Salute to veterans 2024: From battlefield to brushstrokes — how art is healing veterans like Bryan Ewers

Bryan Ewers is a tall man, probably close to 6-foot-3, with wide shoulders. He played quarterback in high school, but as a grown man, he looks more like a tight end.

He’s wearing a camouflage cap backward on his head, placed neatly over a bandana. His sunglasses rest above his brow. A sandy-brown goatee ends in a point below his chin. He wears a beaded bracelet on his left wrist, and a green band on his right that gives a phone number to an emotional support lifeline, made famous by American rapper Logic.

Ewers strolls along Spanish Street in Cape Girardeau in his Croc shoes, escorting his good friend Izzy, the floppy-eared beagle mix with a loving disposition. Izzy is a good girl. She’s a certified emotional support animal.

Ewers’ appearance gives motorcycle rider or bouncer, but his voice speaks with a syntax more akin to Bob Ross or Fred Rodgers. Ewers is a thinker. And self-aware. Sometimes that spells trouble.

As he and Izzy walk down Spanish Street, Ewers answers personal questions from a reporter whom he treats like a friend. By all appearances, this is a man who knows who he is, a man who is square with the dark moments that have happened in his life. Sometimes he’s not this composed.

He has learned to identify his PTSD as it comes, pick it apart and deal with it. Some days are better than others. By all indications, this is a good day. The sun shines on Izzy as she sniffs around the sidewalk, down to Broadway, now back again and across the street.

Ewers and his companion arrive at the door to the Arts Council and walk in. It’s a fresh, clean space, with works of art displayed on the walls. Ewers feels comfort here. It represents space and time, elements needed to both clear his mind and explain the universe.

He comes here to paint as part of the Veterans Affairs Whole Health Program, even when there is no class. Ewers retrieves his paintings and begins to set up his easel. He is working on two oil pieces, one of a red barn and another of a mountain range. He’s learning about the medium. Color. Shape. Layers. He’s here to apply more paint that must dry before he returns next week.

The Whole Health Program is intended to help local veterans heal in ways beyond clinical appointments. Mostly, it’s a way for veterans like Ewers to connect with other veterans. There’s the Tuesday painting class. There is weekly group battlefield acupuncture. Yoga classes. Tai chi. Guitar lessons. The multi-pronged program addresses the spirit by putting veterans with each other in stress-free, communal circumstances where they are free to talk or be silent. In picking up a paintbrush or a guitar, they work on creating something new. No alcohol in sight.

“It is healing and it is helping,” Ewers said. “And it just really helps with structure. It gives my week structure. So I need structures in my days and months, just like everybody else. This helps me as a medically retired veteran, to help structure my week with healthy outlets. These are things that I do and places I go that help me be involved with the community, which is a big deal to us.

“I’ve almost got a year into these programs and now they’re a part of my lifestyle. I’m a member here (at the council). I support what they do here. It’s just provided me with an outlet to therapy. It’s outside of the medical appointment or rehab. This is more relaxed, and it’s with veterans, and it’s the camaraderie among veterans. I don’t even know what the word is; there’s a word that hasn’t been invented yet. It’s not in my vocabulary, but we’ll say camaraderie, when I spend time with other veterans. It’s a comfortable safe place. Instead of being depressed and closed in, I’m able to come out and feel comfortable here.”

A combat engineer with the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division, Ewers struggles with injuries, some of his mind and some of his brain. He had friends die from explosive devices in Afghanistan. An IED exploded near him and left him with a traumatic brain injury, or TBI. He also has arthritis in his shoulders and bone spurs in his neck that limit his daily functioning and can be quite painful. The effects have followed him throughout his life.

“It was basically like infantry,” Ewers said. “So I was a Ranger as well and got assigned to a combat engineer unit. We get demolitions and explosives. So we’re a direct action force. My main job in the Army was counter-insurgency and counter-IED. So during my first deployment, we were still aggressively looking for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and Taliban. A lot of that was involved with the training, working with local government, meeting with local officials, police chiefs, sub-governors to try to figure out what was going on in our geographical area as far as the insurgency was concerned.

“We had a lot of IEDs, the IED roadside bombs. My first patrol out as a platoon leader that was mine, we got blown up by a suicide vehicle, or an IED, so that was like pretty real.”

Ewers didn’t elaborate.

Ewers was intrigued by the military as a teenager who grew up in Illinois. A hard-nosed athlete, Ewers sought a physical challenge. And he wanted to learn more about how to be a leader. Those goals were accomplished, but he paid the traumatic price.

Military life came with its advantages. Ewers liked the discipline, the structure. The cohesiveness of the team, and a communication structure that was well-defined. He wanted to do a full 20 years, but he couldn’t. He medically retired in 2014.

Upon his return to civilian life, the rules were less clear. He said leaving the military felt like a divorce.

The health care he needed was filled with bureaucratic obstacles. He was required to pull hard copies of his medical care reports. It included thousands of pages, and he had a hard time communicating with stateside VA doctors exactly what his problems were. He knew his health care providers didn’t have time to read through them all. It was like starting over from scratch with his health care. He needed help with advocacy. It was incredibly difficult just to get treated following his medical retirement. Meanwhile, Ewers had all sorts of trauma he didn’t know what to do with; he had few tools to deal with them. He entered a workforce that didn’t share the same values of discipline and attention to detail that he had learned in the military. He had a hard time adjusting.

Ewers initially spiraled in this combustible mix. He struggled with PTSD. He struggled with relationships with family. He struggled with being alive. There were many dark moments when he didn’t know what to do with himself. Didn’t know where to go.

“So it was really like starting over, and at the same time I was dealing with this, my family was, too. I’ve always been close to my family, but they’re not psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, doctors, you know. They love me. They care about me. We believe in healing and believe in the power of God and all that. But that was my source to figure it out. I was almost to the point where it’s like, 'Screw it, I’m not even going to go get treatment.' It’s too much of a hassle. It’s creating other issues for me. It wasn’t like I was acting out in violence or stuff like that, but I had a drinking problem. I was self-medicating. That stuff can get out of hand very quickly when your brain’s not functioning already, and you’re trying to just figure out if I want to be here anymore.”

The feelings Ewers felt, the combination of war trauma and physical injury, combined with the isolation and everyday struggle of civilian life following a military “divorce”, are feelings unique to veterans.

That’s why the Whole Health program seems to be gaining momentum. Ewers found out about the Whole Health program at a VA Fall Festival event in 2023.

Ewers has a hard time finding the words to describe what the program, and the camaraderie mean to his health. But Kelly Downes, director of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, has a different perspective, and the language to better articulate how art can help wounded psyches. Downes, in addition to opening up the Arts Council building for painting and guitar lessons, also teaches the yoga class.

“I think they're trained to be observational,” Downes said. “I think that's just part of the training of the military, which is also part of the training of being an artist. It's also the same with being a person who is looking inward, right? It's all about observation. So instead of being driven by our base instincts of the brain, the amygdala of flight or fight, instead, we're saying, you know, hold that reaction, hold that time. Hold the space of observation longer in order to cultivate that sense. And it's amazing because watching them, they have so much discipline that they're my best students, and I don't overstate that. They show up, they're on time. They want to learn. They're there. They take direction. So what you see is that these skills that were birthed out of being in the military, actually serve them in their own healing. … It’s allowing joy to come.

“The thing I’ve known in my heart since I was young, which is why I do what I do: I believe in the power of art, unequivocally. And it’s not just this throwaway statement, like ‘art’s great. It’s beautiful.’ No, this is, like, probably the most life-saving thing that we have, especially in rural America where mental health is sometimes difficult for people, especially in a community like veterans who have been ostracized, overlooked and underserved. Nobody actually sees them and what they’ve sacrificed. It’s like everybody uses them for their own gain, but nobody takes care of them. (The art classes) are a little bit of care for somebody who’s been overlooked.”

The program is helped along by VA nurses Missy Recker and Tricsha Fowler. They take care of the logistics and are a constant presence with the veterans during the classes. Recker said the whole health program helps with the spirits of the individuals in spaces where traditional medical care can’t reach.

It doesn’t take much time to see what she means. At a Tuesday class, a journalist moved around the room taking photos of the veterans as they painted. Each veteran gave their name and made small talk. One got choked up immediately as she tried to communicate what the painting group meant to her.

“This is more than getting together and painting pictures,” said Sandy Pulley. “It’s the camaraderie. Even for a few minutes, it’s getting away from the things of this world. It’ a lifesaver.”

Pulley served three years in Okinawa Japan from 1984 to 1987. “I was a secretary for a military intelligence officer. I worked underground,” she said.

As for Ewers, he isn’t seeking attention for himself. He’s uneasy about the interview. But he believes he’s found something with the Whole Health programs, funded by the VA, but helped along by the arts council. He wants to share that story.

The mental health aspects of art, as Downes described, has worked much like she articulated. The tai chi and yoga have helped give him no-impact movements that are beneficial for his physical ailments.

As he mixes some paint to find the right blue hue for his mountain painting, he talks about how his life has improved in the last year. He’s communicating in a healthy way again with family members. He sees a path for others to feel better. His outlook is much better, and it begins with making plans, even micro-plans.

“What I tell people is try to pause that thinking and make it a physical thing,” he said. “I’ve gotta get out of this chair and out of my door and into that door. And that is Goal One. I don’t have to do any art. I don’t have to open any books. I don’t have to do anything. It’s easy to get closed in, closed off and be like, ‘I don’t even want to go try.’ Fight that, try to pause that thinking and think, you know, it’s been a while since I’ve been into the library. Let me go see if I can get my ass in that door, then see what happens. OK, now I’m in the door. I’m here. … This has worked for me, getting back into some kind of routine.

“Get plugged in with something that keeps you active and gives you an opportunity to socialize with other veterans and be a part of your community. Just try it.”