September 6, 2008
I have attached a word document below that describes my field notes for two recent visits I made while exploring veterans in the Ozarks. I went to the Missouri Veteran's cemetery in Springfield, and I was able to talk with the staff and take many photos.



I made a visit to American Legion Post 639 on Scenic Ave. While there, I talked with the prior commander of this post. He is a Vietnam war veteran, and he stated that he is quite passionate about making sure that veterans returning to this area feel welcome home. His experience was much different. This post also has helicopters and a sub top, called a sail, on the property. This post has an annual anniversary celebration where entertainers such as the Branson Baldknobbers perform. I am told that as many as 600 people participate in this event each year.


I have worked on developing a document for oral interview permission, which Keri has posted on the wiki. I have interviews scheduled to talk with an Iraqi war vet and his wife this coming week. I want to focus on the types of communication they used while he was away and the experience of coming home. I have another interview scheduled later in the week with Ralph Manley, a well-known Springfieldian. Mr. Manley has written an autobiography about his WWII experiences. I want to talk to him about his homecoming from this war and what Springfield has meant to him in the years since.

September 9, 2008
Last evening I had an interview with David and Chris Maggard. David is local veteran from the Iraqi War. He deployed with the National Guard reserve. David and Chris shared with me their experiences while David was deployed. We discussed communication, support systems, and their experiences of homecoming following his deployment. I used an audio recorder for the interview. We talked for about 1 1/2 hours at the Library Center in a reserved study room. David and Chris' son, Thomas, was also present. All three signed permission forms before we conducted the interview. I modified the form from Mark Brigs and adapted it to this OWP project. Each offered a unique perspective of what it is like for military families here in the Ozarks. The next step is to transcribe the tapes onto a word document. I have done this type of work before with research data on another project. It is extremely time consuming, but worth it in the end. I am still not sure how I am going to use the information for writing on this project. Chris and David have also agreed to provide me with some of their e-mail communications, and Thomas said he would share a piece of art work he sent to his dad while he was deployed. The one thing that I meant to do and neglected was to take a picture of the family during the interview. I had my camera with me , but I forgot.

October 1, 2008
Keri sent me an article from the NWP website about a Veteran's writing group that was started in Utah. I am fascinated by this as an idea for my community writing project because I believe that veterans and their family members have stories to tell. I know that my husband and I have some stories about his times away during the Gulf War and about our experiences during other deployments. My dad used to tell stories about his time serving in the Army in Korea. My dad has passed away now, and those stories were not written down. I have a brief sketch of them in my memory, but it seems such a loss that the story from his perspective has been lost. Writing that could have been passed down in my family is no longer an option.

This leads me back to the idea of a writing group for veterans and family members of veterans. I have many anxieties about a project like this. Would anyone come to my group? How do I even begin to start a group and find people interested? If people did come, how would I keep them interested?. Would I be in over my head as people started to explore sensitive and painful memories of war and sacrifice? Mostly, would anyone come to my group? Keri gave me a book to start exploring the therapeutic aspects of writing, Writing and Healing, edited by Charles M. Anderson and Marian M. MacCurdy.

I am excited, nervous, and intrigued with this idea. The writing I would do from this community project would be about the process of starting a writing group for veterans and their family members. This writing is the start of that.

October 2, 2008
I sat down tonight and quickly conducted a search on the computer for writing groups in Missouri. I found a website started by a woman named Linda Fisher. She has done work with writing about Alzheimer's. In fact, she has published extensively, according to her bio. Through writing, Linda has chronicled her own experiences with caring for her husband during his struggle with dementia. She lives in Sedalia, MO, and her information suggests that she is involved with the Missouri Writer's Guild. I found a short piece written by Ms. Fisher on The Early Onset blog. It is a story about taking flowers to the Veteran's Cemetery in Higginsville, MO. I sent Ms. Fisher an email asking her if she had any suggestions or tips for starting a writing group and working with adult writers. It will be interesting to see if I get a response.

October 3, 2008
Surprise. Linda Fisher has responded to my email. She said that she would like to speak with me, and then she directed me to an article she wrote about therapeutic writing. This is located on the Missouri Writers Guild website under articles about writing. She writes about how journaling is essential to help keep the details that tend to go fuzzy with memory. I am pleased that she responded so quickly to my inquiry, and I do hope to connect with her for a more detailed talk.

October 18, 2008
Today was a scheduled workday for the AI. We met at the Library Center for the 6 hour session. The day started with writing and processing about our inquiry projects. We shared ideas with a partner. Next, we created a poster, a visual representation, of the ideas about our project. After displaying these in the room, we each shared our visuals with the group. Each member wrote out sticky notes of comments and placed these on the posters after we had each had a turn to share. Many of the members had some excellent comments and ideas about my Veteran's project. Keri helped me to solidify the goal of my project, which I will state at the bottom of this post. Kim P. gave me some advice about her own experience creating a writing group. She said that it is helpful for there to be some type of connection already existing with the members. Instead of trying to draw people together from different areas of the community such as school, a neighbor, a veteran's group member, etc., it might be more helpful to start with people who already have a link. These might be members of an assisted living center where an activities director could help facilitate a gathering. Or, veterans from the same church or neighborhood who already have some connections might be willing to meet. Another question I got was how I intend to use my project in the classroom. This is a great question and one I have not put much thought in because I am not teaching high school right now. I wonder about taking the I-search aspect of my project to the classroom. I could use my inquiry and paper as a model for the type of research I want my students to conduct. I could also address aspects of community writing in my own I-search paper and make suggestions for classroom writing activities.

My goal for the members of my veterans writing group is to help the writers record memories of personal experiences either as service members or family members of veterans to preserve the stories. I have no intent to share their stories on a public display or for publishing. The intent is that each of the writers have their own stories written down for future generations.

October 29, 2008
I was on the MSU website today and happened across an icon for Veteran's Day events. I clicked it and found this pdf flyer about the theme for Veteran's Day this year. I sent an e-mail to a contact name because I also saw some text related to a Veteran's club. Hopefully, I'll get a response on this club and its activity on campus. If there is such an organization, maybe I can use it for contacts about a writing activity.

November 3, 2008
I did receive an e-mail response from the Veteran's club point-of-contact. She mentioned that this club is not as active as it has been in the past and is looking for involved members at this time. She gave me a phone number to call for more information. I have not pursued this aspect, yet.

Other progress has been made on my writing group process. I met with Ed Smith at Wesley United Methodist Church, my home church. Ed is responsible for many of the creative programs at Wesley. He will be conducting a Veteran's Day program on Nov. 12 during the WOW (Wednesday at Wesley) meal at Wesley that evening to honor Veterans with associations to our church. After listening to my ideas about a writing group for Veterans, Ed enthusiastically offered to give me a few moments with those veterans who have gathered for the program following the show. He also directed me to put an ad in the Wesley Word newsletter which should run this week and next. I did a text box type insert something like this: Veterans (and family members of Veterans); Preserves your stories in writing, Wednesday, Nov. 19 at 6:15 following WOW; MSU community inquiry project; my contact information. I will have a flyer available that evening with information, my contact numbers and e-mail and probably the link to my Ozark Veterans Write blog.

I asked Ed about the success of another writing group for preserving memoirs that used to be at Wesley. He said that people responded, participated, and wrote. So, I am hopeful that I can clearly explain the goals of this group and the value that I see in writing their service stories. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that people will respond and be willing to participate.

My next step is to prepare the flyer and have it ready. I also need to update my blog so that people can look at it and respond if they want. I need to prepare a simple writing activity as inspiration for that first meeting on Nov. 19. I like Keri's idea of providing a selection of adjectives that writers can choose from that best describes them as service members. I could have these on cards that the writer could take home and use to get started. Then, when we meet a second time, writers could share their writing based on these cards.

November 15, 2008
It has been an interesting week in terms of set-backs and changes to my project. I did create a flyer announcing the informational meeting of my veteran's writing group. I have attached this below in the attachment section. I also have advertised in the Wesley church bulletin for the past two weeks. No one has called me for information. I attending the Veteran's program Wednesday night at church. There were 90+ veterans in attendance. In the confusion and mass exodus at the end of the program, my plan for announcing the project to the group did not happen. I was able to hand out a few flyers, but people were not too responsive. In light of this, Ed provided me with a list of veterans who had attending the meal that night. He was nice to mark the ones he thought might be receptive if I contacted them. I called two people today. But, my problem is that I feel so strange about all of this. Maybe this is an indication that the direction this project is taking is not right for me. Another person said that she would come to my meeting on Wednesday night. So, I guess that is 50/50. I intend to try some more people tomorrow, but I just can not sort out my feelings about it all. I feel like I am intruding on people to help me with this project instead of keeping the goal of community research in mind.

Another interesting potential came about last week. One of my church friends has a senior in high school. He is involved with video production at his school. He used a green screen to record short interviews with several teachers in his school who are veterans. He collected photographs from their time in service and used these as backgrounds and use used military and inspirational music in the background. He produced this video and the school played it in observance of Veteran's Day. This is exactly the kind of community inquiry project that this OWP advance institute is all about. I was so impressed. I do not have access to the equipment like this young man does through his school, but I am most interested in his process and the potential for student work of this caliber. Maybe I could come up with a short video of a similar kind that would demonstrate the potential for collecting artifacts like this.

Another aspect I would like to include in my writing project is some form of outreach writing. There are many military personal deployed during the holidays, and this is the perfect time of year to give back from this community. I am going to see if there is interest in writing cards and words of encouragement and sending those to some unit overseas.

November 18, 2008
Today I made a handout of tips for how to start writing. Of course, the first tip is to simply write. This is a simple one sheet page of tips for generating ideas, creating hooks, including a conflict or lesson learned, and for considering creative elements such as dialogue and more powerful images. I have uploaded the handout in the attachment section.

December 7, 2008
The local news stations, KY3, had the following segments on Pearl Harbor remembrances. In this first segment, the news reporter speaks with Bill Martin, a local survivor of Pearl Harbor. The second segment is an interview with Guy Piper, also a local veteran of Pearl Harbor. I think that it is important that this news station has made an effort to remind the community of the service of our veterans. This video is a useful tool to preserve the service and sacrifice of these members of the Springfield community.

January 29, 2009
I want to reflect a bit on how I have used this page as a journal of my community inquiry project. Due to being engaged with this project for over six months, this journal has been extremely important as a place to record experiences. It has been helpful to return to this page often to see the project's process. I have a deeper appreciation for recording ideas, news articles, visits, interviews, and anything else that goes with this sort of long term project. I would most certainly encourage students to do a similar type of process in the event that I did a research project lasting more than a few weeks.

I have had a few issues with technology over the course of this process. I had no problems linking information from these pages to outside Internet sources, but each time I tried to link to pages within this wetpaint site, my computer would freeze. I tried on a different computer, and it did the same thing. I also had issues with the size limits of some files and with the addition of widgets. When I would find a widget that I wanted to use, such as Imeem for a sound file, it would not completely upload my file. The other item I wanted to upload and use was a student produced film. At 3. 32 GB it was much too large to upload to YouTube or to attach to this wetpaint site. There are storage sites available, such as Box.Net, but it too has a size limit or a fee associated for larger spaces.

Overall, I learned much as I worked with different aspects of this project. My favorite part was writing with a small group of women in an outreach capacity. There is just something that feels good about members of the same community reaching out to others with words of comfort and inspiration. The part I disliked the most was trying to pitch my small writing group to people. Yes, I did step outside my box and learn about advertising and rejection. I also learned about not giving up. There is a fine line between backing off and pushing forward. What I did not want to have happen is any damaged relationships where people felt uncomfortable with my requests. That aspect of the project just did not work for me.

My awareness about veterans in the Ozarks has been heightened. There are so many people who have served our country and given of themselves and their families. Their sacrifices have been real and significant, and it is through their giving that this community remains steadfast and American.