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.

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.

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