Operation Zeus: The Return

In 2011 we began a 3 part campaign examining cultural and community resilience and responses to extreme stress.  As combat veterans, we first looked at how Iraq and Afghanistan vets were processing their war experiences as they reintegrated back into society.  The footage we captured has gone on to help countless of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans deal with the psychosocial stress from leaving a military culture with combat occupational training (and experiences) and entering back into 21st Century America.  I discovered several resilient and adpative "constructs" specific to combat veterans as they find meaning and purpose after "the war on terror."  These constructs are currently being developed into a group psychotherapy for war veterans from all generations. 

Today, we have an opportunity to continue capturing the importance of cultural resilience, high stress occupational training, and social ideas about trauma exposure.  We are headed back to Iraq where many of these ideas began.  I will be training seeking to understand how local Iraqi and Kurdish journalists  process combat stress.  In addition, I will be interviewing Kurdish and Yezidi folks with the goal of discovering nuanced cultural resilience factors that are protective to developing psychopathology.  To my knowledge, I will be the first doctoral researcher to do this among these unique communities.  Due to the refugee crisis in Iraq, we need your financial support to offset cost increases in travel, lodging and, especially security.