Every once in a while I do have amusing stories to share. They have no point....no complex message...no metaphorical meaning. They are just funny things that happened. When times are boring and bleak and dangerous...you have to find your humor where you can...
One of the least examined aspects of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, in this humble author's opinion, is the sexual health and well being of the more than 500,000 troops sitting in the sand.
Oh sure...there was the infamous "Love Boat"....the Navy ship on which an unusually high number of the female crew became pregnant during their deployment to the Gulf. But what about the lusts and desires of the very young, very virile kids away from wife, girlfriend or lover?
Friends, I'm talking about masturbation here.
Everyone does it. And with the median age of the young men in the Gulf at the time being 21 years old....they did a LOT of it.
But...where does one go to do it in private when living in extremely close quarters? Upon arrival in Saudi Arabia my unit lived in a warehouse. A wide open, metal hotbox filled with 800 guys. We lived on bunks spread 18 inches apart. Privacy was a quaint notion.
You can't start a Rub Out under those conditions. everyone would know as soon as you did...and you'd never get to finish for all the catcalls. It really fucks with the concentration.
So...where do you go? We were kept busy all day with lectures, exercise, training, more lectures, paperwork, heavy lifting work and all manner of busy work. Idle hands are the Devil's Work, you know? And no one could sneak off lest they miss an assignment. But there was one place where a guy has to go every day to be alone and no one questions it: the latrine.
Behind our warehouse accommodations there was a row of those plastic Port-0-Potties. This soon became the go-to place for the release of pent up tensions.
It was the secret-that-was-not-a-secret. Troopers heading off towards the latrine were automatically handed bits of secret porno stashes. The trading of pictures of girlfriends in sexual poses became a minor industry...like trading baseball cards. The then soon-to-be-satisfied would stalk off with a determined gait...slipping the imagination aids into pockets.
Some enterprising smart-asses began to bestow names on individual stalls in magic marker: The Whack Shack, The Meat Shoppe...and my own contribution...The One Stop Baloney Bop. Juvenile? Sure. Funny? At the time...yeah.
At times...when there was a full house...things tended to get out of hand (no pun intended, I think). The level of audible groans would rise...echoing from inside the plastic chambers. I once noted to a friend that it sounded like a casualty ward some days with all the moaning.
One day while waiting in line for our turn in the shitters...my friend Ty and I noticed a young officer from the battalion staff heading our way as he made his way to the officer's latrine (a swanky affair compared to our port-o-sans). As he passed his face took on a look of consternation over the level of moaning and groaning seeping through the vents above the doors. And the poor, clueless young man stopped...quite perplexed.
He sauntered towards us...we saluted...and as Ty was the senior rank...the officer addressed him.
"What's happening here?
Which was punctuated by a very loud moan from the nearest stall and a stage whispered "Oh fuuuuuuck."
Ty, in his most serious voice replied "We believe it's food poisoning, Sir." And shaking his head somberly "Very, bad, Sir, very bad. Lots of diarrhea." And explained that we were unit medics and were looking after them.
"Will they be OK?
"Yes, Sir. They'll be just fine. They just need to get the poison out."
As Ty is talking my face proceeded to get redder and redder. I'm not very good at holding in laughter. But, thank Christ, I managed to this time.
The officer, a fine young man concerned for the enlisted troops, nodded soberly.
"Very good then." And stalked off on his own mission.
As he passed the stalls...a red-faced, sweaty kid came out wearing a sloppy grin. The officer stopped and said he hopes he feels better. The kid, saluting, replied cheerily "Oh, I feel just great, Sir!"
I stepped quietly behind Ty and buried my face in his back to smother my laughter.
Well...there you have it. I guess it's a You Had to Be There moment. I'm glad I was.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Burn
Sometimes when I go to the beach in summer
I sit on my towel and strip off my shirt
and I close my eyes.
And I feel the sun hot on my back.
And I let myself burn.
I feel the heat rise from the sand around me
the scent so familiar
I rest my forehead on my arms and everything around me slips to white noise.
the sweat beads and runs on back and my neck and my arms
and I burn.
And I'm right back there.
I sit on my towel and strip off my shirt
and I close my eyes.
And I feel the sun hot on my back.
And I let myself burn.
I feel the heat rise from the sand around me
the scent so familiar
I rest my forehead on my arms and everything around me slips to white noise.
the sweat beads and runs on back and my neck and my arms
and I burn.
And I'm right back there.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Oasis
Every once in a while there were almost sublime moments of beauty.
They are the moments, when I'm flailing about in my mind trying to make sense of it all, to which I can grasp to keep myself grounded.
They were few and far between...but their very rarity makes them all the more precious.
There was the soccer game I watched...played by children in a refugee camp at the Saudi/Iraq border. The fact that the kids had energy enough to play meant we were doing our jobs effectively and keeping them alive and fed well. The fact they wanted to play at all meant they were getting past the trauma.
The tomato plant growing through the asphalt outside the warehouse we lived in...growing against all odds where no plant had a right to be. I made sure to check it every morning on my way to the latrine...willing it on to grow...to live. I sometimes wonder if it continued to flourish after we moved away and into the deep desert.
Watching the goofy looking new kid, who joined us after we had already deployed, quietly pray at night. The deep solemnity of his visage was enough to get us to stop busting his balls for a little while.
The Bedouin we passed while driving in a convoy one day. People in robes and headwraps riding camels with all their possessions strapped on to the animals. It was something straight out of Lawrence of Arabia. It was what I thought in my insular way what the desert should look like. It was so alien...so foreign to me that I watched their procession with the giddy awe usually reserved for children at the zoo.
The day one of the various homeless dogs... who roamed the camp and were adopted by various units...had puppies and for days lines formed as everyone wanted to spend time just watching the puppies sleep or feed or to bring blankets and towels and other things to wrap this new family in.
Watching my friend lay on his bunk and read a letter from his girlfriend. He was 19 and crazily, enthusiastically in love in only the way teenagers new to the experience ever seem to be. He would sack out, one his side with one arm thrown over his head and read and reread every letter. She'd spray perfume on them...and he'd pass them around for us to smell. Of course, the letters took so long to get from the USA to Saudi Arabia that the scent had long dissipated. But he'd swear it was still there as he lay down, smiling dreamily, to read them again. Really...he was just remembering the way she smelled.
The day I saw a baby being born for the first time. One of the few happy moments from the second, sad part of our mission: spending eight months traveling from refugee camp to refugee camp along the Saudi/Iraq/Kuwait border region providing medical care and food assistance until people could be resettled or returned home. Having seen footage of birth during training..and schooled in basic birth assistance...I thought I was prepared. I was not. The emotion that swept over everyone involved...mother, father, we medics...was unexpected. I guess after all the death, the taking of life...the presence of new life brought into the world stood out starkly. It felt good. And it was beautiful.
These memories I treasure.
They are the moments, when I'm flailing about in my mind trying to make sense of it all, to which I can grasp to keep myself grounded.
They were few and far between...but their very rarity makes them all the more precious.
There was the soccer game I watched...played by children in a refugee camp at the Saudi/Iraq border. The fact that the kids had energy enough to play meant we were doing our jobs effectively and keeping them alive and fed well. The fact they wanted to play at all meant they were getting past the trauma.
The tomato plant growing through the asphalt outside the warehouse we lived in...growing against all odds where no plant had a right to be. I made sure to check it every morning on my way to the latrine...willing it on to grow...to live. I sometimes wonder if it continued to flourish after we moved away and into the deep desert.
Watching the goofy looking new kid, who joined us after we had already deployed, quietly pray at night. The deep solemnity of his visage was enough to get us to stop busting his balls for a little while.
The Bedouin we passed while driving in a convoy one day. People in robes and headwraps riding camels with all their possessions strapped on to the animals. It was something straight out of Lawrence of Arabia. It was what I thought in my insular way what the desert should look like. It was so alien...so foreign to me that I watched their procession with the giddy awe usually reserved for children at the zoo.
The day one of the various homeless dogs... who roamed the camp and were adopted by various units...had puppies and for days lines formed as everyone wanted to spend time just watching the puppies sleep or feed or to bring blankets and towels and other things to wrap this new family in.
Watching my friend lay on his bunk and read a letter from his girlfriend. He was 19 and crazily, enthusiastically in love in only the way teenagers new to the experience ever seem to be. He would sack out, one his side with one arm thrown over his head and read and reread every letter. She'd spray perfume on them...and he'd pass them around for us to smell. Of course, the letters took so long to get from the USA to Saudi Arabia that the scent had long dissipated. But he'd swear it was still there as he lay down, smiling dreamily, to read them again. Really...he was just remembering the way she smelled.
The day I saw a baby being born for the first time. One of the few happy moments from the second, sad part of our mission: spending eight months traveling from refugee camp to refugee camp along the Saudi/Iraq/Kuwait border region providing medical care and food assistance until people could be resettled or returned home. Having seen footage of birth during training..and schooled in basic birth assistance...I thought I was prepared. I was not. The emotion that swept over everyone involved...mother, father, we medics...was unexpected. I guess after all the death, the taking of life...the presence of new life brought into the world stood out starkly. It felt good. And it was beautiful.
These memories I treasure.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
A Few Retreads
I moved a few stories concerning my work with a wounded Iraq vet to this blog from my other.
They belong here.
They belong here.
Repost 2
The Coarse Humor of Soldiers
When he first came to us...I was reluctant to take him on. My boss specifically wanted to assign him to me even though I had a full caseload and wasn't next in line for new client arrivals. He and I have a similar background so my boss thought the connection would be beneficial...the theory being he'd bond with me and I'd know how to handle him better than anyone else on staff because I'm the only employee with anything close to the same experiences.I was hesitant. I really didn't know if I could stand to do it. My job can be emotionally exhausting as it is...and to take on a kid...a disfigured kid...a kid who reminds me a lot of people I knew...I was just worried it would be too much. And, I think, I was wary of forming an emotional bond with a client. You learn pretty quickly not to do that...because the failures hurt all the more when that happens.
But I agreed to add him to my roster. I figured I would do what was most likely best for the kid and the company.But I made it clear to my boss, in no uncertain terms, that I would do things my way. If I was being matched with this client because of our similar backgrounds...that I was going to draw on that experience and things might be a little unconventional. He agreed.
And so they have been. So much so that I conduct most of our work out of the sight and hearing of the other clients. Because I yell at him...I say some mean shit.You see...that bond I was afraid of forming...was partially already in place. Amongst soldiers...there's a bond that those on the outside just can't truly fathom.
There's a brotherhood aspect to it...that no matter how much I tried to articulate it here...it just wouldn't be adequately explained. Soldiers bust one another's balls. But they do it with love.And I am a serious ballbuster. When we are involved in physical rehab activities...I go into total D.I. mode. We trade barbs that, to outsiders, would make it appear we hate one another (and that I'm a complete asshole and martinet). The fact that we laugh our asses off over these barbs would really confuse people.A few of my coworkers who have a more touchy-feely approach (which DOES work quite well with some clients) have expressed concerns over my style here......but fuck 'em. Because what I am doing works. And it has helped. A lot. His parents have told me so in progress report meetings. They say he talks about me a lot during their visits....of course, he leaves out the ballbusting.
===============================
Which leads me into the next part...The Kid may have to leave us. It's a long story...the short version being his parent's funding. He may have to move to a less expensive, less intensive, less well equipped facility...or even go back to being at home with only part time visiting aides, etc.And I really do not want that to happen. We've made tangible progress. His depression? He's no longer on anti-depressants. In my presence he hasn't had an angry outburst (common amongst head-injury survivors) in over a month. He can now bang out 25 push-ups when I make him (a big deal considering his muscles were weak from near atrophy when he came to us). We even toss a football around now...although...I still bust his balls when he misses an easy throw.That emotional bond you're supposed to avoid...it's kicking my ass over this. We've made real progress and I'm not ready to give up. In a job like mine...where the rewards are few...seeing improvement in someone make the whole fucking thing worthwhile.And..I don't want to lose what I've received from this relationship. I've spent a lot of time in the last decade working on veteran's issues in my spare time. Most of that consisted of letter writing. Ho hum. Here...I'm making a life better...just one life...of a kid crippled by war.And I feel more useful in that than in all those years of scribbling missives and pleas.
========================
As a medic...I promised the guys in my platoon that I'd always be there for them. Always. No matter what happened...I'd always do my best to help them when the shit hit the fan.It's an ethos I've tried to carry with me. I'm not done helping the Kid yet.
His parent's have yet to tell him he may have to leave. They don't want to say anything in case they can get more funding. I've already told them that if they do have to leave...I'll be by their house (they live only about 20 mins away by car from where I live). And I'll continue to work with him from time to time. His parents, bless their hearts, thought I meant as a paid employee.Anyway....I'm not done working with the Kid yet. I've got plenty more ballbusting to do.
Sometimes the world can be a big bowl of suck.
When he first came to us...I was reluctant to take him on. My boss specifically wanted to assign him to me even though I had a full caseload and wasn't next in line for new client arrivals. He and I have a similar background so my boss thought the connection would be beneficial...the theory being he'd bond with me and I'd know how to handle him better than anyone else on staff because I'm the only employee with anything close to the same experiences.I was hesitant. I really didn't know if I could stand to do it. My job can be emotionally exhausting as it is...and to take on a kid...a disfigured kid...a kid who reminds me a lot of people I knew...I was just worried it would be too much. And, I think, I was wary of forming an emotional bond with a client. You learn pretty quickly not to do that...because the failures hurt all the more when that happens.
But I agreed to add him to my roster. I figured I would do what was most likely best for the kid and the company.But I made it clear to my boss, in no uncertain terms, that I would do things my way. If I was being matched with this client because of our similar backgrounds...that I was going to draw on that experience and things might be a little unconventional. He agreed.
And so they have been. So much so that I conduct most of our work out of the sight and hearing of the other clients. Because I yell at him...I say some mean shit.You see...that bond I was afraid of forming...was partially already in place. Amongst soldiers...there's a bond that those on the outside just can't truly fathom.
There's a brotherhood aspect to it...that no matter how much I tried to articulate it here...it just wouldn't be adequately explained. Soldiers bust one another's balls. But they do it with love.And I am a serious ballbuster. When we are involved in physical rehab activities...I go into total D.I. mode. We trade barbs that, to outsiders, would make it appear we hate one another (and that I'm a complete asshole and martinet). The fact that we laugh our asses off over these barbs would really confuse people.A few of my coworkers who have a more touchy-feely approach (which DOES work quite well with some clients) have expressed concerns over my style here......but fuck 'em. Because what I am doing works. And it has helped. A lot. His parents have told me so in progress report meetings. They say he talks about me a lot during their visits....of course, he leaves out the ballbusting.
===============================
Which leads me into the next part...The Kid may have to leave us. It's a long story...the short version being his parent's funding. He may have to move to a less expensive, less intensive, less well equipped facility...or even go back to being at home with only part time visiting aides, etc.And I really do not want that to happen. We've made tangible progress. His depression? He's no longer on anti-depressants. In my presence he hasn't had an angry outburst (common amongst head-injury survivors) in over a month. He can now bang out 25 push-ups when I make him (a big deal considering his muscles were weak from near atrophy when he came to us). We even toss a football around now...although...I still bust his balls when he misses an easy throw.That emotional bond you're supposed to avoid...it's kicking my ass over this. We've made real progress and I'm not ready to give up. In a job like mine...where the rewards are few...seeing improvement in someone make the whole fucking thing worthwhile.And..I don't want to lose what I've received from this relationship. I've spent a lot of time in the last decade working on veteran's issues in my spare time. Most of that consisted of letter writing. Ho hum. Here...I'm making a life better...just one life...of a kid crippled by war.And I feel more useful in that than in all those years of scribbling missives and pleas.
========================
As a medic...I promised the guys in my platoon that I'd always be there for them. Always. No matter what happened...I'd always do my best to help them when the shit hit the fan.It's an ethos I've tried to carry with me. I'm not done helping the Kid yet.
His parent's have yet to tell him he may have to leave. They don't want to say anything in case they can get more funding. I've already told them that if they do have to leave...I'll be by their house (they live only about 20 mins away by car from where I live). And I'll continue to work with him from time to time. His parents, bless their hearts, thought I meant as a paid employee.Anyway....I'm not done working with the Kid yet. I've got plenty more ballbusting to do.
Sometimes the world can be a big bowl of suck.
Repost 1
Twenty-two, Now and Forever
(Home, part 1)
Before: athletic, humorous, laid back.
Now: Short term memory loss, various mood swings, sudden fits of rage, depression, poor coordination, vision problems.
What happened in between: A Traumatic Brain Injury caused by an IED in Iraq in summer, 2005.
At the age of 22 he, and what remains of his life, changed forever.He has a plate in his skull. He lost a portion of his brain matter and one side of his face is a mass of scars.
=============
He's one of my clients. It's my job to work with him to try and rebuild a life...to hopefully function in the world again. And I can already tell it's not going to happen for him. He's a long way gone.We play memory games. Sometimes they help, most times not. He still thinks it's 2005...always.
Dipping into his emotional reservoir by showing him some pictures from Iraq works. He can name every man in his squad still. But it drains him. And me.He's cognizant enough after his injury to recognize his deficiencies...what he's lost...some times. And it sends him into fits of anger and depression.
Those times of complete lucidity are almost a curse. It sounds terrible to say...but sometimes it's for the best when he blanks out for a time. It's hard to look at...a young man so crippled...staring unfocused and drooling onto his own shirt.It's ugly.It's what the people prone to empty sloganeering don't want to look at.Who really wants to see consequences?
=================
Today...I took him to a seaside town here...to the boardwalk to play ski-ball in an arcade. (I tried to use fun to cover the fact that I was really working on physical coordination)
We had a pretty good day.
(Home, part 1)
Before: athletic, humorous, laid back.
Now: Short term memory loss, various mood swings, sudden fits of rage, depression, poor coordination, vision problems.
What happened in between: A Traumatic Brain Injury caused by an IED in Iraq in summer, 2005.
At the age of 22 he, and what remains of his life, changed forever.He has a plate in his skull. He lost a portion of his brain matter and one side of his face is a mass of scars.
=============
He's one of my clients. It's my job to work with him to try and rebuild a life...to hopefully function in the world again. And I can already tell it's not going to happen for him. He's a long way gone.We play memory games. Sometimes they help, most times not. He still thinks it's 2005...always.
Dipping into his emotional reservoir by showing him some pictures from Iraq works. He can name every man in his squad still. But it drains him. And me.He's cognizant enough after his injury to recognize his deficiencies...what he's lost...some times. And it sends him into fits of anger and depression.
Those times of complete lucidity are almost a curse. It sounds terrible to say...but sometimes it's for the best when he blanks out for a time. It's hard to look at...a young man so crippled...staring unfocused and drooling onto his own shirt.It's ugly.It's what the people prone to empty sloganeering don't want to look at.Who really wants to see consequences?
=================
Today...I took him to a seaside town here...to the boardwalk to play ski-ball in an arcade. (I tried to use fun to cover the fact that I was really working on physical coordination)
We had a pretty good day.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Ruck Up and Move Out
Sometimes you see stories that inspire...
This is one of them.
Wounded Marines Focus on Film Careers
Associated Press January 22, 2008
SAN DIEGO - Joshua Frey looked through the view finder of his camera in a studio production lot, focusing on a group of helmets atop wooden stakes.
They reminded the former U.S. Marine of the memorials to fallen comrades he had seen before he was shot and hit by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq, which left him with partial use of his left arm, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder that still haunts his nights.
Frey, like many disabled veterans, has struggled to find a career, to rebuild a life.
Now, more than two years after being wounded in Fallujah, Frey has enrolled in the Wounded Marine Career Foundation program, which aims to help wounded and disabled Marines and Navy corpsmen land jobs in the film industry.
The photos in the studio lot were part assignment, part therapy for Frey. Perhaps, he says, his attempt to use a camera is a new beginning, a path to a new career.
"There's so much riding on this, it has just got to work," Frey says.
With more than 29,000 troops wounded in combat since Sept. 11, 2001, job training for the disabled is a priority for the military.
But unlike many training centers, the foundation's new film boot camp aims to do more than provide skills that help the disabled find a career in film, video, sound design, graphics and photojournalism.
It also aims to let the wounded tell their own stories, says co-founder Kev Lombard, a documentary filmmaker and two-time Emmy-winning director of photography for the children's television show "Reading Rainbow."
Lombard came up with the idea for the foundation's Wounded Marine Training Center for Careers in Media program after being asked by a friend in the military nearly two years ago to document the stories of wounded veterans at military hospitals.
"It wasn't our story to tell. It was theirs," he said. "So I said how about we teach them to tell their own story."
In addition to veterans whose war injuries forced them to retire, the Marine Corps is allowing active duty wounded Marines to enroll.
Lombard and his wife, Judith Paixao, use private and corporate donations and federal grants to operate the program, which costs $2 million (euro1.36 million) for each 10-week session. They plan two sessions a year.
"This isn't about turning out the next Steven Spielberg," Lombard said. "It's about turning out a camera operator, a grip, a boom operator. These are good jobs with good pay."
Amy Lemisch of the California Film Commission says the boot camp appears to be offering nuts-and-bolts skills that are often missing from college film schools.
"It's almost like an apprenticeship," she said.
While jobs in the film industry are highly competitive, Lemisch said the students could find jobs if they develop the right skills.
The program's camouflage-painted building on a studio production lot in San Diego has a Marine Corps atmosphere. Posters from "The Sands of Iwo Jima" and "The Flying Leathernecks" adorn the walls, and the 20 students are broken up into five-member squads.
Paixao says Marines and Navy corpsmen are well-suited for film work because of their discipline and teamwork.
However, many of the wounded and disabled have been removed from military life for some time. As a result, the program emphasizes Marine Corps discipline, says photography student and former Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch.
He has taken on the role of the program's gunnery sergeant, so to speak - briefing students on the day's events and helping new arrivals to San Diego navigate the city.
Popaditch gained widespread attention as the "Cigar Marine" during the fall of Baghdad when a photographer for The Associated Press captured him smiling and smoking a cigar. A year later, he was severely wounded in Fallujah by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade that hit him in the face, damaging one eye and causing him to lose the other.
Many students have severe wounds that require modification of film equipment. Barry Green, an Emmy-award winning producer, worked with Popaditch to figure out how best to use video and still cameras with his injured eye.
"I'm feeling more comfortable with it," Popaditch said hours later, looking through the camera's eye piece.
Across the room, former Gunnery Sgt. Tai Cleveland, 42, worked on loading editing software onto his laptop computer.
It's the first step in what Cleveland hopes will be a new career. He uses a wheelchair since a 2003 training accident in Kuwait caused back and brain injuries, and supports his family on his disability check.
Cleveland dreams of one day building a production studio in his home in Manassas, Virginia, and he and his wife, Robin, have begun putting together a business plan.
"It's a way for me to take back as head of the household with a career that I can do from a wheelchair," he says during the lunch break.
Standing in the cluttered studio lot, instructor Levie Isaacks works with Frey, 31, to complete the day's assignment: shooting a series of five photos that set a scene.
Frey focuses on the helmets, which sit near a box of blank ammunition. For a moment he considers taking pictures. But then he decides against it, saying later that the scene didn't look real.
Isaacks knows a bit what Frey has faced in war, having suffered post-traumatic stress himself as a Vietnam War veteran.
Isaacks has taken the road from combat veteran to Emmy Award-winning directory of photography, whose credits include Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle" and the recent film "Grace," starring Elizabeth Shue.
"You look through that lens and the world is focused," Isaacks says.
This is one of them.
Wounded Marines Focus on Film Careers
Associated Press January 22, 2008
SAN DIEGO - Joshua Frey looked through the view finder of his camera in a studio production lot, focusing on a group of helmets atop wooden stakes.
They reminded the former U.S. Marine of the memorials to fallen comrades he had seen before he was shot and hit by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq, which left him with partial use of his left arm, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder that still haunts his nights.
Frey, like many disabled veterans, has struggled to find a career, to rebuild a life.
Now, more than two years after being wounded in Fallujah, Frey has enrolled in the Wounded Marine Career Foundation program, which aims to help wounded and disabled Marines and Navy corpsmen land jobs in the film industry.
The photos in the studio lot were part assignment, part therapy for Frey. Perhaps, he says, his attempt to use a camera is a new beginning, a path to a new career.
"There's so much riding on this, it has just got to work," Frey says.
With more than 29,000 troops wounded in combat since Sept. 11, 2001, job training for the disabled is a priority for the military.
But unlike many training centers, the foundation's new film boot camp aims to do more than provide skills that help the disabled find a career in film, video, sound design, graphics and photojournalism.
It also aims to let the wounded tell their own stories, says co-founder Kev Lombard, a documentary filmmaker and two-time Emmy-winning director of photography for the children's television show "Reading Rainbow."
Lombard came up with the idea for the foundation's Wounded Marine Training Center for Careers in Media program after being asked by a friend in the military nearly two years ago to document the stories of wounded veterans at military hospitals.
"It wasn't our story to tell. It was theirs," he said. "So I said how about we teach them to tell their own story."
In addition to veterans whose war injuries forced them to retire, the Marine Corps is allowing active duty wounded Marines to enroll.
Lombard and his wife, Judith Paixao, use private and corporate donations and federal grants to operate the program, which costs $2 million (euro1.36 million) for each 10-week session. They plan two sessions a year.
"This isn't about turning out the next Steven Spielberg," Lombard said. "It's about turning out a camera operator, a grip, a boom operator. These are good jobs with good pay."
Amy Lemisch of the California Film Commission says the boot camp appears to be offering nuts-and-bolts skills that are often missing from college film schools.
"It's almost like an apprenticeship," she said.
While jobs in the film industry are highly competitive, Lemisch said the students could find jobs if they develop the right skills.
The program's camouflage-painted building on a studio production lot in San Diego has a Marine Corps atmosphere. Posters from "The Sands of Iwo Jima" and "The Flying Leathernecks" adorn the walls, and the 20 students are broken up into five-member squads.
Paixao says Marines and Navy corpsmen are well-suited for film work because of their discipline and teamwork.
However, many of the wounded and disabled have been removed from military life for some time. As a result, the program emphasizes Marine Corps discipline, says photography student and former Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch.
He has taken on the role of the program's gunnery sergeant, so to speak - briefing students on the day's events and helping new arrivals to San Diego navigate the city.
Popaditch gained widespread attention as the "Cigar Marine" during the fall of Baghdad when a photographer for The Associated Press captured him smiling and smoking a cigar. A year later, he was severely wounded in Fallujah by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade that hit him in the face, damaging one eye and causing him to lose the other.
Many students have severe wounds that require modification of film equipment. Barry Green, an Emmy-award winning producer, worked with Popaditch to figure out how best to use video and still cameras with his injured eye.
"I'm feeling more comfortable with it," Popaditch said hours later, looking through the camera's eye piece.
Across the room, former Gunnery Sgt. Tai Cleveland, 42, worked on loading editing software onto his laptop computer.
It's the first step in what Cleveland hopes will be a new career. He uses a wheelchair since a 2003 training accident in Kuwait caused back and brain injuries, and supports his family on his disability check.
Cleveland dreams of one day building a production studio in his home in Manassas, Virginia, and he and his wife, Robin, have begun putting together a business plan.
"It's a way for me to take back as head of the household with a career that I can do from a wheelchair," he says during the lunch break.
Standing in the cluttered studio lot, instructor Levie Isaacks works with Frey, 31, to complete the day's assignment: shooting a series of five photos that set a scene.
Frey focuses on the helmets, which sit near a box of blank ammunition. For a moment he considers taking pictures. But then he decides against it, saying later that the scene didn't look real.
Isaacks knows a bit what Frey has faced in war, having suffered post-traumatic stress himself as a Vietnam War veteran.
Isaacks has taken the road from combat veteran to Emmy Award-winning directory of photography, whose credits include Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle" and the recent film "Grace," starring Elizabeth Shue.
"You look through that lens and the world is focused," Isaacks says.
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