work on telling veterans' stories, just like he did in Iraq — and just like he did when making the film.
"I've got a mission again," he said.
"I was just ready to go," he said. "I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into."
What the 2002 C.M. Russell High School graduate got was work as a combat medic in Iraq in 2003, experiencing things he struggles to describe even seven years after being medically discharged from the military.
He and other veterans are getting the chance to tell their stories through a new documentary being produced by a Great Falls-area native and Iraq war veteran about a relatively new program in Missoula that gives wounded and traumatized soldiers a sense of peace.
"A Brotherhood Reforged" was created by Sun River alumnus, recent University of Montana graduate and Army veteran Dan West.
The full-length documentary film chronicles the work of the new nonprofit program "X Sports 4 Vets," which brings any combat veteran to Missoula to experience high-intensity sports such as river-boarding, rafting and rock-climbing as a way of healing their emotional and physical injuries.
The film premieres April 21 in Missoula, and West also was invited to the Awareness Film Festival in Los Angeles, where the film will be featured with an Oscar-nominated veteran-related documentary.
X Sports 4 Vets was something Scollin, along with other founders such as Janna Kuntz Sherrill and many river and outdoor guides from the region, helped shape. Unlike other programs where a veteran might go fishing or hunting for a weekend, veterans who participate in the X Sports program spend six weeks in a course together. They learn things from professional guides, and then get on the river and work together at least once a week.
West, who wrote about the program when he was a journalism student at UM, spent the summer following the veterans in the program with his video camera. He also interviewed specialists across the country, who described the scientific benefits a program such as X Sports has on treating veterans with physical and mental combat scars.
"The more I learned, the more I realize I ended up advocating for the program," West said. "One of the things (the veterans) talked about was it being a brotherhood. It's a support network that I feel like a lot of people don't have."
Scollin said he and a couple of buddies signed up for the Army in 2002 solely because of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"We all decided we were going to join the military to protect our family and our culture," he said.
Scollin was on the ground in Iraq when the war first started in 2003, and he spent a little more than a year working there as a combat medic. He saw a lot — too much to talk about.
"How did it change me?" he said. "I don't have words for that, other than it (messed) me up physically, mentally and spiritually."
Scollin then was stationed at Fort Polk, La., until he was medically discharged from the Army in 2005, after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
At one point, he was on 14 different medications to treat his PTSD, and was unable to go to college in California because his GI Bill didn't come through.
He was 22, a war veteran and homeless.
Scollin began self-medicating with alcohol, on top of the seemingly never-ending prescriptions to treat his PTSD. He said he didn't really care if life stopped.
"For three years I was in a very, very dark place — in a hole," Scollin said.
He eventually made his way to Missoula, but it wasn't until 2008 that a light shone in the darkness — in a form none of his PTSD counselors anticipated would be helpful.
Scollin previously had gone rafting with his friends, but it was hard on his back. He then met Justin Walsh, owner of Bear Paw River Expeditions, who happened to be neighbors with Sherrill, a doctoral student in occupational therapy whose brother who had been to war. Sherrill's brother had given her a couple of river boards, and Scollin said he took one over to the Lochsa River and tried what essentially is river surfing.
"A sense of peace came over me when I was in the river," he said. "It was a high-intensity adrenaline rush with peace. It was combat without combat."
Scollin kept at it, and soon other veterans in the area learned about the activity. Scollin swears that being on the river is what saved his life.
"It prompted me to stop drinking as much, and go to the river for healing," he said.
West said that in the documentary experts explain the science behind how PTSD rewires the brain, and how programs such as X Sports are a healthy outlet for the stress that builds up inside people with PTSD.
"We haven't even hit the root of PTSD," West said. "That's what I heard over and over again."
In the river, soldiers make extreme decisions, such as how to survive the next rapid or avoid a big rock — much like the decisions they made to try to avoid bullets and bombs in combat.
It's a method of treatment the military needs to accept as a realistic approach to treating PTSD, West said.
"You're bonding around this experience," he said. "It's experience-based group therapy."
West didn't just stumble into the documentary project.
After working on a photo story for a journalism class, he became interested enough to get on the board of directors for X Sports 4 Vets. Later, the board was approached by a Spokane-based production company that wanted to make a documentary, but West said the production company wanted the small organization, which received formal nonprofit status this spring, to fund the production costs.
West, who had just received a degree in photojournalism, had all the equipment necessary to make a documentary, so he stepped down from the board to take on the project.
"I knew enough to know the story was very profound, but it just wasn't getting out there enough," he said.
However, West didn't have the money to finance such a project. He reached out to The Mission Continues, a nonprofit organization for post Sept. 11, veterans, and received a fellowship from that organization, which helped pay for the costs of production.
He said he wanted to have an objective view of the program as he documented participants on five river trips last summer. West listened to and documented each veteran's story. He said that each veteran he followed seemed healed — or at least at peace — when participating in extreme sports.
West contacted medical experts in the Veterans Administration, along with leading experts from places such as Marquette University. He wanted to know if a program such as X Sports could make a difference in veterans with PTSD.
The brotherhood and camaraderie that the veterans experienced during the intense sporting activities seems to help them gain trust in other people in their lives, West said.
"It's helping them relate to civilians better — to be able to trust them," he said. "In the military, you have to be able to make snap decisions. You get a bunch of guys together, and they've all got that same experience."
Not long after launching into the project, West realized the documentary helped to heal him as well. As a public affairs officer in the Army, West said that on his tour of duty he told the stories of his fellow soldiers. But he also was involved in combat — and suffered physical and psychological wounds as a result of the experience.
West said that after returning from war — and returning back to school — he often felt isolated and unable to connect. Meeting the veterans in X Sports 4 Vets opened his eyes to his own developmental needs, and he started seeking treatment.
"A lot of the stuff I've been shoving aside is actually PTSD," West said.
West was contacted by the Awareness Film Festival in Los Angeles, which is run by a nonprofit organization called Heal One World, as he wrapped up production on the documentary. He was told that each year the festival chooses a different pressing issue that organizers believe the public needs to be aware of as the topic of the festival. This year, the topic is veterans' issues.
West said his movie will show there at 7 p.m. May 4, with a panel discussion and question-and-answer session to follow the showing.
And he's terrified.
"I'd never tackled anything like this before," West said. "I went in wide-eyed stupid."
Scollin said he was never uncomfortable or hyper-sensitive when West was filming, maybe because West understood him. He said he is excited that the film is getting some attention, and that he gets to be part of the story — not for him, but because he believes in X Sports.
"I just look forward to it," Scollin said.
West said he will continue to work on telling veterans' stories, just like he did in Iraq — and just like he did when making the film.
"I've got a mission again," he said.
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