2008-05-09T13:56:45-01:00 tag:aaronbrown.kjzz.org,2008:blog Quills tag:aaronbrown.kjzz.org,2008-05-09:1ea2a999d8faeb10dc0043edd1dd23d5 <h2></h2> <p>Week two of this little experiment is just about completed and it feels quite different from our effort last week.  In some parts it is a bit lighter: a conversation with a favorite chef, a little advice from a psychologist on how to deal with my ASU students, and because it's mothers day this weekend, a phone call with my mom.</p> <div><br /></div> <div>But the real meat of the hour is a discussion about war and the wounds of war we can not see.  The most common war statistic you hear thrown around is that 4000 soldiers have died in combat.  What you don't hear is that a like number have taken their own lives.  In sorting through this the reporter in me tries to make sense of such senselessness: What is it about war, the culture of the military, the state of mental health care that has contributed to these individual tragedies?  That's what the reporter wonders.  But there is something else that is more personal and in truth makes me angry.  How can it be that we send our sons and daughters off to war and all too often forget them when they return?  I've been in wars and one thing I am certain of is that no one leaves a war zone unscarred.  No one is the same when they come back as they were when they left.  Thankfully only a few will kill themselves and maybe 20% will show signs of PTSD.  But <b>all</b> will be different.  These days military doctors can save lives on the battlefield like never before.  But the sad truth is that as a country we are less good at supplying the treatment -- medical and emotional -- our warriors need when they come home.  All of us should find that unacceptable and all of us should be angry.</div> <div><br /></div> <div><br /></div> <div>So we'll look at a part of that this week because we should, because we should never ignore those we have asked to go to war regardless of how we might feel about that war and because you expect is to take on the difficult and painful even on a sunny Saturday afternoon.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>Thanks for the kind notes this week.  Who knows, this may become a regular event.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>Aaron Brown</div> admin 2008-05-09T13:56:45+00:00 tag:aaronbrown.kjzz.org,2008-04-28:3b32567e54c12865a5734bde63bb8912 <h2>So a while back I had this crazy idea - why not do a radio program. This week, that crazy idea met a reality.</h2> So a while back I had this crazy idea - why not do a radio program.  This week, that crazy idea met a reality.<br /><br />Here is what we are trying to do.  We want to create a program that takes a couple of important issues of the week and kick them around for a bit each weekend.  We would throw in a few odds and ends to make the medicine go down a bit easier but at its heart it will still be a program about the events that are shaping our lives.  The big, the important and sometime the under-reported.  We will look at them through new eyes when we can and stay away from the usual characters that populate the world of modern media.  It is amazing how many smart people there are out there who don't do three minute cable TV interviews.<br /><br />In some ways it is what I have done for 30 years though the medium is different.  TV is very different from radio. And radio is very different from what I remembered as a kid who hosted talk shows before he really knew much of anything.  But it is not completely different.  Radio remains intimate.  Unlike TV, radio is allowed to breathe, guests are allowed to finish sentences and thoughts, conversations are just that.  The prospects are very alluring.<br /><br />This week is a start, no more and no less.  No of us involved and there are more than a few have any real idea if we will get to where we want to be.  But that is always the way it is with crazy ideas.  But we have to start somewhere and we start here, this week in this place, and with you.  It's nice to be back.<br /> admin 2008-05-02T20:23:20+00:00