Friday from the Archives: “That’s How We Learn”: Ben Fountain Talks With Student Veterans At ECU” compiled by Anna Froula with Sheena Eagan from NCLR 31 (2022)
ECU once again welcomes a cohort of veterans starting their collegiate journey this week, as they participate in the Veteran to Scholar Boot Camp. The camp serves as part orientation, part acclimation to the independence of college life after years in the regiment of military duty.
The director of the program, Anna Froula, contributed this piece to our 2022 issue featuring “Writers Who Teach, Teachers Who Write.” She wrote, “What follows is a synthesis of the two conversations between
Ben Fountain and the program’s 4th and 5th squads, who participated in Veteran to Scholar Boot Camp in August 2020 and 2021. The author’s investment in the program, as well as his frank and open willingness for the squads to ask whatever questions they had for this civilian author, served as a rich addition to the program amid the pandemic. My squads, my Boot Camp team, and I are most appreciative for his honest, humanist contributions during these trying times.”
As part of the camp, the vets were required to read Fountain’s novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. There is much discussion about the parallels and differences between the novel and the vets lived experiences. Fountain remarks, “I’ve said this before to other veterans, if this country is going to be saved, a big part of that is going to be y’all bringing your experiences, your life wisdom, into civil society, and by the relationships you build, by the families you have, by whatever work you do in your community.”
“The fantasy industrial complex and the military industrial complex – you could argue that they are running the country these days.” Fountain also asserts. “It’s going to take widespread grassroots effort to change the social and political culture of this country. How do you do that? How do you change the culture from the ground up? Education, education, education. Giving our citizens the tools they need to be critical thinkers and analytical thinkers, to be able to distinguish between what is bullshit and what’s true and genuine. I think we’ve done a terrible job of that in America in the last forty years. If I was king of America, first thing I’d do would be to double public school teachers’ salaries. The second thing I would do is cut class size in half. Then I think in about ten years we would have a really first-rate education system. That’s where you start to rebuild society.”
Read the entire essay on ProQuest or purchase a copy of the 2022 issue.
