FORT CARSON, Colo. (AP) – With a growing demand for ways to treat the psychological damage of war, one Army pilot project is offering therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder by encouraging soldiers to take control of their own stories in a filmmaking class titled I Was There Media Workshop.
The Fort Carson program began last year, under the auspices of Ben Patton, a New York documentary filmmaker and a grandson of Gen. George S. Patton, and Scott Kinnamon, a Denver educational filmmaker. Some 20 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars so far have attempted to organize their combat experiences in video as a way to fight PTSD.
“You can put everything into a video or a movie, a small movie about what you want to tell people – your story,” said 1st Sgt. Jason Gallegos of Fountain, Colo., who deployed to Iraq three times and has now produced a short film called “From Hero to Zero.”