Government sources, commanding officers’ reports and the news media shape what most people know about military service, but veterans’ own accounts are the truest and most powerful portraits of that life, say the founders of the Syracuse Veterans’ Writing Group.

Eileen Schell, professor of writing and rhetoric and L. Douglas and Laura J. Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), started that group in 2010 to give veterans a place to tell their stories. She wanted to help Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans studying on campus through the GI Bill. She also wanted to open the group to Persian Gulf and Vietnam war veterans and the wider community.

Member Jennifer Jeffery, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran and machinery technician, says  members’ writings give voice to experiences the public rarely hears about.

“Around Veterans Day there is a lot of noise around the dominant narrative of what and who veterans are,” she says. “I am proud to be a part of a group that endeavors to give voice to the truth of military experiences from different perspectives.”

Schell co-leads the group with Ivy Kleinbart, professional writing instructor in the writing studies, rhetoric and composition program, and Diane Grimes, associate professor of communication and rhetorical studies in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Timothy Gerken, A&S associate teaching professor, joins them and leads a veterans poetry group at Onondaga Free Library.

What began with four members now has about 20 regulars, and the group’s Facebook page has 200 followers. They meet monthly on campus for writing, meditation, sharing and feedback. A Zoom manuscript workshop and monthly poetry sessions are also offered. Membership is free and open to all veterans and their supporters, with no writing experience or student status required. Members’ writings are posted online.

The group published an anthology, “The Weight of My Armor,” in 2017.

“Writing helps because it gives  veterans a way to make sense of their military service by organizing, thinking and reflecting on what that experience means,” Schell says.

Hearing from other veterans also offers validation. And because writing takes little physical effort, it’s accessible to veterans with limited mobility or service-connected injuries, she says.

Robert Hawley, a Vietnam combat veteran from Syracuse, says the group has “enriched my life, opening doors that have been closed for many veterans. [Before joining] my retirement calendar had very few entries in it; this group changed that.”

Anthony Ruscitto ’22, G’23, a College of Law student, joined in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then a Marine fresh from active duty, he says he had “just started to wonder what being a veteran was all about.”

“In a time where the world kept us behind masks physically, [group organizers] helped us through writing to lower the ‘masks’ so many of us wear every day … by connecting with other veterans, sharing our stories and learning more about what our service really meant to us,” he says.

Schell believes the best way to celebrate Veterans Day “is just to sit with living veterans and hear what they have to say about their experiences.”

“It’s a meaningful act to listen,” she says. “It’s an opportunity to be inspired by what it means to be part of this country, to put yourself and your life on the line and see what it means to come home after that.”

Community members can do that at a public reading Tuesday, Nov. 10. Group members will share their essays, poems and recollections at the Soule Branch Library, 101 Springfield Road, Syracuse, at 6:15 p.m. A question-and-answer session and refreshments follow and a photography exhibit by Hawley is on display.