I recently interviewed T.I. Miller, a 92-year-old WWII vet who fought on Guadalcanal and New Britain.<\/p>\n
When it came to war, Mr. Miller had seen it all. Charging banzai attacks. Severed heads. Bloody arms, legs, and torsos. The works.<\/p>\n
After he came home, a man doesn\u2019t forget these things instantly, he said.<\/p>\n
I asked him what helped. This was his answer:<\/p>\n
“What helped? My wife and family were a big help, especially my wife, Recie. At the same time, it\u2019s something you gotta just do yourself. The secret, I found out, is just to stay busy. There were no government programs to help back then. No therapists to see. Nothing like that.<\/p>\n
I was born and raised out in the country. So after I came back from the war, I built me and Recie a house out there close to where I\u2019d grown up. I got out there and roamed around in the mountains. That\u2019s what helped.<\/p>\n
One time they closed the mines down for three months. Someone said, \u201cWhere you gonna go look for a job.\u201d I said, \u201cI ain\u2019t. I\u2019m gonna spend the summer out in the sunshine.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I did. I took a two pound double bladed axe, walked a half mile up above where I lived. We had a field there, and I cut down big trees and cut them into fence posts. All I had was that axe. I made my own mallet and split those trees myself.<\/p>\n
I got me a half acre of ground, plowed it up, and had a field. That same summer I grew potatoes, corn, and beans. The whole summer I spent growing things I wanted to. I\u2019d be out in the woods at daylight. I just worked like that and built myself back up.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Notice three key actions in Mr. Miller\u2019s plan to heal. I\u2019m no therapist, but I\u2019d consider these important components to helping anybody out of a hard spot.<\/p>\n
1. He busied himself with straightforward, non-emotional work.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe war had taxed Mr. Miller\u2019s ability to cope. During those years of horror, he had experienced too many events larger than himself. Splitting wood helped him connect with a simpler world.<\/p>\n
2. He got active, outside. <\/strong><\/p>\nFresh air, sunshine, nature, and physical exercise helped him regain a sense of security and peacefulness. Notice he didn\u2019t turn to alcohol, drugs, or any such trappings that only result in harm.<\/p>\n
3. He could see what he accomplished each day. <\/strong><\/p>\nPlenty of beneficial activities have non-identifiable benchmarks, but it\u2019s much harder for a man doing this kind of work to feel good about what he\u2019s done. By splitting wood and growing a garden, Mr. Miller could see clear progress on a regular basis. At the end of each day he could point to a pile of fence posts and say, \u201cThere it is. I did that.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you know a returning veteran, or anyone for that matter struggling with a dark place, please consider passing this article along.<\/p>\n
The advice doesn\u2019t come from me. It comes from someone who was there, survived, healed, and went on to thrive with the rest of his life.<\/p>\n
Are you a vet who struggled after coming home from war, or have been in another kind of dark place? What did you do to help heal?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Editor\u2019s note: This is guest post from Marcus Brotherton. It originally ran on Men Who Lead Well (www.marcusbrotherton.com). I recently interviewed T.I. Miller, a 92-year-old WWII vet who fought on Guadalcanal and New Britain. When it came to war, Mr. Miller had seen it all. Charging banzai attacks. Severed heads. Bloody arms, legs, and torsos. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":28590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-28589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-featured"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2012\/11\/TI-Miller-2-313x280.jpg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2012\/11\/TI-Miller-2-313x230.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28589"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127807,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28589\/revisions\/127807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28589"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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