Story Telling, The Human Spirit, and the Path Forward

PREPARED REMARKS

Conference in Kyiv on Mental and Emotional Well Being of Ukraine’s Soldiers

February 29, 2024

Honored guests and panelists…

It is a privilege to be speaking with you today in Kyiv from the United States, having recently returned from a documentary journey through Ukraine. I want to thank Iryna and her team for the wisdom and timeliness of this important event and the necessity of this conversation.

Presently, I serve as a film director for Ukraine Story, a foundation for reporting and documentary journalism. We explore the hope, courage, defiance, and unity of the people of Ukraine under siege from occupiers. Joining me in this effort is a wonderful team including my son, Honor Phillips, who serves as Executive Producer.

I am neither a psychologist nor an expert on trauma and distress during war time. What I am is a keen observer of the human condition and a documentarian committed to telling the stories of people without voices.

In this role, over the course of two decades, I have produced war documentaries filmed in seven countries, and interviewed hundreds of veterans and eyewitnesses to war. As a younger man, and during the Reagan Administration, I was on location in Central America, Angola and sub-Saharan Africa, reporting on Soviet imperialism, disinformation, destabilization and subversion. After many years in the field I have observed that the issue of veteran spiritual, emotional, mental and psychological health is ubiquitous.

Speakers, leaders and guests gather in Kyiv to discuss support strategy for Ukrainian military and their families.

Why Focus on Ukraine?

My laser focus in 2022-2024 has been on the ten year Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am persuaded that the Soviet revivalism of Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to the world and my children’s future.

I further believe that many in my beloved country of America have lost their way. We can learn much from the people of Ukraine and their fight for freedom: The importance of putting aside secondary squabbles for a greater purpose. The hope of redemption of a people emerging from a century of Russian corruption and control, now aspiring to do better. The significance of the battle to preserve the culture, identity and history of a nation. The power of unity and clarity of purpose.

By way of background, my great grandfather was a Jew from Lviv. When Russians tried to hunt him down, he was hidden by friends who paid for his escape to the United States in exchange for a promise that he would someday bring their children to the United States. He kept that promise. One of my many reasons for returning now is to repay the interest on this 100 year family debt to Ukrainians without whom I would not be here today.

I am also a constitutional attorney who hopes after the war to be involved in the identification and prosecution of Russians war criminals. I should note that one of the founding members of my organization Ukraine Story, was among the first responders into Bucha in April 2022, tasked with the responsibility of identifying the names and units of Russians engaged in atrocities. Trying Nazis at Nuremberg was necessary to the Jewish people and the Allies. Trying Russian war criminals will be important to Ukrainians and the free world.

A Limited But Important Offering to the Discussion

What does a filmmaker have to say about this important topic?

Mine is a simple offering on today’s conference subject of the path forward regarding the mental and psychological health of Ukrainian military and their families. I have a unique, non-clinical, common sense perspective drawn from personal experience in the field.

From the outset, I concede that the complexity of the issues are enormous. I would not presume to offer a global solution, nor speak outside my own area of expertise as a documentarian and observer of the human spirit.

What We Discovered

It has been my great honor to interview on camera war orphans now protected in the Carpathian Mountains who witnessed Russian atrocities; soldiers who have endured unimaginable difficulties on the front line; amputees experiencing healing at Unbroken in Lviv; mothers of fallen defenders of Mariupol and the East; professional soldiers with years of experience defending Ukraine; pastors trying to help victims of Russian torture and sexual violence turn away from suicide; survivors of the Bucha massacre, and much more.

My team and I have had touching conversations with double amputees unwilling to speak of their lost limbs to their mothers. We have wept with a grieving adult child of a soldier killed on day one of the invasion. We have listened to members of the Ukrainian military share concerns regarding the deep stress to their marriages of prolonged absences from the home. We have spoken to the enormously courageous wives of front line soldiers who live in fear they will be widowed. The stories of battlefield trauma are legion. War orphans have shared to the anguish of daily anguish from witnessing neighbors executed and living with haunted nightmares of explosions and missile strikes. And of course, there are people who have seen other atrocities perpetrated by Russians against civilians which echo a horror of Dante’s Inferno.

Story Telling That Promotes Emotional, Mental and Psychological Wellbeing

The biggest surprise in our documentary journey is how willingly Ukrainians share. Not at first. But once the faucet is safely turned on, a stream of emotions and experiences pour forth.

A common theme has emerged: Truthful story telling appears fundamental for mental clarity and healing of those who have endured the horrors of war. It allows them to process experiences. It multiplies and reinforces the value of the sacrifices of war. It is essential to building communities of support and strength. Importantly, story telling is an antidote to despair because it can reveal future purpose.

True peace of mind and spirit in times of war requires four elements: (1) Spiritual grounding: Gratitude, awareness, and communion with our Creator. (2) Nobility of purpose: The knowledge that our efforts are motivated by a transcendent good. (3) Recognition of the value of the sacrifice: Our loss had meaning. And (4) Family and community reinforcement of these objectives: We are not alone in the struggle.

These objectives are advanced when those who have endured war stop, reflect, and share their stories. They thrive when others help translate personal experiences of war in a truthful, meaningful, and artistic manner.

Historial Amnesia Promotes Veteran Depression

We must not underestimate the problem of historical amnesia. Without authors, historians, songwriters and filmmakers speaking to minds and hearts, people move on. They deprioritize the veteran. Ultimately they forget their importance. Few things are more debilitating to a veteran than being forgotten or feeling as if he must live in solitude and silence with his memories.

Storytelling builds the bonds of honor and gratitude between generations, reinforcing the purpose and value of the veteran.  It means that the rising generations have reference points for their own struggles. They have context for freedoms dearly purchased in blood. In turn. The result is that those who sacrificed much during this war are honored.

Over the course of twenty years I have produced and directed two series on the Second World War and one feature. I have interviewed hundreds of veterans in their 80’s and 90’s. Those who find themselves engaged in story telling, or whose stories are told and celebrated by others, tend to live long, happy and fulfilled lives. They make the transition from warrior to sage, thus experiencing a renewed sense of purpose. I urge my friends in Ukraine to take note.

A Multi-Disciplined Strategy

I would be remiss not to acknowledge theater and musical composition as equally vital expressions of storytelling available to those who hope to bring healing.

Of course, not everyone will have their story told through film, theater, or song.  But the more who do, the better. The benefits are enormous. There is an exponential effect. Story telling allows others to identify with common experiences and to find inspiration themselves. It serves to build common consensus and clarity regarding shared experiences.

Veteran Health and Ukraine’s Moral Advantage

There is something else. In the context of the Russian invasion, Ukrainians have an asset critical to unlocking emotional and psychological success moving forward. That asset is moral clarity. Ukrainians are crystal clear on the right vs. wrong of this war. Consequently, they are fearless, even when broken by tragedy.

Russians have no such asset. Captured radio communications of Russians bragging to their mothers at home about their role torturing and executing civilians, and acknowledging their need for constant drunkenness to make their crimes easier to commit, reveal what we have observed under the Soviet Union, in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere— a military institution devoid of conscience.

This leads me to an important, although controversial, parenthetical thought: The power of moral clarity in war is fundamental. The soldier of Ukraine has this unique advantage over many soldiers in the world today: There is no moral controversy regarding his core objective. He is literally fighting for his family and home against a ruthless and morally bankrupt enemy that wages war on women and children. On this point, the issue is black vs. white. The conscience problems that arise with soldiers engaged in overseas wars of dubious purpose, rife with tactical ethical problems, and often with no clear path to victory, do not apply in Ukraine. Here there is nobility of purpose. As to defeating the Russian invader, there is unity within the nation. For Ukrainians, war-based trauma derives more from exposure to the horrors of war, from outcome uncertainty, and from separation from their families, than from a crisis of moral action.

Investing in The Path Forward

I conclude with a thirty thousand foot perspective:  The battle for Ukraine is fought in two theaters. One is military. The other is informational.

The information war involves three elements: The first is the case for Ukraine which must be made to the world, and notably, the United States. The second is the necessity for exposing and destroying Kremlin propaganda.

But the third is often overlooked - It involves telling stories that reveal the indefatigable spirit of humanity at its best while enduring the worst.

These are the stories which remind the world beyond Ukraine of its own humanity, build understanding and foster empathy. And to the point of this conference - such stories remind the people of Ukraine themselves of the value of their own enormous sacrifice on behalf of kinsman:  “For greater love hath no man, than he lay his life down for a friend.”

Let’s invest in those. Once we do, sit back and be amazed by the emotional and psychological benefits to veterans of war and their families.

There are 42 million stories waiting to be told in Ukraine. We can not tell all of them, but we must tell many. For my part, I intend to find representative stories that will bring hope and encouragement to Ukraine and the world.

Thank You. Slava Ukraini