USA Cheerleaders

Glen Burnie, MD United States

About USA Cheerleaders

The USA Cheerleaders are a dedicated and patriotic group of Professional Cheerleaders with unwavering Respect for our Military,the Flag & our Country.Our Mission is to Support our Military ...

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Members

  • Ken Martin - Executive Director, Founder

Press

The Graffiti of War Project Announces Their “Summer in a Combat Zone” Expedition Capturing images and experiences from a unique perspective in the final summer in Iraq “This idea has been a dream of ours since our return from Iraq in support of OIF ’05-’07”, explains Jaeson “Doc” Parsons, Director of Operations and founder of The Graffiti of War Project. “The premise behind this project is twofold: to bring about understanding, foster empathy and bridge the widening gap between service members and civilians through the creation of the published book. Upon the completion of the book, use a large portion of the proceeds from the sale to fund the Graffiti of War Foundation offering support and healing through artistic creation by those afflicted with the silent wounds of war, PTSD.” “There’s blood everywhere. There’s screaming going on. It’s completely different,” he said. “It’s just a horrible, horrible thing.” It’s been in trying to heal his own mental wounds that Parsons has taken on The Graffiti of War project. For the past 13 months, Parsons and the all-volunteer staff of the Project have been collecting photography of wartime graffiti and unconventional art from Iraq and Afghanistan. They plan to find a publisher for a Graffiti of War book by year’s end, with hopes the photographs will better foster an understanding of what service members experience on the ground. As this war has entered its tenth year our nation has become silently divided, the widening divide between soldier and civilian grows with each year. It has become more and more difficult to understand the life and trials of a deployed soldier and their family. Although most Americans support our brave men and women, they don’t grasp the magnitude of what affect this conflict, these deployments have on the families and on the mind and soul of the soldier. “In documenting these images created by soldiers, marines, and airmen, our aim is to give a unique glimpse into the minds of these warfighters.” To give America an inside look at what has gone almost entirely unseen to the vast majority of the public. “Many of these images are raw and created in the moment on unconventional canvases in a very unconventional war. This art, this emotion on canvas will help civilians understand what it is to be separated from family, to lose one of your own in a blink of an eye, to get a feel, a taste of what 15 months fighting a very unpopular war is like. We want to bridge that divide growing in America, we want to bring back the empathy that is lacking for these men and women, and empathy is an emotion that requires understanding, which is our mission”, Doc explains, “to bring understanding to Americans not familiar with the emotions of war”. “We’re taking care to make sure this is not some random group of images and structures without explanation,” said Parsons, who deployed to Anbar Province with the 54th Engineer Battalion in 2006. “It’s hard to make a civilian understand why someone in the military will do some of the things they do, but I think this project will be a good bridge to the civilian world to help translate that, so long as it’s explained correctly.” To date, the project has collected 450 images through its site and Facebook page, 70 percent of which have come from service personnel stationed in Iraq. To reach the goal of collecting 10,000 images, Parsons will travel to Kuwait and Iraq this summer. While there, Maxim Magazine will feature his blog posts. Maxim has been an early support of the Graffiti of War Project and has featured the project on their website in the past. Starting in May, Maxim will begin featuring images and updates on the project via Maxim Magazine’s home page, www.Maxim.com as well as in their upcoming “Military” tab. In addition, Maxim will feature updates via their Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/maxim and other social media outlets such as Twitter. Joining The Graffiti of War Project will be Andrea Sandoval, a former Army non-commissioned officer (E-7) with experience in photography and administrative support as well as Ken Martin from USA Cheerleaders. The USA Cheerleaders are a Professional appearance/performance based organization, that travels the United States and abroad to support our men and women in the armed services. The USA Cheerleaders were the first professional cheerleading organization that was designed specifically with the military in mind. Over the years they have fundraised for many different charities and in 2010 they fundraised more than in all the previous years. USA Cheerleaders attended the BGC Charity Day in NYC for the Wounded Warrior Project, on that one day, they fundraised over $370,000. They have been involved in dozens of events to include: Wounded Warrior Project Alumni Event in Times Square on New Year’s Eve (2010) Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade (2010) FDNY vs. NYPD Battle of the Badges with WWP n NYC (2010) Proceeds from the book will largely help fund the Graffiti of War Foundation, which aims to promote art therapy as treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder to veterans. The foundation also has the eventual goal of offering free online group therapy to soldiers and veterans. The project’s website, graffitiofwar.com, links to a trained clinician who provides online therapy, but there is a fee. “We envision in the beginning maybe just a group of soldiers talking to themselves, but we’d like to have a steady supply of health-care professionals who are willing to donate a couple hours a day to talk to them, so they can be helped through these emotions now,” said Parsons, Graffiti of War director of operations. “That way, when they’re coming home to their loved ones, they’re not a shell of what they used to be.” “We have, from the beginning, wanted to do something for our fellow veterans and current service members that would benefit every aspect of their life, from their emotional and mental state to their creative minds and incredibly selfless acts of service”, Parsons says, “when we went to war, some foreign hot (or frigid) hellhole thousands of miles from our warm beds, we didn’t quit. When we did some of the most difficult things, ever to be asked of a citizen of this Nation, we did it, not because of some politician, or policy maker, some President or Congressman, we did it because of US. We did it for our brother on our left and our sister on our right. We did it, and would do it all over again, because we had each other’s back.” “The foundation’s initial work involves exposing art therapy as a solution for PTSD, be it music, sculpture, painting or other creative forms”, Melissa Parsons, The Graffiti of War Foundation executive director said. “Through various forms of art, veterans who may have reservations talking about what they went through may find an easier way to process their emotions”, she said. Though still in the planning stages, the couple has discussed finding veteran volunteers in cities and towns to help organize creative groups for their peers. As groups are established, Melissa said the opportunity will exist for community involvement. Ideally, she said, that involvement could include businesses and organizations offering unused spaces for the groups to work in. Eventually, trained clinicians will be brought in to guide art therapy sessions. “Initially we want to get groups set up to learn the skills, be it music or art, but also to socialize because a lot of these guys come back and they’re so cut off from everyone,” Melissa said. “We want them to have people to turn to.” “We want to show people, this is how you can get involved, by being part of the dialogue. So that we’re not going to be the ’70s generation that forgot about the vets,” he said. “We’re not going to be our grandfather and great-grandfather’s generations, who just didn’t talk about what happens in a war. Let’s bring it out in the open, so everyone can talk about it. Then we can move on.”

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