Alan Dugan: Family Scene: Young Vet and Relatives
FAMILY SCENE: YOUNG VET AND RELATIVES
He will smile and corroborate the evidence
as quickly as the expensive magazines
that tell him weekly what he wants or knows.
He will speak dramatically like a correspondent
of his secret and meaningful time on the movie islands,
among statistics of perfection and foxholes
and no atheists and the great tropism to where he
is sitting so happily and so contented now.
Then he will callously repeat his notions
from their lips, his life ambition and politer
lusts, play back the phonograph of their belief,
while in the closet his overcoat is hung,
ready and fixed in the shape of his shoulders;
while he hears, if he stops dead for a moment,
the hate hawked on every corner of his suburb
and the sound of the gun he thought silent
And his name is called from the safe room
he will be arming for struggle and warning himself
of what is to come, where he can go to meet it,
of what is here already, tapping on the window
as he seats a tipsy aunt at dinner.
Discussion Questions
What is your reaction to the poem? What stands out to you?
If the vet in the poem were a patient in the clinic or hospital, what might be challenging about that experience for him?
Some healthcare workers (physicians, nurses, etc.) are well-versed in principles of trauma informed care. For others, it’s a totally new concept. What advice would you share with a healthcare worker unfamiliar with trauma informed care?
Reflections from #MedHumChat
“When I first read this poem I thought it was a contemporary work b/c it so captures the sense of readjustment & feeling detached after returning from military deployment that I hear about from the Veterans I care for now.”—@meggerber
“This strikes me as a performance: the individual dons the character of the "young vet" in a "family scene," "smiles" and "speaks dramatically," lip-syncs to his relatives' beliefs -- but what hides "in the closet" is fear of "hate" and "what is to come."—@anoushkaasinha
“How haunting and imagined and yet so very real the fear + danger are. How clear it is that you can't just say "you're ok, it's in your head, you're ok." There is a much deeper and longer response needed.”—@alinasato
“The obvious thing that comes to mind are loud noises, anything startling. But I think more generally it would be the feeling of loosing control, of not being in control. And unfortunately, that's a common feeling for patients in a healthcare setting.”—@OdyO11
“For some vets its hard being in the VA, it that has been a source of trauma and not healing. Being around others that are wounded. It can also be hard when a vet is not at a VA and there is not an awareness from those around them of what they've been through.”—@ZacharySagerMD
About this #MedHumChat
“Family Scene: Young Vet and Relatives” was paired with “Resistance and Surrender,” an essay by Jennifer Tsai for a #MedHumChat discussion May 29, 2019 exploring Trauma Informed Care
We were honored to be joined by special guests, Dr. Megan Gerber, MD, MPH (@meggerber) and Dr. Jennifer Tsai, MD, M.Ed (@tsaiduck77) for this #MedHumChat. Dr. Gerber is a nationally recognized expert in intimate partner violence (IPV) detection and intervention in medical settings, and currently serves as the Medical Director of women’s health at VA Boston Healthcare System (VABHS). Dr. Tsai is an Emergency Medicine physician and free-lance writer in New Haven, Connecticut whose research focuses on the intersection of race and medicine.
The pieces for this chat, along with the discussion questions, were selected by Colleen Farrell.
About the Author
Alan Dugan (1923-2003) was an American poet who served in the Air Force during World War II. You can learn more about him here.