Brooke Takes Veteran Counseling to Grand Canyon

Fifteen veterans with physical and psychological wounds from war were carried on a healing raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

“We’re still in the process of getting the outcomes, but some of them have written that they felt their lives turned around,” said Dr. Roger Brooke, therapist on the trip.

Professor of psychology, Brooke is director of Duquesne’s free military psychological services, operated through the University’s Psychology Clinic. “Many had a history of hospitalizations and suicide attempts. All of them felt the trip had made an enormous impact.”

For Brooke, as well as for fellow veterans from the Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the summertime adventure marked a new beginning. “They’ve given me a permanent place on their team,” said Brooke.

Sponsored by Canyon Heroes, a Ligonier nonprofit, the wilderness adventure uses holistic interventions to touch the emotional, moral and spiritual wounds of veterans. Each veteran, 100 percent disabled through post-traumatic stress disorder and other injuries, came from the Pittsburgh area and beyond. They included three women who worked in the emergency rooms of Iraq, often under mortar fire. All participants, including Brooke, were selected for the trip by a counselor at the Pittsburgh Veterans Administration, where Brooke has consulted.

“It was not an intense therapy session; it was a week on the river,” Brooke said, talking about maneuvering 15-foot waves in 36-foot-long dinghies. “Each evening, I would talk for a few minutes about some lessons learned from traditional warrior cultures and invite people to think about the relevance, what we might learn from these cultures for our own healing and integration, and they found it very helpful. I did some one-on-one work too.”

Reframing combat trauma as a universal human experience, not primarily as a psychiatric issue, was critical and, in itself, liberating. “Understanding combat trauma as a human universal offers the experience dignity and direction through the life span,” Brooke observed.

Addressing this spiritual and moral aspect became part of a nightly ritual, with veterans placing memorabilia on a campsite altar. “We consecrated this holy ground every night, so everybody would put something on the altar and explain the significance of the item that was brought to the sanctuary of the holy.

“The experience highlighted the need for a veteran community that includes civilians, the need for a continued sense of service among veterans, and the moral and spiritual trauma at the heart of war,” Brooke said.