War is a writer’s medium.
Even in the age of instant imaging, the lasting expressions of war are those expressed by soldiers who have lived the experience. One of them is Bill Glose, poet-editor-author. Glose served in the Gulf War and is the son of a Vietnam War fighter pilot. His perspective is that of one who was in the war and knew first-hand the toll that war exacts upon loved ones waiting for their return. His experience is instructive for anyone in management who is exploring what it means to be aware of self and others you lead.
In an essay for The War Horse, Glose writes, “When I came back from Iraq, I carried with me the images of landscapes littered with ruined bodies. To deal with the stew of emotions roiling inside, I emulated my father, who never spoke about his experiences in Vietnam. Stoicism was his fortress. It became mine, too.”
“Silence,” as Glose writes, “had served as a tolerable stopgap when action ruled my world. But once I left the Army, I had too much free time to think. I’d seen reports about the high rate of veteran suicides—22 per day. I hadn’t considered taking my own life, but I often got angry at simple things, exploding in violent outbursts.” So, at the urging of a friend who was a poet, Bill began putting his war experiences into poetry.
Getting to the heart of the matter
Glose’s poetry, as seen in his second collection, Half a Man, has an immediacy that cuts to the quick. Glose shared with me in a recent interview that poetry is an ideal medium for expressing what soldiers are experiencing. “There are certain things you can do with poetry that you can’t do with prose. You can explore the emotional impact of issues instead of trying to pull the issues apart; you can focus on sensory details and visual imagery instead of having to give exact descriptions and fill in all the context. Essays and articles always seek to explain the why behind something. But ambiguity is fine in a poem. It allows you to explore painful subjects and ask questions you want to avoid without needing an answer.”
Glose continues, “Specifically regarding war, poetry, writing, poems about your war experience can be picking away a scab. It can hurt at first, but each time you rip it off, the scab shrinks a little bit, the pain diminishes, and then the skin beneath grows healthier. So it can be like a type of self-therapy, a way to face your traumatic experiences instead of burying them away.”
State of Fear: There and Here
In 2022, Glose recently published his first work of fiction, All the Ruined Men, as a means of widening his lens on the war experience. “Poetry is great for exploring these tiny moments, but I wanted to look at the lives of soldiers completely. I wanted to see what it was like for them before and during war and then mostly afterwards how the war had changed them.”
“Many books are written about the horrors of war,” says Glose. “I wanted to write about how difficult it can be to come home afterwards. So that’s what All the Ruined Men is about. It follows a single squad of paratroopers in the 82nd Airborne after they’ve served in numerous combat tours and now they’re coming back home and trying to adjust to civilian life. And they each have a difficult time of it.”
So often, as we discuss soldiers in combat zones, we overlook the toil it takes on their families. “Just like the soldiers are in a state of fear. Their families are in a state of fear, too. You don’t know exactly what’s going on over there. And anytime you hear about any action that happened, you always fear that your loved one was involved. And then, when they come home, it’s strange getting to know them again because they have changed so much. But the families, they’ve changed as well through this process of fear.”
Helping Those Who Have Served
Civilians have images of war gleaned from what they see on television or read in books, but unless you have experienced war first-hand, it is wholly foreign. And some struggle to connect or re-connect with family members and friends who have served. Glose has some advice. “If you don’t know how to begin a conversation, ask them about some hijinks they used to get into. Ask [about] some funny story that you and your buddies got in trouble for. What’s something really stupid that you did?” Prompting with those kinds of light-hearted questions may get the veteran laughing. “That opens up that door to talk about more serious things.”
Glose is sometimes asked if reading or knowing about books depicting war will re-traumatize soldiers. “My thought is the same thing as how I changed my approach for my father. Nothing ever gets better by ignoring it. Sharing these stories, letting them know they’re not alone. I think that’s a fantastic thing to do.”
War changes everything, especially those who fight it. Writers who have served may be called to find the truth of the experience. In their doing, we learn of war’s terrible lessons as well as its life-altering power. Writers like Bill Glose shape their experiences into poems and stories that illuminate the human condition, a valuable lesson for anyone in leadership.
For my LinkedIn Live interview with Bill Glose, click here.