Memorial Day is behind us, but that doesn't mean that the issues that soldiers face upon leaving for and returning from war have disappeared as well.
In the tradition of Memorial Day and of shedding light on issues important to veterans, in 2014, Congress designated June as National Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month.
As a result, this week's ExFabula takes the opportunity to highlight two stories about soldiers. The soldiers are veterans of two different wars. One storyteller is a veteran himself, and the other is a soldier's mother.
In January 2011, Bud Dombrow took the stage for the "It Gets Better" StorySlam and shared a very personal story of his time in Vietnam. From his first days there, with only Army fatigues and no underwear, to his last, Bud experienced the horrors of war, from cleaning latrines to cleaning up corpses, humping the jungle to sleeping in the rain.
In April of the same year, Linda Muza took the stage for the "Theory and Practice" StorySlam. The mother of six children, five daughters and one son, Linda enjoyed witnessing the quiet ease with which her son interacted with girls and women, as a result of having so many sisters. However, when her son turned 18 and declared that he would be enlisting in order to both serve his country and find the brotherhood that he had never known, this mother had to put aside certain notions about her son, and wrestle with new concepts.
