too difficult to verbalize. That’s why music
touches so many people deeply.”
Faces of the Faceless
Miami resident John Miranda understands
using music in place of words. He spent a good
portion of his adult years entrenched in the
rock-musician lifestyle on the West Coast. In
1973, he joined the service and became a parachuter during the final stages of the Vietnam
War. “Conflict and war are no picnic,” he says.
“Nor was the way we were treated when we
came home. When I got out of the military, I
began drinking heavily, jumped onboard with a
band, and played my life away.”
Miranda is now in his mid 50s, and not long
ago he found the courage and the means
to clean up his life. He went to the Miami
VA for help in 2009 and met music therapist
Elizabeth Stockton, whom he credits for
not giving up on him during the hospital’s
three-month program. Through music and
sobriety, he is learning to unlock emotions he
believed didn’t exist. “I know the power of
music and what a program like this can do,”
says Miranda, who became the first instructor for the Miami chapter of Guitars for Vets.
“There’s life to music. It’s very spiritual.”
Guitars for Vets is staffed entirely by volunteers. Instructors must train through a strict VA
program, and they’re submitted to rigorous FBI
background checks that require fingerprinting
and official badges for admission to facilities.
In addition to government protocol, G4V has
three requirements. “Instructors must show
gratitude toward veterans for what they have
given,” says Nettesheim. “They must be empathetic and sincerely able to feel these veterans’
stories, and they must be nonjudgmental and
throw all political thoughts out the door.”
Marc DeRuiter instructs the Grand Rapids,
Michigan, chapter of Guitars for Vets. A Navy
veteran from 1972–1975 who was stationed
in both the Philippines and Vietnam, he discovered the organization in 2009 through a
web search. Based on his experience performing for patients in Alzheimer’s Disease
units for seven years, he understands the
therapeutic effects of music. He has been
a musician since his teens, and he has a
repertoire of country, bluegrass, rock, and
oldies tunes. He has performed with the
same musicians for 30 years, and he began
teaching guitar at his church 10 years ago.
After discovering G4V online, DeRuiter says
he emailed Nettesheim because he thought
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a term most of us are familiar
with but that we would be hard-pressed to articulate a good working definition for. To help us get a better handle on it, we contacted J.
Sheppard Crumrine, a board-certified music therapist who has worked
in the acute mental health unit at the Milwaukee VA for more than 16
years and who is also an advisory consultant for Guitars for Vets.
“PTSD is an almost-automatic fight-or-flight response,” he explains.
“It’s physiological, emotional, and biological. We see this in veterans
who have experienced combat trauma or military sexual abuse.”
Because neighbors, coworkers, family members, and friends of
PTSD sufferers can’t see the cause of the affliction, it is often difficult for them to understand and empathize. Consequently, attitudes
toward PTSD victims can often be condescending and harsh. But
Crumrine says blaming an individual for their PTSD or depression is
not only heartless, it’s pointless. Telling them to “get over it” is tantamount to telling a cancer patient to go into remission. “PTSD is
not something you have a choice over when you experience it,” he
says. “It can be a response to a negative or positive stress—
retirement, marriage, a new baby. Suddenly your mind goes back to other
things. PTSD is elusive. It can happen after 30 years of productive life
or nine months of service in Iraq. You fall apart.”
Symptoms of PTSD include social and emotional withdrawal, anger,
irritability, explosiveness, and outbursts, says Crumrine. “There is a
shutting down, a lack of interest, wanting to stay in the house or in
one part of the house, avoidance, and less communication. A startled
reaction is very common in combat veterans, and flashbacks can
occur as a response to a neutral stimulus. For example, a veteran
can go to a nice, natural place like the park, but to him it’s similar to
an ambush zone he was in. His anxiety will spike.”
Severe clinical depression is often a counterpart to PTSD. “It’s an
absence of feeling,” says Crumrine. “You are sad, disconnected,
numb. The biological brain process is not firing the chemistry that
ordinary people experience. Everything slows down, and it feels like
there is no reason to go on living because you don’t experience anything as you are living.”
Music therapy, says Crumrine, has been proven to influence brain
functioning, stimulate brain chemistry, slow down stress release,
and complement medication. A program like Guitars for Vets, he
says, is ideal in that it engages veterans and offers them a form of
relaxation. “It’s not aspirations of performing,” he says. “It’s self-medication you can take safely in addition to whatever else you may
be using. The guitar is a personified friend—it will play for you and
never say no. Once a veteran learns to produce his own music with
a guitar, it can be with them wherever and forever.”
