The project approaches a medical case report I authored as a US Army Special Forces Medic titled "Prolonged Field Care of a Casualty With Penetrating Chest Trauma." Despite my authorship, the report is one of DeLillo's "millions of components stamped out, repeated endlessly." Millions of these types of reports exist, and while the specific details vary, the report's voice remains uniform. The voice is mine and not mine. It is the voice of the Army, the state, and the hospital speaking through me. In its objectivity, it reflects the emotionally compartmentalized mindset soldiers train to adopt in order to function effectively under extreme stress. The report describes a combat patrol in Afghanistan during which an Afghan soldier was wounded with a gunshot wound to the chest. I provided medical care in the field for roughly thirteen hours until transfer to a coalition hospital where he underwent surgery and made a full recovery. In the report, I describe one of the most intense experiences of my life in precise, objective, medical detail. It was the first time I had been shot at, the first time I treated a casualty under fire. It is an accurate but partial depiction of myself experiencing and managing trauma. Now, years later, I work to unrepeat this document through a series of poetic erasures and individual poems that respond to, adapt, and transform the language of the report.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc2356156 |
| Date | 07 1900 |
| Creators | Barnhart, Graham Charles |
| Contributors | Marks, Corey, Faizullah, Tarfia, Davis-McElligatt, Joanna |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | Text |
| Rights | Public, Barnhart, Graham Charles, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
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