Mental Hygiene: Through the Looking Glass

When I began Mental Hygiene,  my recently completed novel about Vietnam era duty in a Mental Hygiene Clinic at Fort Jackson, SC, I had no idea the direct relevance it would have to the recent flood of articles about mental health in today's military.  

The latest piece, in New York Magazine, The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War, by Jennifer Senior, brought back all the feelings of guilt and shame from my real-life experience as an Army Psych Tech in 1967-68.  I have come to realize all too clearly that what I had created in Mental Hygiene, was a preamble to an indictment of mental health treatment in today's military culture.  I am convinced that voluntary cannon fodder is in many ways preferable, only because it does not dissent.

In Mental Hygiene the novel, darkly comedic scenes help to relieve the theme of mental health gone wrong.  It's every man for himself in a world where there are only two types of draftees; those who are waiting to go to Vietnam and those who are already there.  The stakes are high and the draft requirements low as the Nation gears up to half a million troops in an unpopular war.  No one escapes unscathed, even in the fictional Mental Hygiene.

Three Incidents, One State

Three things happened in Arizona in the past month to make me pause and reflect.  The first would have been hard to miss unless one were hidden away in a cave.  The other two lasted one news cycle.  They all had to do with killing people.

Deploying a Suicide

On November 15, 2010, Staff Sergeant David Senft died at Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan.  The Army's official cause of death was "injuries sustained in a non-combat incident".  Despite the fact that the Army's Criminal Investigative Division has reported to Senft's father that his son was found in an SUV with a gun in his hand and a hole in his head, and a cell phone on the car seat with a text message saying, "I don't know what to say, I'm sorry", the Army has refused to call Senft's death a suicide.

Meteorolgy and Metaphysics - a poem

meteorology and metaphysics

it was partly cloudy for the crucifixion;

some say it stormed later,

but who would do that to their kid

on a holiday/

The Art of Never Leaving Well Enough Alone

OK, so the book is edited, queries out to agents, web site up, media kit finished, Facebook page filled up with new friends, and Scribd scribed.  Surely, that's enough already!  Nope, not for the terrier Timothy.

Being one who has an exceedingly rich inner life, there is always something unsaid or undone, with a multitude of twists and endings.  I always need a new toy,  something to add to the constant mix.

Memory Accompaniment

"How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone ?"
     Like a Rolling Stone
     Bob Dylan

I was on the beach in Santa Monica.  Bikini babes, sun, and surf, were my world.  And then I heard "Like a Rolling Stone" on somebody's transistor radio.  I changed, and the memory of that song embedded itself in my brain.  Every time I heard it repeated, I would always remember exactly where I was and how I felt at that moment.

MENTAL HYGIENE - Excerpt Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

            As with most things, emotional edges fray with wear. Murphy kept his 

personal mending to himself, but epiphanies were coming between his self-

serving nature and his circumstances. The specter of maturity was beginning 

to get in the way of avoidance, and there seemed to be nothing he could do 

to stop it.  He could no longer ignore the person he was becoming, his 

conscious part in the scheme of things, the fact that he was now the very 

pawn he despised.  

            Those thoughts lay in his head as he shared a cheap motel bed with 

a fresh WAC. What was her name?

Another Poem from the European Trip

On My Birthday

on my birthday in 1945

the philadelphia record reported

that a dozen peach growers in new jersey

filed suit; blaming

the atom bomb for ruining

their crops/ that was the big headline;

the nuremberg nazi war criminal trial

began that day with less fanfare/

both events were far away

and not my fault/