From Afghanistan to Austin, teaching soldiers to write

Teaching inside the wire

The day always began the same in the little plywood B-hut that Christine Leche shared with six other people on Bagram Air force base in Afghanistan. Behind her plywood partition she would gather her toiletries quietly so as not to bother her bunkmates and then step out into the early Afghan morning.

It was a three block walk to the latrines and showers, past the prison where suspected Taliban insurgents were kept and along a road with ditches for diving in during mortar attacks.

She'd returned to her bunk to pick up books, student papers, and her computer, not an M-16 and body armor like most of her students.

Leche taught creative writing, speech and English to soldiers who, instead of enrolling in college, signed up for the Marines, the Army, the Air Force. Some were 18-year-old kids toting rifles and going outside the wire on missions. Others were 40 or 50, reenlisting as support staff.

On the way to class she'd hear the C-130s, C-180s and F16s that were constantly taking off and landing. In the cool morning air there would also be the Great Voice. A monotone human voice coming over loudspeakers, always calm, without inflection, giving announcements and sometimes instructions.

"The gunnery range is now open," sometimes would come over the speakers.

"Proceed to the bunkers, proceed to the bunkers. Red alert, proceed to the bunkers," would come over as calmly as a call to dinner.

Leche spent nine months from 2008 to 2009 in Bagram and at Forward Operating Bases around Afghanistan. She came to know her students well and they trusted her.

"I liked the banter in the classroom. I like the camaraderie of it," said Leche. She strove to create an open and trusting atmosphere for her students who, coming from the strict and structured environment just outside the classroom door, relished the opportunity to let their minds wander.

She taught every day of the week from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. then again from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Any down time she spent grading papers and preparing lectures. No breaks. Christmas was just another day in Afghanistan.

"How is my task humanly possible?" Leche wondered. She had many students from remedial to advanced, and she had to prepare for each one. She had to be ready to travel to the various Forward Operating Bases and travel was always a dangerous proposition. Roadside bombs, ambushes and rocket attacks don't distinguish between soldiers and teachers. All the conveniences of home were gone, and even the pleasure of a walk on base was not safe. Leche quit her usual seven mile walk around Bagram when she learned that snipers routinely shot into the camp.

But the classroom. Leche knew she loved that.

"What sustains a person is the exhilaration of the classroom and the incredible enthusiasm," said Leche. "I mean (the soldiers) pour energy into it and they pour energy into their assignments."

Leche couldn't give any less than her all so she threw herself into her work.

"What is real is what changes us. That's the stuff of stories," she told her classes. She never told them what to write about, only that they find something real, something that mattered, that moved them. Her students never had to write about the military or what they saw or experienced inside or outside the wire.

"They are writing what they need to write at the time," said Leche who knows that helping soldiers write is about more than just earning a college credit. Writing about their lives can be cathartic. It can help while on deployment and, Leche knows, it will be especially helpful as more and more veterans return home.

For nearly 15 years Leche has taught on U.S. military bases around the world and on returning to Austin, Leche worked with ACC's creative writing department and English department to set up two classes designed specifically for military veterans, an English 1301 course and a Memoir for Veterans creative writing course. She also helped bring together the "Honoring the Service" Veteran's Day Reading to be held Nov. 11.

"I think there is no doubt that there is a great need for this. I think that these will be invaluable course," said Leche.

Visions of war

Mark Harden is the manager of veterans affairs at ACC. He is a veteran of the American military, having served at almost every rank from private to warrant officer in his nearly 26-year career.

Harden is also a poet.

"I've been writing my whole life," said Harden. But it was in 1993 that his writing changed.

"I don't think I really began to develop the voice I have now until probably after Mogadishu, after my time there from August to December of 1993, during the Blackhawk Down debacle."

Harden returned to an Army post with no time or room to relax, no way to deal with the memories or the dreams that crept in.

"There was no time to detox at all. Looking back on it, some of us were really struggling. I was really struggling," he said.

So he started a blog. He started writing and sometimes he'd post the poems he was writing.

"I would think of things, and I would think, I want to get that out. I want someone to see what I see."

And it worked. People began to see what Harden saw in his memories, in his dreams. He's had poems published, but he is still shy about his writing. This is him on the page after all. These are his ghosts.

One dream that haunted Harden was of the day he finally got to leave Mogadishu. He kept dreaming that he was in line to board the plane back to the states but he had to show his ID before he'd be allowed to board.

Harden pulled out his blue ID card and gave it to his fellow soldier.

"Chief you can't get on the plane."