Army Staff Sgts. Nicholas Denning, 30, and John Wall, 29, seem particularly conscious of this as they chip away at a tune with Foster called “Faded Glory.” Denning wants it to express the survivor’s guilt felt by anyone who has lived through war. He comes up with a few rhyming couplets and tosses them to Foster like he’s pitching batting practice.
“Like the colors left out in the rain,” Denning reads from his spiral notebook, “all my heart knows is pain.”
“You’re pretty good at this,” Wall says.
“I got issues,” Denning says.
Everyone laughs.
* * *
Prepping for the Sunday night concert that will close out the camp, Clementi and Air Force Staff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall, 32, want to tell a different kind of story. “When we did this thing last year, it was like people were ready to get in the fetal position,” Clementi tells her. “We gotta switch it up.”
They decide on something funny, upbeat and a little steamy — because, in addition to being forbidden, romance is tricky business in a combat zone.
Clementi wants details. “Well,” Pearsall says, “phone sex is impossible when you’ve got five people behind you trying to use the phone.”
Between giggles, the duo settle on a melody and the song evolves into a story about two soldiers trying to keep a red-hot romance on the hush. They call it “Silent Partners.”
It’s the lightest tune written all weekend, but it’s still rooted in struggle. Pearsall, who experienced war at its ugliest as a combat photographer, feels the projection of invincibility demanded in military culture is multiplied exponentially for women.
“I think you try very hard not to be identified as a woman, all you really want to do is be your occupation,” she says. “You spend so much time fighting that title, it becomes a persona. And part of that persona is to be tough and close off your emotions. . . . It’s counterproductive to the healing process. These layers of emotions are stacked on top of each other, and it all starts to erode from the bottom.”
She also knows how cathartic songwriting can be. Pearsall and Wall attended last summer’s camp and have spent this weekend helping other participants unlock their memories.
And while a program such as this can touch only a dozen individuals at a time, the hope is that the music will reach thousands more. In the coming months, Smith, Foster, Clementi and Middleman plan to reconvene in a Nashville recording studio to put some of these songs on tape. They’ll eventually be released on iTunes, alongside the six-song EP that resulted from last summer’s camp. The veterans each get a songwriting credit and will earn royalties from the sales. And while the first EP has sold only a few hundred copies, Smith and Foster plan to try and peddle a few of these tunes to big-name artists in their milieu. Foster says he can hear Brad Paisley tackling “It Is What It Is.”
Foster sings it at Sunday night’s concert with gusto, along with a dozen other songs he and his colleagues helped pen over the weekend.
“Faded Glory” sparks an audience singalong. “Silent Partners” earns try-not-to-spit-out-your-iced-tea laughs. The evening is a disorienting swirl of exhaustion and uplift, its emotional gravity pulling in every direction.
When Foster belts “It Is What It Is” in his West Texas twang, Sargent stands toward the back, mouthing along.
I’ve been counting days backwards,
Till I get back home.
A soldier goes where he’s told to,
Till he gets the job done.
Filming the performance with a camera in his right hand, Sargent raises a thumbs-up with his left.
He’ll return to duty in 35 days.
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