School dress code

SCHOOL GIRL FORBIDDEN FOR DYEING HAIR

By Stephen Wilson

Can students have dyed hair?

"I understood that the rules governing our gymnasium are strict, but

not that strict," - lamented a 15-year-old school girl from Perm, Zinaida

Agisheva who was abruptly summoned to the director where

she was disciplined for having an 'inappropriate color of hair'.

The incident occurred on September 7 when the school girl was

stopped at the entrance of the school and taken to the cabinet of

the headmistress. Zinaida was informed that she was being excluded

from lessons in connection with violating the school's strict rules

governing physical appearance and clothes, one which forbids dyeing

your hair a particular color. However, Zinaida and her mother were

baffled by the logic or rather, lack of logic behind the rules. Why is

it acceptable to have black or white hair, but not pink? And does

it really matter? One of the rules states 'an extravagant hair style

is not allowed'. But who on earth defines what an extravagant hair

style is? No clear explanation was forthcoming!

Rules concerning the appearance and dress code of school pupils

widely vary throughout Russia. This is because it is left largely to

the discretion of the headmaster or headmistress of the school. In

some schools, teachers are largely indifferent to what students

wear while some simply shoot frowns of disapproval at girls who

turn up with an unconventional hair style. For instance, former

school student Anna Wilson told me, "When I went to the first

school number 1289, they applied very strict rules where you could

be expelled for violating the code. But at the second school number

1575 in Moscow, a teacher simply frowned at me for having permed

hair."  But most Russian teachers are just too busy to worry about

the appearance of their pupils and many even don't try to enforce

a dress code. In general, pupils are expected to wear a white shirt

and black trousers or black skirt. Mini skirts, strong make up and

dyed hair tends to be taboo or at least disapproved.

Zinaida has received support from the local movement for the

Rights of Children whose spokesman stated that the school's rules

contradict the law on education where there exists no law about

what color a pupil's hair must be. In addition, Victor Panin, who is

the chairman of the Society for the Defense of Users of

Education, states: "This event in Perm is no exception. In Saint

Petersburg children have been excluded from lessons for their

color of hair. I consider that such demands by the school administration

in view of their upbringing to be excessive. According to the law, all

children have the right to education. Any person has the right to

self expression. .... Forbidding this won't solve the problem. Youth

will react to any such taboo in a very aggressive way and resort to

wider protest. Dictating how a person looks - this is not a topic for

schools. Schools must teach! I have been in many schools in France

and Finland. There they had enough freedom to wear what they choose

and what hair style they can adopt. The main point was that the child

studied in school".

Strange at it seems, this scandal which received a lot of attention

because the story was circulated on social networks, comes at a

time when yet another course is to be introduced into schools:

Human Rights . You can study this course at school if you manage

to dye your hair in the right color. If you can, and the course is

taught correctly, you 'll learn that everyone has the right to free

expression as well as the right to education under article 43. The

only predicament  for pink haired pupils is how to win the right to

free education so they  can attend  this course  to hear about their

right to free education!  If you don't understand the school rules

on appearance, then don't worry!  Many adults and politicians

don't understand their own Russian Constitution and laws on

education.

Substance Founder Dead

George Schmidt, founder of Substance, RIP
By Jim Vail

Georege Schmidt died at age 71.

George Schmidt, the founder of Substance News, died this week at age 71.

He was a giant. Giants are not easy to replace.

He was a giant because he went to battle against the forces of evil and fought for the people. His newspaper Substance started publishing in 1975 on behalf of the substitute teachers who were, and still are, heavily discriminated against. 

He published numerous stories exposing the lies and corruption of the Chicago Board of Education. He published numerous stories from whistle blowers who exposed the shady deals being made behind closed doors. He published the CASE exam questions - which proved how silly and wasteful another standardized test was, and he paid the price.

He was fired by the board of education after becoming one of the top enemies of Mayor Richard M. Daley. He was fired for printing the truth - something every true journalist and activist should aspire to.

His accomplishments over almost a half a century should be enough to put him at the top of the list of heroes for the people and public education - the students, the teachers and even the administrators who ran the schools looked up to him.

My first principal Dr. Barbara Martin at Holmes Elementary School in Englewood was a subscriber to his gritty paper that would make Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell proud.

George Schmidt teaching a class at Amundsen in 1989. Photo: Substance News

He was an amazing story teller. The essence of an educator is the ability to tell stories, and George told stories. He told stories at our newspaper meetings about his mother serving as a nurse at Okinawa during World War II, about his days publishing an anti-Vietnam War newspaper and how former Chicago Teachers Union president Debbie Lynch helped launch the career of future President Barack Obama.

He told quite amusing tales - such as how his paper helped expose former Chicago Public School teacher Marva Collins who the mainstream media and ruling class were infatuated with after she started a private school. The narrative was she took poor black children on the West Side and had them reciting Shakespeare using the Socratic method - proving anyone can do it, to hell with the public schools who were failing the kids. Ronald Reagan wanted to nominate her for secretary of education and Hollywood made a movie called The Marva Collins Story starring Morgan Freeman. 

George said he told the Sun-Times reporter - who was covering the Marva Collins story - that when he goes to hear her children reciting Shakespeare in her classroom, to ask the child in the next desk if he too can recite the sonnet. The myth burst, the little woman behind the curtain was exposed.

The other breathtaking story he told us was about James Moffat and how Substance took down one of the most powerful pedophiles in the city. The Kelvyn Park High School principal, who was friends of the Daley family and a former deputy superintendent, was raping children in his office - boys and girls. If it wasn't for George's tenacious reporting - including interviews with the students and their parents, this dark secret would have never been exposed. Moffat was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison thanks to Substance's reporting. 

George was a prolific writer - who took on the corporate sponsored district299 blog and others, writing volumes. He was tireless! 

It's not easy to lose a giant among the people because the fight against power seems impossible. When one of your captains goes down in battle, it's not easy.

I compare George Schmidt to Ho Chi Minh, the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. He fought against all odds going up against the world's greatest military power. But his fight never ends. The US left Vietnam, but corporate globalism came later. The enemy never sleeps. George fought privatization to save public education against one of the most powerful city mayors. His paper embarrassed King Daley. But alas, the enemy never sleeps.

George Schmidt was first and foremost a tireless union activist. He was a delegate who almost beat one of the city's most popular union leaders - CTU President Jackie Vaughn. He was a delegate who did his job so well that he was fired at almost every school he went to. He never backed down to anyone, which made him the scourge of many.

George Schmidt was my mentor. I was a journalist in Russia, and when I returned to Chicago I became a teacher on the Southwest Side. I then joined Substance News staff after meeting his beautiful wife Sharon when I was subbing at Senn High School in the late 1990's. I met his cynical sidekicks when I subbed at Wells High School, who showed me the Substance print tabloid, like they were showing me something subversive hidden in their briefcases. I was hooked.

I reported on the early charter school corruption stories. And I learned from George how power really works. How the budget and money work in the city. How the mayor and the board lies and what the mainstream media write goes against us. I didn't learn this in school, but I was prepared having covered the bloody yet fascinating transition to capitalism in Russia.

George Schmidt knew how to follow the money. He started a group that analyzed the CPS budget. The group studied CAFR or Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, which drew union and city leaders crazy because he was hitting them all where it hurt. He knew a lot to challenge the board of education's story line about deficits. Union activist and retired city college steward Earl Silbar told me the story of when he worked at a factory and asked to see the company's budget. He was fired the next day. Money = Power!

George was a mentor to our current union leaders. Many CTU officials like Core founder Jackson Potter attended Substance meetings and learned a lot from a man with an amazing encyclopedic mind about the history of public education in our Windy City.  

George hit them where it hurt. His unwavering lust for the truth made him an enemy. 

George Schmidt was a brilliant giant. He was a leader. He founded a paper for we the people, the only one that screamed loud and clear to save public education. 

And I mourn this great man - a complex hero as all great men are, no less controversial, and indefatigable. 

George Schmidt - R.I.P!  

Teacher pay

State senator hopes new bill will spur higher teacher pay in Illinois
By Dusty Rhodes
nprillinois.org

lllinois is in the grips of a severe teacher shortage, but a few weeks ago Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed legislation to raise their wages. The bill would’ve ramped up the minimum salary to $40,000 by the year 2022. In a message explaining his veto, Rauner called that an “unfunded mandate.”

But State Sen. Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill), who sponsored the legislation, says he hasn’t given up on the effort.

“Sunday started Day One of the process to build a coalition to override the governor's veto," Manar says.

The last time state lawmakers set a minimum teacher salary was 1980, and the salary they set was $10,000. These days, the lowest salaries hover around $27,000. But data from the Illinois State Board of Education shows that more than 525 of the state’s 852 districts offer new teachers with bachelor’s degrees a salary that’s under $40,000. In 300 Illinois school districts, even teachers with master’s degrees earn less than $40,000 a year.

Manar points to this pay scale as a big driver of the teacher shortage.

"And it's not going to get better just because we wish it to get better. It's going to get better with bold policy change, and I'm disappointed that the governor couldn't see that,” Manar says. “And he doesn't understand the issue enough to know it, because this bill should have gotten his signature."

Rauner suggested addressing the shortage by paying higher salaries for teaching certain subjects. Manar says that’s a good idea, but called it “nibbling around the edges” of a larger problem.

"There should be no teacher in Illinois that lives in poverty. There should be no young teacher who's been in the classroom for one or two years that has to worry about how they're going to pay off a student loan. I mean, that's the circumstances today, and that's why we have a teacher shortage."

The bill earned a veto-proof majority in the Senate, but fell short by six votes in the House. In his veto message, Rauner called the bill an unfunded mandate and suggested teacher pay could be based on performance.

Cause of Poverty

STOP PRETENDING TO BE POOR

By Stephen Wilson

Ivan the Fool

'Pension reform is for the well-being of our citizens. Pension reform is

inevitable! Stop pretending to be poor! Be responsible for yourself!

Don't be lazy and rely on your own strength. Drink less, try to keep

fit, then we can talk about not living to the age of retirement.'

Tatiana Bozhenko, United Russia

Those were the words on a poster by a United Russian candidate for

post of mayor in a town in Russia named Surgul. The words were

uttered at the time when the Russian government is attempting to

push through highly unpopular pension reforms which would raise

the retirement age of woman to 60 , and men to 65. The

problem is that in an estimated 36 regions of Russia, men don't even

live to the age of 65. It is automatically presumed that men on the

eve of retirement age can easily find work. But as organisations such

as Superjob point out, the vast majority of companies don't want to

employ people in their fifties and sixties. Andrei Zakharov, president

of the company Superjob, stated: "I can guarantee that 99.9 % of

people who reach retirement age will never be able to find a new job

again, even if they are highly-qualified specialists, needed in the

labor market ."  In many towns throughout Russia, the unemployment

rate stands between 15-20% and even higher. If young people are

struggling to obtain work, then imagine the predicament older people

face!

This is not a question of laziness. The primitive and childish notion

that Russians are lazy and just prefer to sit around and drink is absurd.

The reality is that there is just very little work available in many towns

where key industries which once offered work have closed down.

Such situations existed in many Scottish towns in the 1980's where there

was just a ratio of one vacancy to 80 job seekers or more. in other words,

it was literary impossible to get work of any kind. Classical economists

even describe this as structural unemployment. Bozhenko fails to even

grasp elementary school boy economics. The idea that people pretend

to be poor is absurd. On the contrary, poor people tend to try and conceal

their poverty because they often perceive it as a sign of shame. It is rather

a few rich people who claim to be poor so that they can evade taxation.

Drinking is not so much the cause of poverty, as the consequence. People

who have lost their job and feel devastated often try to drink away their sorrows.

Attempts to place the mistakes of the government and the banks on to the

shoulders of the poor is not new. in the 1980's the British state claimed

unemployment was caused by the laziness of the British worker. Yet the

British worker performed the longest working hours in Europe!

In Russia, people might actually be misled into believing that most Russians,

are by nature, lazy. Russian Folklore and stories about a lazy hero Ivan the

Fool, who gets everything for nothing might appear to vindicate this tale. But

the tale is simply the genre of comedy. It can't be taken seriously any more than

a 17th century English hero called Lazy Lawrence.

The overwhelming evidence suggests that Russian workers are among the

hardest workers of the top ten hard workers in the world. In terms of working

long hours they do a lot. While the average Russian worker can perform

40-50 hours a week, the American worker does an average of 38 hours a week

and those in the Netherlands work 29 hours a week. That is workers in the

Netherlands are working a four day week. Compare this situation with teachers

who often work a 6 or 7 day week . So are those Russian workers lazy? On

the contrary, many of them are overworking and doing a 60 hour week which

blatantly violates the labor Code of the Russian Federation which insists the

working week should not exceed 40 hours a week. Russian workers are scared

to take sick leave even when they come down with flu because they fear losing

their pay as well as ruining their career prospects. So is it  any wonder that

flu epidemics are frequent in Moscow? A study of the Russian labor market

by Tatiana Vasilouk, from Lomonosov Moscow State University, confirmed that

Russians in deed, work very long hours and that official figures vastly under

estimate how long they work.

Of course it is important to point out that what constitutes hard work can't

be simply measured by how many hours a person does. One hour of very

intricate and complex work on a computer is not the same as doing one

hour as a shop assistant.  It is worth asking: is a long hour culture in the office

such a good thing? Does working longer hours increase performance? A lot

of research tends to undermine this notion. You see the law of diminishing

returns operating. This is especially true when it comes to teaching. The more

hours a teacher performs the more likely the quality of his lessons decreases.

It is also important to observe that many totalitarian regimes made a supreme

virtue of hard work such as the Nazis who proclaimed 'Work makes you free'

and in the Soviet Union where they made you a 'hero of labor' for outstanding

work. Yet all this overwork leads to needless stress, suffering and often

premature death. In one story of Lazy Lawrence he is arrested for playing

pranks! He ends  up in court, but he is acquitted by the jury because some

apprentices turn up on his behalf and argue: "If it were not for Lazy Lawrence

we would be worked to death". The world needs to hear more about Lazy

Lawrence. And the Russian workers should be acquitted of base accusations

of laziness!

HOD Sept. Meeting

Chicago teachers House of Delegates September meeting 
By Jim Vail

Jesse Sharkey has replaced Karen Lewis officially as the new CTU president.

The Chicago teacher union members met for the first House of Delegates meeting of the new 2018-2019 school year last Wednesday, Sept. 5 and voted solidly to confirm Jesse Sharkey as the new CTU President after Karen Lewis retired due to health reasons and Stacy Davis Gates as the new vice president.

The meeting usually kicks off with delegates announcing teachers who died over the long summer break. Gasps went up when several delegates said there were teachers who had just retired and then suddenly died, while one delegate announced that there was a current teacher who died.

Stacy Davis Gates was voted CTU vice president.

Next to the two new officers being sworn in to represent the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), the other big event of the night was a budget report given by new interim financial director, Kathy Catalano.

The CTU officers said the last financial director retired due to health reasons. But one delegate said it looked like the CTU had misspent money, which the CTU officers denied.

Most likely the new finance director is a result of the work of Therese Boyle, who co-founded the new group Members First, who has demanded transparency when it comes to the union's finances. Unbeknownst to the delegates as well as trustees who are supposed to safeguard CTU finances, the CTU had to cut $2 million and lay off employees. Boyle questioned the union about many financial transactions that have not been properly documented as money seems to flow between the foundation and the CTU, appearing to avoid accountability.   

Catalano told the delegates that there will now be clear reports and all financial transactions will be recorded (Chicago Public Schools demanded similar accountability in the schools several years ago) and the union will stay within its budget.

Catalano has an extensive experience in budgeting for townships, school districts and non-profit educational companies, she told the delegates.

"So I know about budgets," Catalano said. "We're taking other people's money in and we need to be good stewards of that."

CTU Financial Secretary Maria Moreno said the CTU had a victory in the contract which states that any primary class (K-2) with over 32 students must have a teacher's aid. However, some teachers on social media said they are still waiting for an aid in their classes. 

"I think we'll take credit for Rahm Emanuel's departure," a smiling Sharkey told the delegates during his report. The Chicago mayor announced that he will not run for re-election. "Rahm Emanuel didn't like his job because he wasn't popular among the working class. This is a guy who felt the pressure."

After Sharkey listed the many public school sins of Emanuel - closing 50 schools, massive corruption, his school chief now in prison, dirty schools due to privatization - he also rightly pointed out who really runs the city. 

"(Billionaire hedge fund businessmen) Michael Sacks and Ken Griffin (who demanded that Rahm close 100 schools!) - I don't know who they'll cook up next," Sharkey said. "Another boss will be beholden to them."

Billionaire Ken Griffin tells Chicago mayors what to do.

Sharkey said Karen Lewis is doing well and welcomes any comforting text messages or other forms of communication to show support. 

And billionaire Michael Sacks tells Chicago mayors what to do.

There will be a rally Sept. 26 in front of the Board of Education offices at 42 W. Madison at 5pm to show support for the charter teachers who could very well be the first to go on strike demanding better wages and conditions. The CTU said it is important for all teachers to support their charter colleagues - who are now CTU members - so that CTU members also get a good contract next year.

Sharkey said it was disappointing that some teachers were not able to return to the classroom due to delays from the finger printing of all teachers this past summer. Some teachers who were arrested for protesting school budget cuts are now being held up from reentering their classrooms due to the crackdown on sex abuse that the Chicago Tribune wrote about.

The CTU said CPS hired about 1,000 new teachers this year, and it is important for delegates to reach out to the new teachers in their buildings and make sure they sign up for the union.

Sharkey said Substance News editor and long-time activist George Schmidt is battling Stage 4 Cancer. "I had many disagreements with George over the years, but he bleeds CTU red," the CTU president said.

Brandon Johnson, who won the democratic primary for Cook County commissioner, is still employed at the union as an organizer with the Political Action Committee or PAC. His report sounded more like a polished political speech than anything specific about legislation. As delegate for Hammond School, I asked during the Q&A period at the end of the meeting if the CTU is working on legislation to allow retired teachers in Chicago to sub for 120 days like all the rest of the state. Political Dir. and now VP Stacy David Gates said yes, they are working on this. Acquiring substitute teachers has been a huge headache for many schools.

Sharkey said there shouldn't be a substitute problem because there are about 1,000 more subs working in CPS. He pointed out that 40 percent of schools in hard-to-staff schools get subs, while 96% of schools in richer parts of the city get subs. CPS announced that they would pay subs up to $50 more per day to attract subs to work in those schools that need them. 

Pension fund trustee Mary Sharon Reilly said the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund (CTPF) has a new website and it earned an impressive 11.1 percent return for the last 12 months. She also said 20 years ago 20% of teachers were retired and 80% worked, while today about 50% of teachers are retired, and 50% are working.

Clinician delegate and Members First President Therese Boyle said the CTU should consider holding a workshop on Robert's Rules for new delegates so they understand how the delegates meetings are run. She also suggested a parliamentarian at the delegates meetings to make sure everyone is following the rules.

Cather in the Rye

NO QUIET PLACE

SALINGER AND POST TRAUMATIC STRESS SYNDROME

By Stephen Wilson

         

'That's the whole trouble. You can't even find a place that's peaceful, because

there is not any.' laments Salinger's central hapless character, Holden Caulfield,

from the classic novel 'Catcher in the Rye.' A young 14 year schoolboy from

Abhazi certainly knows how Holden felt. He decided to visit the countryside

to seek out a peaceful place where he could read his favorite novel - 'Catcher

in the Rye ' and failed to find a place. Instead, he was detained by the Russian

border police for illegally entering Russia. When questioned by the police on

how he had stumbled into Russia, the teenager told the bemused police ;

"I was looking for a quiet spot to read my favorite novel 'Catcher in the Rye".

Well accidents do happen. So the police accepted his explanation and let him

go. The boy was obviously gripped by Salinger's novel and he is hardly alone.

Many Russians I have spoken to tell me how Salinger's novel left an indelible

impression. For instance, fans of Robert Burns are flattered to learn the title of

the novel was inspired by an old song of Robert Burns, school students who

feel alienated, misunderstood and expelled from school can easily identify with

the hero and people who who are brave enough to ask deep questions are

all enchanted by the novel. American school teachers were fired from schools

for teaching this book in the 1970's. Love or loathe it, there is something about

the novel which evokes the most powerful emotions in our souls. Of course, not

everyone adores the novel. A 17 year old Russian school student told me "I

don't like this novel as it is too negative and pessimistic. " Yet the mother of the

school student informed me : "I like Holden. He is not a negative character. He

does not harm anyone and is very kind to the nuns. He wants to help people."

Svetlana Wilson told me "When I first read this novel it made a tremendous

impression on me. I could immediately grasp the deep pain which the character

was experiencing".

It is interesting to note that there exists a myriad of reactions to interpreting the

novel. While some Conservative Christians are scandalized by Holden's negative

views, others might see Holden as positively moving towards Christianity because

of his pleasant encounter with some Nuns who he donates money to. "Holden is

one of us. His kingdom is not of this world. " they might reason. Yet an anarchist

or Marxist might view his novel as a frank critique of the capitalist system. Feeling

confused, some journalists decided to ask the reclusive author himself for an

interpretation. Being exasperated by unwanted attention, the author told journalists

who managed to give him an interview { which represented in itself a great feat},

"just read the novel ".

The novel tells of the adventures of a student who has just been expelled from

a  boarding school for a fourth time for failing exams, how he attempts to cope

with his expulsion and whether he should make a complete break with his friends,

parents and surroundings, or meet them half way. The main character Holden is

unsure what to do with his life and who he can turn to for help.He represents the

completely disorientated outsider adrift and at odds with society.

But one interpretation which is currently in vogue, is that Holden, like the author

of Catcher in the Rye, is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. This

interpretation is based on the biography of Salinger, who was a post war veteran

who saw action at D-Day and during the Battle of the Bulge. The argument goes

that Salinger never recovered from the war and became a reclusive who shunned

company. He was not really an eccentric but still suffering from the deep scars of

the war. In 1945, Salinger was hospitalized for 'Battle fatigue'. He told his daughter

"You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter

how long you live". The idea is that the character,   experiences a traumatic

encounter where one of his fellow students, who borrowed his sweater, is bullied, forced to flee and leap to his death from a window. Holden feels 'survivor guilt' for not saving him. And this is why he wants to become a kind of catcher who waits for confused children to fall off a cliff so he can save them from death.

There may well be some substance to this argument but I think it is overstated.

The character of Holden can 't be reduced to the experience of Salinger but was

creatively invented by the vivid imagination of Salinger himself. There is a good

Russian proverb which goes : 'A tale is an invention, a truth and the song'.

In recent years , the mental health problems of school students have either

increased or at least been acknowledged more openly than in the past. Some

of the more extreme cases are being diagnosed as falling under Post Traumatic

Stress Syndrome'. However, many war veterans would claim that their own

experiences are way to traumatic to be compared to the experiences of school

children. They may well feel insulted by such comparisons.

We should at least try to define this syndrome. In succinct terms, the syndrome

arises from deeply traumatic events in wartime which lead to mental scars where

the victim can't let go of painfully crippling memories, has recurring nightmares

where old events of the war are relived and is afflicted by very negative feelings

of alienation, guilt at what he did and how he survived. The war has left him with

an almost unbridgeable gap with a society which can't or won't understand his

pain. Of course, many school students feel traumatized by bullying, fighting ,being

misunderstood and low self esteem. But there is not the same sense of , say a

veteran who goes into a forest for a picnic but ends up planning how to dig in

for a military defense lest he come under attack.{in  Erich Remarque's novel,

The Road back, a war veteran can't go for a quiet walk in the woods without

being disturbed by war memories and in Robert Mason's Chickenhawk , Back

in the World After Vietnam, he states : 'I wasn't thinking about Vietnam, but it was

there. Awake, in quiet moments, I felt a familiar dread in the pit of my stomach,

even as I angrily informed myself that I was home. Asleep , my dreams were

infected by what I had seen.The explosive jump ups I'd been having since the

last month were getting more frequent'.

Perhaps one thing a troubled teenager and war veteran both lament is 'Nobody

understands me' as well as the trauma of having to adapt to a society based on

trivial and phony values. It might be more accurate to state that Salinger's wartime

experience helped him to better understand the trauma of youth who felt

completely lost or disorientated in society. English teachers should at least creatively

use the novel to raise deep questions on what is Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome,

in what way does it assume different forms and intensity and how it might be

better understood. That is teachers should try and go beyond the academic. This

is because school students  may well encounter war veterans in the future .

I myself have encountered war veterans in Moscow. For example, when Jim Vail

and I were working with the homeless in Moscow , near Kazansky rail station we

noticed a strange man approaching us. He looked dazed, disorientated and utterly

lost. We wondered if he was about to attack us. But  instead he just asked for

directions and informed us he had just returned from Afghanistan.  A war veteran

i met who had returned from the war in UKraine could not seem to settle down

or hold a job for long . He took to heavy drinking and then returned again to the

front. A young Russian student based in Moscow, informed me that a war veteran

who was American , was teaching English to children . He told her this work with

children helped him forget the trauma of the war he experienced in Afghanistan.

He declined to be interviewed. I can never forget encountering a shattered Irish

man who was mentally trembling, traumatized whom I thought was about to

assault me. It was clear that he had undergone some form of torture under

British detention in Northern Ireland. You notice that many traumatized victims

of rape or assault can overreact and wonder if they will be safe when either

going up on a life full of men or seeing a male guest visit their friend's apartment.

The fear and distrust is so deep they can't always discriminate between real

and imagined threats.

I found that there was no hospital which specifically catered for war veterans

in Moscow. Most of the care for war veterans is sporadic, spontaneous and

not coherently organised. Many war veterans thought it was a waste of time

speaking to psychologists or doctors because they could never understand

what they experienced. What makes recovery of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome

highly problematic is a culture which largely frowns upon any admission of

weakness or not being 'a real man'. War veterans are not supposed to tell

people about their pain but 'put up with it'. They are expected to suffer in

silence. So it comes as no surprise to find veterans can't find anyone to turn

to or take to heavy drinking,drugs or commit suicide. However, it is not all

bad news. There are some people in Russia who understand the problems

of war veterans and seek to aid them. For example, I spoke to a psychologist

who told me how she felt happy about seeing a war veteran emerge from

her session with a beaming radiant face. It was as if she had helped left

some burden from this soldier tortured by war guilt and plagued by recurring

nightmares of meeting old soldiers he had killed. The organisation 'The Union

of Volunteers of Donbass ' sends 20-30 people to psychologists to be treated

for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome a month. However, as Maria Koleda,

a representative of this group states, veterans also need aid with obtaining

residential rights, citizenship and work.

It is possible that certain people with a high level of empathy can comprehend

the experience of war veterans even if they have not experienced war. For instance,

when veterans heard the songs and poems penned by famous singer Vladimir

Vysotsky, they thought that he himself was such a war veteran. The poet wrote

the lyrics of songs which tell about  'Survivor guilt ' such as 'The Man who did

not return' and 'The One who refused to shoot'. Both characters in the songs

feel survivor guilt because they felt unworthy to live compared to their comrades

who sacrificed their lives for them.Yet this poet had never been to the front. So

somebody out there can understand Holden as well as war veterans. We only

need a quiet spot to lend an ear to  those that are  misunderstood.