nd<\/sup> Stryker Brigade, was leaving Iraq.<\/p>\nDunson credits his squad leader with sparking his musical career by urging him one day to write about his infantry experience. That night, he wrote three songs. \u201cI wrote a song called \u2018My First Kill\u2019 which was about the first time I had to use my weapon for combat,\u201d Dunson told the Rebel Yell, UNLV\u2019s student newspaper.\u00a0 Another song, \u201cIf I Don\u2019t Make It Home,\u201d was a letter to his family telling them what he wanted them to do in the event of his death. \u201cIt was really deep. I cried while I was making it, and I cried while I was recording it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
But war changed his plans. Dunson\u2019s marriage fell apart during his deployment, and he came home to a divorce, back-to-back incarcerations, homelessness and the emotional wounds that we\u2019ve come to know as post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the worst things I think they do in the Army is they tell you to forget everything that\u2019s happened to us,\u201d Dunson says. \u201cThey want you to erase the past six years \u2013 however long you were there \u2013 to forget it and just move on. For me, I came up with the whole idea of how about not forgetting it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunson\u2019s music hit home with the UNLV audience, composed largely of National Guard vets. The gritty lyrics combined with the music for a strong emotional bond, the kind that is so unique to music.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the musical parts of the brain, if I could put it this way, are close to the memory parts and close to the emotional parts. And so music tends to embed itself in memory and to evoke emotions with an immediacy beyond, I think, of any other stimulus with the possible exceptions of smell,\u201d writes neurologist Oliver Sacks. \u201cBut in particular when people really have chills and thrills and sort of their hair stands on end with music enraptured, then you can find the particular systems of the brain rewards systems are activated, the same systems which are activated when one falls in love, or is overwhelmed with beauty generally. But that being said, that leaves the problem \u2018So what\u2019s beauty?\u2019 It\u2019s just not sort of pleasure, it\u2019s the whole nature of aesthetic and beauty and the sublime, which is so overwhelming in music or can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because music occupies more space in the brain than language does, Sacks explains.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, music can stimulate thinking, according to Stefan Koelsch, a neurologist from Berlin\u2019s Free University and the author of \u201cThe Brain and Music.\u201d \u201cListening to music has the capacity to up- as well as down-regulate neuronal activity in these limbic and paralimbic structures\u201d of the brain, Koelsch writes.<\/p>\n
But a vet has to be ready to accept the therapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we came back from war, we were so emotionally numb that we couldn\u2019t feel love,\u201d says Mike Orban, a Vietnam vet and vets\u2019 advocate from Milwaukee. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t even see beauty in the world around us. Our eyes were open, but we couldn\u2019t see the beauty of a group of goldfinches clustering around a bird feeder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, that\u2019s still where David Carlson is.<\/p>\n
Emotionally, that is. Physically, he\u2019s serving a three-year sentence at a state prison in Chippewa Falls, Wis., on burglary, theft and bail jumping charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he came back from Iraq, nothing seemed to work for him,\u201d notes his mother, Heidi Carlson, who is also a nationally recognized counselor working with troubled vets. \u201cNow he\u2019s in prison with no medications and little therapy, but he\u2019s finding his voice with music.\u201d<\/p>\n
David\u2019s childhood was troubled, largely as a result of his father, an abusive Vietnam vet, says Carlson.<\/p>\n
Her son did two tours of Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard. As a sniper, he had more than 100 missions on his first deployment in 2004. He served as a scout during his second deployment in 2008. \u201cDavid spent most of his time outside the wire, but IEDs (improvised explosive devices) seem to have been a common thread,\u201d his mother told me.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring David\u2019s first tour of duty, he still believed in the mission,\u201d says Orban. \u201cBut he lost it on the second tour, and there was no way to justify all his friends being blown up. Ad when he lost his belief in the mission, he also lost his belief in himself as a soldier and in what he was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Carlson came home, he was drinking heavily and huffing \u201ccanned air,\u201d aerosol cans of keyboard cleaner. Huffing canned air called Dust Off was a big problem for the military in Iraq.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid had flashbacks so severe that I had to get him into VA trauma centers several times,\u201d
\nsays his mother. \u201cI remember one night he was drinking heavily and playing Russian roulette with a pearl-handled .357 revolver. When I got to his apartment, I saw the pistol on the coffee table. I took it, and he was crying, saying he wished he\u2019d died in Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of Carlson\u2019s songs are explicitly sexist, racist and profane, but one song did explore suicide:<\/p>\n
\u201cDear Lord.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Save me from dis misery.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All dis hate I feel<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Inside it\u2019s killing me.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I let it go<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But dem cowards still testin\u2019 me.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dear Lord,<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m ready for eternity.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNo joy.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Inside I\u2019m frostbit.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dem late desert nights<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Somewhere I lost it,<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Try to find myself,<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Found I don\u2018t give a shit<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And dey don\u2019t give no shit bout me.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My life\u2019s forfeit.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
That black anger is the first stage of therapy, says Orban. It\u2019s the cry of a vet who\u2019s still stuck back in the killing zones, but who\u2019s trying to fight his way back out.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid is still in the black hell of war,\u201d says Orban. \u201cHe has to get that out of his system, and he has to get those issues resolved. As he does, he will eventually begin to get a little softer, and there may be a smile in there sometime. But you can\u2019t go from hate, guilt and anger to love in a single heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Music is helping retired Sgt. Leo Dunson and a number of other vets get their emotions and memories out in the open where they can confront them. Dunson, who describes himself as a PTSD and suicide survivor, writes and performs a version of rap music that he calls \u201csoldier music\u201d because it\u2019s hard hitting. \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericnewhouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericnewhouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericnewhouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericnewhouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericnewhouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ericnewhouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericnewhouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericnewhouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericnewhouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}