Search Results for: Veterans

Longreads Best of 2013 Postscript: New Questions About a Legendary Tennis Match

The Match Maker

Don Van Natta Jr. | ESPN | August 2013 | 34 minutes (8,461 words)

 

Don Van Natta Jr. (@DVNJr) is a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine.

My story, The Match Maker, was online at ESPN.com only a few hours on Aug. 25 when I heard from a California man who shrugged at the possibility that tennis champ and American hustler Bobby Riggs had thrown the famous September 1973 Battle of the Sexes match. The man’s name is Russell Boyd, and he claimed Bobby Riggs had talked openly and repeatedly with him, back in June 1973, about his intention to lose his upcoming match against Billie Jean King at the Houston Astrodome. “I didn’t realize at the time that it was such a serious matter of him playing Billie Jean King,” Boyd, 56, told me, “and that he was actually expected to make an effort to win.” Read more…

The Lobotomy Files

Longreads Pick

This story pick comes from our featured Longreader, Nicole Greenfield, who writes:

I must admit it was the photo of 90-year-old Roman Tritz, clear blue eyes and a blank stare to the camera’s side, that initially drew me into one of my favorite longreads of the week. But the photo didn’t prepare me for the truly harrowing nature of Tritz’s story, a deeply personal look into one of the thousands of forced lobotomies the U.S. government performed on World World II veterans, the details of which are uncovered for the first time in this multimedia feature. The in-depth, but straightforward reporting of such a horrendous trend, performed in the absence of answers, begs all kinds of questions. How could this happen? And, importantly, could it happen again? For it’s impossible not to connect Tritz’s struggle and the stories of veterans today also suffering from PTSD, also without adequate assistance, also afraid, also wondering, as Tritz himself did pre-operation, “Does anybody really care?” This is one that will stick with me for a while.

Published: Dec 13, 2013
Length: 48 minutes (12,000 words)

The Lobotomy Files: A Longreads Guest Pick By Nicole Greenfield

Nicole Greenfield
Nicole Greenfield is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York.

I must admit it was the photo of 90-year-old Roman Tritz, clear blue eyes and a blank stare to the camera’s side, that initially drew me into one of my favorite longreads of the week. But the photo didn’t prepare me for the truly harrowing nature of Tritz’s story, a deeply personal look into one of the thousands of forced lobotomies the U.S. government performed on World World II veterans, the details of which are uncovered for the first time in this multimedia feature. The in-depth, but straightforward reporting of such a horrendous trend, performed in the absence of answers, begs all kinds of questions. How could this happen? And, importantly, could it happen again? For it’s impossible not to connect Tritz’s struggle and the stories of veterans today also suffering from PTSD, also without adequate assistance, also afraid, also wondering, as Tritz himself did pre-operation, “Does anybody really care?” This is one that will stick with me for a while.

The Lobotomy Files

Michael M. Phillips | The Wall Street Journal | December 13, 2013 | 48 minutes (12,000 words)

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Afghanistan Undone

Longreads Pick

CBC reporter Mellissa Fung was kidnapped, stabbed, and thrown down a hole outside Kabul where she spent 28 days in captivity. Five years later, she returned to Afghanistan:

“Back at home after my ordeal, I refused to let my nightmares rise out of the darkness. I took on the cause of wounded soldiers as a personal journalistic mission. I visited almost every Canadian Forces base in the country, reporting on soldiers suffering from traumatic brain injuries or PTSD, or struggling over disputed claims with the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. But I couldn’t shake the guilt that nagged at me. I sought the help of a therapist, who assured me that my anxiety—a sense of something unfinished—was part of my ‘new normal.’ Still, I was haunted by those I had left behind. I had gone to Afghanistan to expose the plight of displaced people, abused women, and orphaned children. Instead, because of my kidnapping, I had become the story.

“All of this left me desperate to go back, even though some of my friends and family thought I was crazy. CBC was reluctant to send me to Afghanistan: what if I was kidnapped again? My inability to return made me feel like a hostage all over again, helpless and powerless. Unable to let it rest, I read articles and books, and set up a Google Alert on anything to do with the country I thought I would never set foot in again. I didn’t realize it then, but I was slowly becoming a stakeholder in the futures of those girls and women.”

Source: Walrus Magazine
Published: Oct 11, 2013
Length: 21 minutes (5,272 words)

Reading List: A Bizarre Institution

Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps.

What do Scientology, child abuse, financial exploitation, and millionaire parents have in common? They’ve all got a niche in the education system.

1. “Surviving a For-Profit School.” (Stephen S. Mills, The Rumpus, July 2013)

A strip-mall “college” that exploits the underprivileged, veterans, and abused housewives for hundreds of thousands of dollars: Who wouldn’t want to work there?

2. “For Their Own Good.” (Ben Montgomery and Waveney Ann Moore, Tampa Bay Times, April 2009)

Reports of child abuse and other atrocities spurred two talented reporters to investigate the Florida School for Boys.

3. “Inside Scientology High.” (Benjamin F. Carlson, October 2011)

A two-part profile of the practices of the Delphian School, a boarding school in the hills of Oregon that integrates aspects of Scientology into teaching its students.

4. “Is Avenues The Best Education Money Can Buy?” (Jenny Anderson, The New York Times, May 2013)

Parents are partners in the everyday operations of the $85 million start-up school Avenues: The World School.

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Photo by Cliff

‘Why Did You Shoot Me? I Was Reading a Book’

Longreads Pick

An excerpt from Radley Balko’s new book Rise of the Warrior Cop, on the militarization of U.S. police forces and the reasons SWAT teams have been able to conduct raids for seemingly minor alleged crimes:

“In 2007 a Dallas SWAT team actually raided a Veterans of Foreign Wars outpost for hosting charity poker games. Players said the tactics were terrifying. One woman urinated on herself. When police raided a San Mateo, California, poker game in 2008, card players described cops storming the place ‘in full riot gear’ and ‘with guns drawn.’ The games had buy-ins ranging from $25 to $55. Under California law, the games were legal so long as no one took a ‘rake,’ or a cut of the stakes. No one had, but police claimed the $5 the hosts charged players to buy refreshments qualified as a rake. In March 2007, a small army of local cops, ATF agents, National Guard troops, and a helicopter raided a poker game in Cary, North Carolina. They issued forty-one citations, all of them misdemeanors. A columnist at the Fayetteville Observer remarked, ‘They were there to play cards, not to foment rebellion. . . . [I] wonder . . . what other minutiae, personal vices and petty crimes are occupying [the National Guard’s] time, and where they’re occupying it. . . . Until we get this sorted out, better not jaywalk. There could be a military helicopter overhead.'”

Source: Salon
Published: Jul 8, 2013
Length: 30 minutes (7,500 words)

3 Stories from Young Journalists Honored at the Livingston Awards

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The Livingston Awards are handed out every year to celebrate outstanding work from journalists under 35. Here are this year’s winning stories, honored this week in New York: 

“Slavery’s Last Stronghold” (John D. Sutter & Edythe McNamee, CNN.com)

International Reporting winner: A trip to Mauritania, where an estimated 10% to 20% of the population lives in slavery.

“The Things They Leave Behind” (Rachel Manteuffel, Washingtonian)

National Reporting winner: A closer look at the letters, mementos and other artifacts left behind at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

“In God’s Name” (Alexandra Zayas and Kathleen Flynn, Tampa Bay Times)

Local Reporting winner: An investigation into the abuse of children at unlicensed religious group homes in Florida.

Honor Betrayed

Longreads Pick

A two-part series on sexual abuse and homelessness among female veterans in the U.S.:

“In response to the growing outcry over sexual violence, the Pentagon last year ordered that charging decisions in sexual assault cases be determined by more senior commanders than in the past, but the directive stopped short of taking the decision out of the chain of command. Some other nations, including Britain, have taken steps to create a more independent military judicial system, but experts on military justice said that the United States has been unwilling to do so.

“‘The military justice system is not only to judge innocence or guilt, but is also designed to help a commander ensure good order and discipline,’ said Dwight Sullivan, an appellate defense counsel for the Air Force. ‘Those things sometimes come into conflict.'”

Published: Feb 26, 2013
Length: 16 minutes (4,090 words)

Disaster at Xichang

Longreads Pick

An American’s eyewitness account of the 1996 rocket accident at China’s Xichang spaceport, which killed six people and injured 57:

“What Campbell witnessed over the next few days has haunted him ever since. Like most veterans of the Intelsat-708 launch, he hasn’t discussed the event in public. I got to know him while gathering material for a book on the Russian space program, and during one of our many conversations, Campbell mentioned his participation in the 1996 launch. Then he went on to tell the whole story. When I asked why he was willing to talk about it now, he answered, ‘The truth shall set you free.’

“The night of the launch, Campbell and his colleagues at the hotel boarded vans and headed to the satellite processing building. As they passed the center’s main gate, they saw a crowd gathering outside to watch the liftoff. ‘Everybody was dressed in his or her best clothes,’ he recalls. ‘It was a party atmosphere. There were many dozens, if not hundreds, of people there.’ Despite the previous accidents, it seemed to Campbell that these people must have been accustomed to gathering at this spot to watch launches.”

Source: Air & Space
Published: Feb 12, 2013
Length: 11 minutes (2,880 words)

Is PTSD Contagious?

Longreads Pick

A look at the families who are not just affected by returning veterans, but display similar symptons:

“Brannan and Katie’s teacher have conferenced about Katie’s behavior many times. Brannan’s not surprised she’s picked up overreacting and yelling—you don’t have to be at the Vines residence for too long to hear Caleb hollering from his room, where he sometimes hides for 18, 20 hours at a time, and certainly not if you’re there during his nightmares, which Katie is. ‘She mirrors…she just mirrors’ her dad’s behavior, Brannan says. She can’t get Katie to stop picking at the sores on her legs, sores she digs into her own skin with anxious little fingers. She is not, according to Brannan, ‘a normal, carefree six-year-old.'”

Source: Mother Jones
Published: Jan 17, 2013
Length: 36 minutes (9,091 words)