"No trespassing" signs mark the posts at the end of a private road leading to the former Spring Creek Lodge Academy site in Sanders County. The residential treatment program for troubled teens once housed 500 students and was the biggest employer in the county. Following lawsuits and dwindling enrollment, the program closed its doors in 2009.
12 years, 58 complaints, no sanctions at Montana residential programs
Not one of Montana's private residential programs for troubled teens has faced significant sanctions despite racking up 58 complaints since the state began licensing them 12 years ago.
The fact that has never happened should not be shocking. Montana's regulatory system was written by those it regulates.
Calls for regulation of the private residential programs gained urgency after 16-year-old Karlye Newman killed herself at the unregulated Spring Creek Lodge Academy in 2004.
Her death and the resulting lawsuit, which played out over a number of years, prompted a flurry of publicity about such programs. The New York Times, TIME magazine, PBS, as well as regional and local media all did stories. Congress held hearings.
The result? Almost nothing. In many states, including Montana, the story went dark and regulation remains minimal.
The impetus to impose state oversight here came from Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services, which went to the Legislature to ask for regulatory authority.
But owners of the lucrative operations — some charge parents more than $100,000 a year — beat them to the punch.
At a legislative committee hearing in 2004, Patrick McKenna, then the owner of the Monarch School in Sanders County, "cautioned that media exploitation of specific incidents often causes a state to overreact with legislation that is not well thought out and does not fit the needs of the industry,'' according to meeting notes.
Tommy Martino
Residential treatment programs for troubled youths are clustered in northwest Montana, specifically Sanders County, where the vast, sparsely populated region can provide a change of scenery for youths with emotional or behavioral issues. Their remote locations also provide a deterrent for those who may want to run away.
When the Legislature met four months later, representatives of the private, therapeutic programs were ready with their own bill to create the system that exists today. It was sponsored by Rep. Paul Clark, D-Trout Creek, who until last year ran his own outdoor therapeutic school for troubled teens, Galena Ridge.
“When it became evident that the state would be moving in this direction [toward regulation], the programs wanted to be willing participants and ahead of the curve rather than being dragged along on a leash,” Clark said at the time.
In a telephone interview this month, Clark — a Democrat — described the resulting legislation as the only bill that could win approval from a Legislature dominated by Republicans who "weren't really interested in passing a bill to regulate programs."
The industry spent $34,000 lobbying to support Clark’s bill, the Missoulian reported at the time.
The bill put the entire registration and regulatory system under the auspices of the state Department of Labor and Industry, which oversees no other facilities that house minors, instead of under the health care professionals in DPHHS or the education experts at the Office of Public Instruction.
It created a five-member oversight board, called the Private Alternative Adolescent Residential or Outdoor Program (PAARP), whose majority was composed of industry representatives.
It exempted any faith-based or religious private behavioral therapy programs from regulation at the request of one such program’s director.
It provided no state money to pay for regulation; money instead comes from licensing fees that have fallen short of needs.
And it made sure complaints would remain secret unless the majority of the board decided to take disciplinary action.
The board was created in 2005; two years later, the Legislature required programs to be licensed by PAARP.
Regulation lite
Clark, the bill's sponsor, is neither a licensed counselor nor educator in the state of Montana. Nonetheless, as the founder of the private Galena Ridge Wilderness Program for troubled teens in Trout Creek, he was one of the board’s first members.
So was Michele "Mickey" Manning, the principal at Spring Creek Lodge, who became the PAARP board’s chair in 2007. She was not a licensed counselor in Montana at the time, though she has a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master’s degree in education.
“We see states where students have so many rights,” Manning said in a 2007 meeting, “that effective operation of the program is impossible.''
Spring Creek was one of the first programs to be licensed by PAARP. Manning remained board chair even as the program was sued, and its questionable treatment policies were made public in the lawsuit that Karlye Newman’s mother filed after her daughter’s death.
The program remained PAARP-licensed until it closed in 2009 after years of declining enrollment. Manning went on to work at Star Peak Crossing, Riverview and Clearview Horizon residential treatment programs in Montana before opening her own, Reflections Academy near Thompson Falls, in 2016.
After leaving the Legislature, Clark returned full time to Galena Ridge, which he founded in 1993. Although he said Galena Ridge, which he described as "more like an Outward Bound program," retains its license, he retired about a year ago and hasn't had any students since.
Located next to the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area in northwestern Montana, Galena Ridge was licensed in 2010 with the aim of helping boys who have substance abuse issues and problems with the law “get their lives back on track” in four- to 12-week summer programs.
In 2013, however, inspectors found that students had been kept through the winter — and would be staying another winter as well — in a building they’d constructed themselves. The building had no running water, and had neither been inspected nor received permits, according to the report. The boys used outhouses year-round.
The PAARP board scrutinized the program for unprofessional conduct for changing its plans of operation without telling the board. But no action was taken after the issue was dismissed by the board's screening committee, which also has a majority from the industry. Clark did not return telephone calls seeking a response to this issue.
A 2017 inspection, conducted at a fishing access site 78 miles away from Galena Ridge, cited the same issue, saying students were still living there year-round. Clark told the Missoulian the inspection took place at the fishing site because he wanted to show the state the kind of outdoor activities offered by Galena Ridge.
PAARP lacks transparency
The PAARP board requires all private, therapeutic programs to apply for licensure and to submit a detailed report of their policies and procedures, behavioral policies, students’ rights, and more.
On paper, it requires employees be trained in CPR and in passive restraint methods. Every employee that comes in contact with students must have a background check. There are program inspections, and buildings have to be fire-safe. But in reality, adherence to those standards sometimes has been lax, records show.
When the Missoulian requested records on licensing for administrators and staffers at the programs, the state redacted information on whether they had ever been disciplined to "protect private health care questions.''
"[Staff] decision to analyze and redact was based on the hypothetical potential to lead to protected health care information," said Judy Bovington, chief legal counsel for the Department of Labor and Industry. "If someone would have answered something this way, it could potentially lead us to having to protect private health care questions."
When asked how that applied to disciplinary issues, Bovington cited the same concerns.
She also said the department's internal review of answers to questions regarding previous disciplinary issues turned up no issues that affected the decision to license a program.
Last week, after the department was called by the governor's office, she offered to provide the Missoulian with unredacted copies of PAARP applications after further review.
PAARP's industry members are John Santa, a co-founder of the Montana Academy; Rick Johnson, executive director of Summit Preparatory School in Kalispell, and Penny James, director/owner of Explorations/Phoenix Mountain Academy in Trout Creek. The two public members are Trudi Schmidt, the former Great Falls lawmaker who sponsored the failed 2005 legislation to regulate these programs under DPHHS, and Pam Carbonari of Carbonari Associates, a Kalispell-based promotional products distributor.
PAARP board members either wouldn't speak on the record to the Missoulian, or failed to return numerous calls seeking comment. Santa left a voicemail in response to calls, but did not return several additional phone calls.
Complaints made to the PAARP board are reviewed in private meetings and don’t become public unless its screening committee, which also has an industry majority, decides to take disciplinary action against a program. Because this has never happened, the Department of Labor and Industry told the Missoulian that it could not share detailed information about the complaints.
But a legislative hearing in 2015 gave a limited peek into the types of issues that come to state regulators. PAARP shared with a Senate committee 13 complaints about licensed programs it had received from 2010-2014, although the board did not release the names of the programs.
The complaints, all of which were dismissed by the PAARP screening committee, alleged:
Clinical services provided by an unlicensed person.
The kidnapping of a complainant's daughter aided and abetted by a program.
Improper billing and unprofessional conduct and treatment.
Mistreatment and lack of regard for students' health and safety (several instances in three complaints).
One complaint was tied to a 2013 lawsuit against one of the programs. Federal court records from Idaho show the case was filed against Phoenix Mountain Collaborative, co-founded by PAARP board member Penny James. The PAARP board dismissed the complaint against Phoenix Mountain even before the program settled the lawsuit in 2015. James did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
In addition, the state Building Codes Bureau issued a complaint about an unspecified program's failure to obtain permits, get inspections and to stop construction after receiving a cease-and-desist order.
Inspections, but only with advance notice
PAARP licenses became mandatory in 2007, but the state didn’t do any inspections until 2010. Inspections remain few and far between — and always with a week’s advance notice.
At least four programs — including Monarch School near Heron, which closed in 2017; Montana Academy near Marion, Innerchance Chrysalis near Eureka and Turning Winds Academic Institute outside Troy — have not been inspected by the state since 2010.
That's because PAARP exempts programs that are certified by the National Independent Private Schools Association (NIPSA), Council on Accreditation (COA), Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) and Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations — all of which have ties to the industries they certify.
NIPSA, for instance, was founded by industry owners and, according to its website, "we cherish autonomy. We can act, unfettered by Boards or Trustees or elected officials." As for accountability, it cites the free market.
A 2014 Economic Affairs Interim Committee of the Montana Legislature investigated professional and occupational licensing boards in Montana, including the PAARP.
“In exchange for licensees being able to say they were ‘state-licensed,’ there appears to have been minimal regulation,'' the committee found. “In part, this was because the PAARP Board apparently wanted minimal regulation.”
The report noted that there were financial concerns about the PAARP board’s operations because it wasn’t making as much money through licensing fees as expected. In three out of its four years, the board had spent more money than it made.
Darcie Kelly, a former public member of PAARP and psychotherapist in Helena, told the Missoulian the board doesn't have the "teeth'' necessary to keep programs in line. But she blames the lack of funding more than self regulation.
"I understand how they don't find problems when all they're looking at is files,'' she said. "Reports are written a certain way (by programs) and leave out a certain amount of information.''
In 2011, PAARP spent $70,000 on litigation when the Ranch for Kids program, which caters to families who adopt children from overseas, tried to avoid regulation by becoming an adjunct ministry of a church founded by one of its employees.
The board’s financial problems prompted Rep. Ryan Lynch to request a bill in 2015 to terminate the PAARP board and shift regulation to DPHHS, which conducts unannounced inspections for licensing and for complaints. That bill died while being drafted.
PAARP also has struggled with background checks. Inspection reports in 2016 for four programs — Mountain Meadows/20 Peaks Ranch, Gateway Freedom Ranch, Summit Preparatory School — noted no evidence of background checks for employees, although all the schools said they’d sent information to the board but never received anything back.
At its March 2018 meeting, the board discussed eliminating state oversight of background checks, which are not shared with parents or the public, and giving responsibility to the programs, including for sensitive fingerprint checks.
“The part we don’t quite have figured out yet is, if the program cannot share that background information with the board, how is the board going to ensure compliance?” asked Mark Jette, the board's counsel. “It appears that rather than the board improving the way it collects and maintains this really sensitive criminal information, background information, instead we shift that responsibility to the programs themselves.''
Responded Santa, the PAARP board chair and co-director of Montana Academy, “You just have to know that we have records that show that we have a background check in our file when you come and inspect.''
In other words, the state would have had to trust the programs to follow the rules.
Lucy Tompkins grew up around the American West and graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Montana in 2017. Upon graduation she worked at the Missoulian as an education reporter, during which she worked on the investigative series Troubled Kids, Troubled System. Tompkins now lives in Berlin, Germany, where she recently completed a Young Professional Journalist Fulbright Fellowship. Tompkins was recently granted a year-long reporting fellowship at the New York Times, beginning in June.
Seaborn Larson
Reporter
Seaborn Larson is the crime and courts reporter for the Missoulian. He covered business, local government and public safety for papers in Libby and Great Falls in his home state of Montana before joining the Missoulian. Larson, an avid hunter, graduated from the University of Montana School of Journalism in December 2014.
Cameron Evans
Reporter
Cameron Evans has covered K-12 schools for the Missoulian since August 2018. She graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 2017, where she minored in Women's and Gender Studies. In 2019, she was the co-recipient of a fellowship from the Education Writers Association to cover the role education plays in upward mobility. She previously worked as a health writing intern for Insider, editorial intern for Psychology Today, and university correspondent for Men's Health.
Gwen Florio
City Editor
Gwen Florio has covered stories ranging from the Oklahoma City bombing trials and the mass shooting at Columbine High School, to the glitz of the Miss America pageant and the more practical Miss Navajo contest, whose participants slaughter a sheep. She's reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, as well as Lost Springs, Wyoming, population three. Florio has worked at daily newspapers in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Denver and now Montana, where she's the editor of the Missoulian and the Ravalli Republic. She's the author of six novels.
Tommy Martino
Photographer
Tommy Martino started taking pictures when he was a sophomore in high school. After spending a semester in the darkroom, he figured why not continue taking pictures and enrolled in every class he could that had photography involved. Martino graduated in 2014 from the University of Montana School of Journalism -- from there his love of telling stories with a camera grew. After interning at the Missoulian during the winter of 2014, he went on to intern and work as a photojournalist at papers in Michigan and Wyoming before rejoining the Missoulian as a staff photographer in the fall of 2015. After four years at the Missoulian Tommy took a new position as a staff photographer at the University of Montana, where he has been since November 2019.
Kathy Best
Executive Editor
Kathy Best was editor of the Missoulian in Missoula, Mont., and the Ravalli Republic in nearby Hamilton from June 2016 through April 2019. She previously worked as executive editor and managing editor of The Seattle Times and as a top editor for the Baltimore Sun, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. She was also a reporter for the Post-Dispatch in its Washington, D.C., and Illinois statehouse bureaus. Best now leads the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
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Tragedies & Journalists
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Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming
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This is a new edition of the world's leading textbook on journalism. Translated into more than a dozen languages, David Randall's handbook is an invaluable guide to the 'universals' of good journalistic practice for professional and trainee journalists worldwide.
Legends of People Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka
This provocative study of the political culture of nationalism in Sri Lanka and Australia - is one of the few genuinely comparative studies in anthropology and in taking up such an important question as nationalism it reminds us that truly relevant anthropology questions deep-seated cultural beliefs, including our own
Family Secrets: Shame and Privacy in Modern Britain
Family Secrets offers a sweeping account of how shame--and the relationship between secrecy and openness--has changed over the last two centuries in Britain. Deborah Cohen uses detailed sketches of individual families as the basis for comparing different sorts of social stigma.
During World War Two, 131 German cities and towns were targeted by Allied bombs, a good number almost entirely flattened. Six hundred thousand German civilians died—a figure twice that of all American war casualties. Seven and a half million Germans were left homeless. Given the astonishing scope of the devastation, W. G. Sebald asks: Why?
The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan
Christina Lamb's evocative reporting brings to life the stories that no one else had written about: the abandoned victims of almost a quarter century of war. Her unique perspective on Afghanistan and deep passion for the people she writes about make this the definitive account of the tragic plight of a proud nation.
House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe
Christina Lamb's powerful narrative traces the history of the brutal civil war, independence, and the Mugabe years, all through the lives of two people on opposing sides. Although born within a few miles of each other, their experience growing up could not have been more different.
Butcher & Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Failure in Afghanistan
Butcher & Bolt brilliantly brings to life the personalities involved in Afghanistan’s relationship with the world, chronicling the misunderstandings and missed opportunities that have so often led to war.
Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Jerusalem 1913 shows us a cosmopolitan city whose religious tolerance crumbled before the onset of Z ionism and its corresponding nationalism on both sides-a conflict that could have been resolved were it not for the onset of World War I. With extraordinary skill, Amy Dockser Marcus rewrites the story of one of the world's most indelible divides.
They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq
Based on "Blood Brothers," the award-nominated series that ran in Army Times, this is the remarkable story of a courageous military unit that sacrificed their lives to change Adhamiya, Iraq from a lawless town where insurgents roamed freely, to a safe and secure neighborhood. This is a timeless story of men at war and a heartbreaking account of American sacrifice in Iraq.
The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans
Aaron Glantz reported extensively from Iraq during the first three years of this war and has been reporting on the plight of veterans ever since. The War Comes Home is the first book to systematically document the U.S. government's neglect of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Madame Dread: A Tale of Love, Vodou, and Civil Strife in Haiti
Kathie Klarreich's compelling memoir interweaves shattering political events with an intensely personal narrative about the Haitian musician Klarreich, who turns out to be as enthralling and complicated as the political events she covered.
In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, Columbine is destined to be a classic. A close-up portrait of hatred, a community rendered helpless, and the police blunders and cover-ups, it is a compelling and utterly human portrait of two killers-an unforgettable cautionary tale for our times
Juvenile, photographer Joseph Rodríguez spent several years following several youths, from arrest, counseling, trial adjudication, and incarceration, to release, probation, house arrest, group homes, and the search for employment and meaning in their lives.
By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East Los Angeles gang warfare. This story is at times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-earned lesson for the next generation.
Still Here, documents the ongoing expressions of hope, perseverance, and suffering in the still-devastated communities of New Orleans and Texas post hurricane Katrina. Rodríguez spent two years photographing and interviewing families and individuals who shared their daily struggles to rebuild their lives.
Breaking News, Breaking Down, Two journalists' emotional journey after 9/11 & Katrina - This program tells the hidden story of how traumatic news impacts the men and women who cover it. Mike Walter loved chasing the big story, but on one September morning, the biggest story of his career chased him down: a jet rained from the sky, piercing the Pentagon and shattering his emotional well being.
One of the Guys: Women as Aggressors and Torturers
The debate about women and torture has, until recently, focused on women as victims of violence. The essays in One of the Guys challenge and examine the expectations placed on women while attempting to understand female perpetrators of abuse and torture in a broader context.
Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War
Tara McKelvey — the first U.S.journalist to speak with female prisoners from Abu Ghraib — traveled to the Middle East and across the United States to seek out victims and perpetrators. McKelvey tells how soldiers, acting in an atmosphere that encouraged abuse and sadism, were unleashed on a prison population of which the vast majority, according to army documents, were innocent civilians.
Gogo Mama : A Journey Into the Lives of Twelve African Women
This book is a journey across Africa, in all its complexity; from the townships of Johannesburg, to the back alleys of Zanzibar; from the frontline of the war in the Sudan, to the nightclubs of Cairo. It is a vivid, illuminating and often haunting composite picture of an extraordinary continent, in the words of the women who know it best.
Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America
This is the first anthology of its kind, bringing together outstanding practitioners of the muckraking tradition, from the Revolutionary era to the present day. Ranging from mainstream figures like Woodward and Bernstein to legendary iconoclasts such as I. F. Stone and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the dispatches in this collection combine the thrill of the chase after facts with a burning sense of outrage
Trauma Therapy in Context: The Science and Craft of Evidence-based Practice
This book examines several current clinical approaches to trauma-focused treatment. Rather than describe theoretical approaches in isolation, the editors have integrated these interventions into a broader clinical context. Chapter authors emphasize basic therapeutic skills such as empathic listening, instilling resilience, and creating meaning, in the service of empirically-supported, highly efficacious trauma interventions.
Ari Goldman’s exploration of the emotional and spiritual aspects of spending a year in mourning for his father will resonate with anyone who has lost a loved one, as he describes how this year affected him as a son, husband, father, and member of his community.
What began as a project to deepen his knowledge of the world’s sacred beliefs turned out to be an extraordinary journey of spiritual illumination, one in which Goldman reexamined his own faith as an Orthodox Jew and opened his mind to the great religions of the world. Written with warmth, humor, and penetrating clarity, The Search for God at Harvard is a book for anyone who has wrestled with the question of what it means to take religion seriously today.
Being Jewish: The Spiritual and Cultural Practice of Judaism Today
In Being Jewish, Ari L. Goldman offers eloquent thoughts about an absorbing exploration of modern Judaism. A bestselling author and widely respected chronicler of Jewish life, Goldman vividly contrasts the historical meaning of Judaism's heritage with the astonishing and multiform character of the religion today.
This book is a collection of reflective crime pieces, often approaching the events from different angles, yet written by on-the spot observers and reporters. There is an emphasis on the victims, and as a result these stories are written with sensitivity and compassion rather than sensationalism.
Over twenty-five tales of grisly murders and suspicious killings are laid out for inspection, including the story of the Police Killers and tales of the seedy Melbourne underworld.
This fully revised and updated new edition of Smart Health Choices will provide you with the tools for assessing health advice, whether it comes from a specialist, general practitioner, naturopath, the media, the Internet, or a friend. It shows you how to take an active role in your health care, and to make the best decisions for you and your loved ones based on personal preferences and the best available evidence.
The Spanish-language version of the Dart Center's 40-page guide to help journalists, photojournalists and editors report on violence while protecting both victims and themselves.
9/11: Mental Health in the Wake of Terrorist Attacks
This book comprehensively describes the psychological response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and, to a lesser degree, Washington DC. The impact of what happened on the local and US national population is considered through various epidemiological studies, as well as personal accounts from some of those more directly involved.
Filled with astonishing personal stories, conflict, and drama, Feet to the Fire gives readers the rare opportunity to walk a mile in the shoes of this nation’s most powerful journalists and news executives and experience their highly stressful environments. With each new and revealing interview, Borjesson gathers devastating details from national security and intelligence reporters, White House journalists, Middle East experts, war correspondents, and others. Like pieces of a terrible puzzle, these conversations combine to provide a hair-raising view of the mechanisms by which the truth has been manufactured post 9/11.
Chronicling Trauma: Journalists and Writers on Violence and Loss
Grounded in the latest research in the fields of trauma studies, literary biography, and the history of journalism, this study draws upon the lively and sometimes breathtaking accounts of popular writers such as Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Graham Greene, and Truman Capote, exploring the role that trauma has played in shaping their literary works. Underwood notes that the influence of traumatic experience upon journalistic literature is being reshaped by a number of factors, including news media trends, the advance of the Internet, the changing nature of the journalism profession, the proliferation of psychoactive drugs, and journalists' greater self-awareness of the impact of trauma in their work.
Daring to Feel: Violence, the News Media, and Their Emotions
Daring to Feel is a bold, brave book. Jody Santos challenges the entrenched doctrine that journalists are neutral, dispassionate observers of 'fact.' Santos demonstrates how journalists themselves and society as a whole benefit from emotionally nuanced and emotionally engaged reporting. This is a beautifully written tribute to the passion of journalists and the heart-wrenching stories they cover.
The Things They Cannot Say: Stories Soldiers Won't Tell You About What They've Seen, Done or Failed to Do in War
In The Things They Cannot Say, award-winning journalist and author Kevin Sites asks these difficult questions of eleven soldiers and marines, who—by sharing the truth about their wars—display a rare courage that transcends battlefield heroics. For each of these men, many of whom Sites first met while in Afghanistan and Iraq, the truth means something different. One struggles to recover from a head injury he believes has stolen his ability to love; another attempts to make amends for the killing of an innocent man; yet another finds respect for the enemy fighter who tried to kill him. Sites also shares the unsettling narrative of his own failures during war—including his complicity in a murder—and the redemptive powers of storytelling that saved him from a self-destructive downward spiral.
Kevin Sites, the award-winning journalist, covered virtually every major global hot spot as the first Internet correspondent for Yahoo! News. Beginning his journey with the anarchic chaos of Somalia in September 2005 and ending with the Israeli-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006, Sites talks with rebels and government troops, child soldiers and child brides, and features the people on every side, including those caught in the cross fire. His honest reporting helps destroy the myths of war by putting a human face on war's inhumanity.
Swimming with Warlords: A Dozen-Year Journey Across the Afghan War
Using his trademark immersive style, Kevin Sites uncovered surprising stories with unexpected truths. He swam in the Kunduz River with an infamous warlord named Nabi Gechi, who demonstrated both his fearsome killing skills as well as a genius for peaceful invention. Sites talked with ex-Taliban fighters, politicians, female cops, farmers, drug addicts, and diplomats, and patrolled with American and Afghan soldiers. In Swimming with Warlords he helps us to understand this kingdom of primitive beauty, dark mysteries, and savage violence, as well as the conflict that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives--and what we might expect tomorrow and in the years to come.
The Price They Paid is the stunning and dramatic true story of a legendary helicopter commander in Vietnam and the flight crews that followed him into the most intensive helicopter warfare ever—and how that brutal experience has changed their lives in the forty years since the war ended.
What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars
Most Americans are now familiar with PTSD and its prevalence among troops. In this groundbreaking book, David Wood examines the far more pervasive yet less understood experience of those we send to war: moral injury, the violation of our fundamental values of right and wrong that so often occurs in the impossible moral dilemmas of modern conflict.
Collective Conviction: The Story of Disaster Action
Collective Conviction tells the story of Disaster Action, a small charity founded in 1991 by survivors and bereaved people from the disasters of the late 1980s, including Zeebrugge, King's Cross, Clapham, Lockerbie, Hillsborough and the Marchioness. The aims were to create a health and safety culture in which disasters were less likely to occur and to support others affected by similar events.
When Lynne O’Donnell met Pauline and Margaret in Iraq she could never have guessed the wealth of stories she’d discover. Over tea the two women tell Lynne of their lives in the country: each having married Iraqi men had then relocated from England more than thirty years before.
Trauma Reporting A Journalist's Guide to Covering Sensitive Stories
Trauma Reporting provides vital information on developing a healthy, professional and respectful relationship with those who choose to tell their stories during times of trauma, distress or grief.
