I’m an author, retired college educator, and advocate for military veterans. I served twice in Operation Iraqi Freedom and have published extensively on the topic of veteran identity. I founded and led a creative arts non-profit called Military Experience and the Arts, and created the nation’s first academic program in Veterans Studies at Eastern Kentucky University. Currently, I am focusing on wellness and writing, while continuing to advocate for veterans part-time.
Veteran Identity: Searching for a compelling speaker to shed light on veterans’ experiences, explore the depths of human resilience, or delve into what makes us fundamentally human? Look no further. I am available for speaking engagements through the 2023 Kentucky Humanities Speakers Bureau.
Suicide & Sexual Assault Prevention: In addition to my speaking engagements, I also offer specialized presentations on critical issues like Suicide Prevention. Trained in ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) and QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) methodologies, as well as Green Dot violence prevention, my goal is to empower communities to intervene and save lives effectively.
Special Topics: With well over 100 speaking engagements to my credit, including premiere conferences and venues such as the U.S. Department of Defense and Royal Military College of Canada, my expertise spans veteran identity, human learning, and societal issues like suicide and sexual assault prevention. Reach out below for more information!
My book examines and celebrates veterans as sources of knowledge and resilience. Explore the complexities of veteran identity, take a deep dive into the arts as a healing intervention, and learn ways you can help veterans succeed.
Recently named the common read at Somerset Community College, War & Homecoming remains integral to the Veterans Studies program I founded at Eastern Kentucky University. It is used in college courses and workshops across the nation.
Instructional support? Got you covered! Here’s a work in progress, aptly titled, Teaching the Book. I welcome feedback and requests. Contact me if you’d like advice.
“If you are a veteran, interested in working with those who have served in uniform, or understanding what it means to serve our nation, War & Homecoming is a must read.”
Great visit to Somerset Community College last week as the year’s “Common Reads” author. Looking forward to talking about War & Homecoming (Book) at both the Pulaski and Laurel campuses over the coming months. Both are gorgeous this time of year!
War & Homecoming released on July 26 and we held our first signing and discussion event on July 27, 2022 at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, KY. The audio above is from the reading and talk I gave. Check it out!
Join Dan Manley and Dr. Travis Martin for an extended discussion about ways to support returning service members the new book War & Homecoming: Veteran Identity and the Post-9/11 Generation.
Fear and threats held alongside moral principles in preparation for deployment. “Poetry is great for healing, even when it is bad poetry,” commented one reader.
Faculty Development for Transparent Teaching & Learning: Perspectives from Scholar-teachers.
Journal of Faculty Development
A group of faculty members participate in a Professional Learning Community designed to improve transparency in course design and delivery using the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework.
“‘Working Through’ Societal Trauma in The Last Flight, Heroes for Sale, and All Quiet on the Western Front.”
War, Literature and the Arts
The films make suggestions about the postwar lives of veterans based only on shell shock’s most visible symptoms, those viewable to the public through popular media, ugly truths blown out of proportion and made hyperreal.
An exploration of the relationship between soldiers and their weapons that draws upon the ideas of Sigmund Freud, Phyllis Greenacre, and D. W. Winnicott to chart the evolution of the weapon from transitional object in Basic Combat Training to fetish in combat.
“Modernism and War: From David Jones to Brian Turner”
Great War Modernism: Artistic Response in the Context of War, 1914-1918
A look at how the Modernist aesthetic emerges in each generation of war veterans as they try to make sense of war trauma and engage society in an act of collective healing.
“Temporal Prosthetics and Beautiful Pain: Loss, Memory, and Nostalgia in Somewhere in Time, The Butterfly Effect, and Safety Not Guaranteed”
Time Travel in Popular Media: Essays on Film, Television, Literature and Video Games
Co-Authored by Owen R. Horton.
This chapter examines three films with “temporal prosthetics” fueled by nostalgia, functioning as ghost limbs, compelling time traveling protagonists to invent devices capable of transporting them to physical sites in the past.
“War, Witness, Modernism and David Jones’s Subversive Voice”
War, Literature and the Arts
How does David Jones, the British poet and World War I veteran, manage to combine poetry, prose, experience, fiction, myth, and high Modernism so succinctly?
“Reality and Anti-Reality in WWI and WWII Memoirs”
War, Literature and the Arts
An examination of the WWI and WWII memoirs of Robert Graves, Hervey Allen, and Paul Fussell, this paper proposes an “anti-reality” where the absurdities of war make sense.
“The Battle for Balance: Ethnography and the Creation of Wartime Self in Shoshana Johnson’s I’m Still Standing”
Kentucky Philological Review
Shoshana Johnson was the nation’s first, African American female POW. This essay examines the influence of trauma and the media upon the creation of her memoir.
“Finding Common Ground: Vets and Non-Vets Collaborate on Campus”
Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine
This piece for VFW Magazine showcases some curriculum and includes interviews from both veteran and non-veteran students enrolled in Veterans Studies courses at Eastern Kentucky University.
“What’s So Special About Today’s Veterans? The Public Way In Which They’re Healing”
Zócalo Public Square
“Veterans are changing America by embracing a form of healing that just so happens to send a message, ‘No matter how rich or powerful a country becomes, sending young men and women to war will never be without consequence.'”
Travis L. Martin 