War’s complexities come alive in students’ book

By Rob Cullivan

The Gresham Outlook, Jun 12, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

contributed photo

From left, back row, are Jordan Hillman, Aaron Guy, Laborrah Sims, Winston Bellant, Travis Dickerman, Alejandro Lopez, James Erwin, Jessica Willis, Justin Buchanan, Blake Anton, Amy Everett and Ali Neary. The group of Centennial Learning Center students proudly hold the book they compiled through interviews with veterans, refugees and peace activists.

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Some of them fought in wars, some of them protested wars and some of them fled wars.

“Once you got there, you were in a survival mode,” notes one combat veteran.

“I don’t condemn another man who picks up a gun to defend his family or his country if he feels it’s necessary, but that’s not my way,” says a peace activist.

“If you lose your home, you’re gone,” a refugee says. “You’re lucky because you’re alive.”

Combatants, conscientious objectors and civilians are the subject of a fascinating new book of interviews compiled by students at Centennial Learning Center.

Titled “Veterans of War and Peace,” the book was created by students in the school’s “Speak Out: A Dialogue about Conflict & Community” class, according to Angela Nusom, who assisted the students along with fellow teacher MaryAnn LaZelle.

The students interviewed a wide range of people, including men who fought in Vietnam, peace activists who have worked in Northern Ireland and against the Iraq War, and refugees from Somalia and Congo.

Nusom says the oral history is designed to move discussions about war from right-or-wrong arguments to why people fight – or don’t – and what those choices do to them. She adds that participating in the project affected her own approach to education.

“I learned the same things the kids did,” she says, noting she had to polish her listening skills and abandon rigid notions of politics in order to shepherd the project. “It’s our job to listen and to empathize,” she adds.

A number of students say the project changed the way they watch TV news or view veterans, peace activists and refugees.

Ali Neary, 18, a senior, says talking to Vietnam veterans dispelled her previous notions about them.

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