ReEntry Post-Show Discussions

A post-show talkback will follow each performance of ReEntry. Here’s a schedule of the speakers, along with available biographical information.

Tuesday, October 18

Pre-show remarks by General Charles Krulak
Post-show discussion with members of the cast and director/co-writer KJ Sanchez

Wednesday, October 19

With Capt. Paul Hammer and director/co-writer KJ Sanchez

Thursday, October 20

With Victoria Bruner and Fred Foote
Moderated by Round House’s Blake Robison

Victoria Bruner, RN, LCSW, BCETS specializes in treating combat related traumatic stress. On 9/11 she was one of the first responder’s onsite at the Pentagon. Now she is Senior Clinician with the Department of Defense Deployment Health Clinical Center, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where she treats complex combat trauma and has led research efforts on women in the military and innovations in trauma treatment.  Her positions have included Trauma Therapist, Director of Clinical Education, Interim Clinical Director and Deputy Director of Triservice Intensive Outpatient Programs Standardization. She was responsible for bringing ReEntry to the largest Armed Forces Public Health Conference in the Military in March, 2011.

Friday, October 21

With Tony Palm
Moderated by Round House’s Jessica Burgess

Tony Palm is a thought leader in the staffing industry and a recognized expert on crafting effective job search strategy for transitioning warfighters. At Delex Systems, Inc., he specializes in supporting the global aerospace and defense markets through his branding and marketing efforts on the company’s behalf.  By leveraging his military/civilian careers, and a keen grasp of today’s social networking strategies, Tony now offers warfighters Straight TAP, a 2.0 website where they can share their experience, strength, and hope with a focus on conducting an effective job search.  He is a frequent volunteer at Wounded Warrior transition events in support of the VET Foundation’s COMPASS Program as a mentor and contributor to the course curriculum. An in-demand speaker, he provides insight at Transition Assistance workshops and job fairs at military installations across the Mid-Atlantic region.  In what little free-time is left, Tony engages in his three passions: sea kayaking, camping, and bicycling. In what little free-time is left, Tony engages in his three passions: sea kayaking, camping, and bicycling. This year he completed his quest to paddle across the Chesapeake Bay, camp in the remote Adirondack Mountains, and is now in training for a 100 mile bicycle ride/camping trip on the C&O Canal in October. Tony is the proud father of four adult children, the youngest of whom presented him with his first grandchild in July! He makes his home (when he is home) in Northern Virginia.

Saturday matinee, October 22

With Kara VonDresner
Moderated by Round House’s Jessica Burgess

Saturday evening, October 22

With Kara VonDresner and Dr. Micah J. Sickel
Moderated by Round House’s Jessica Burgess

Dr. Micah J. Sickel started as a contract psychiatrist working at National Naval Medical Center in June 2009.  In September 2010, he became a civil service psychiatrist, splitting his time between adult and child psychiatry, in which he was fellowship trained, and between National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He is currently working at the integrated Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda  in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Service. In January 2011, Dr. Sickel and his colleague, Sara Barrett, a health educator, created the performing arts series, Stages of Healing.  This monthly series hosts the various performing arts in order that the whole hospital community, patients, families, and clinical and administrative staff, can partake in a shared experience and in so doing promote dialogue and foster the healing process. They hope that attending these performances can break down the barriers that exist in all parts of society, thus allowing us all to speak openly, a core piece of the healing process. Their first performance was April 25, 2011 with a reading of the play, Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter performed by students at the University of Maryland School of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies. In June 2011, they hosted a reading of ReEntry by America Records. They have hosted performances by Chelsey Green and the Green Project (fusion violin and ensemble), Christylez Bacon (progressive hip hop), and Patch Adams (who gave an interactive talk, The Joy of Caring). They finish out the year with readings by Linda Pastan (former poet laureate of the state of Maryland) and a performance by Ted Garber (singer-songwriter).  They are excited to be collaborating with New York City’s Musicians on Call to bring volunteer musicians to the hospital on a regular basis.

Sunday matinee, October 23

With Jehanne Dubrow and Mary S. Hull
Moderated by Round House’s Jessica Burgess

Jehanne Dubrow is the author of three poetry collections, including most recently Stateside (Northwestern UP, 2010), which describes her experiences as a military spouse through the before, during, and after of a deployment. In 2012, Northwestern University Press will publish her fourth book, Red Army Red. Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and book reviews have appeared in The New Republic, Poetry, Ploughshares, The Hudson Review, The New England Review, Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, and on Poetry Daily and NPR’s “Fresh Air.” She is the Interim Director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House and an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at Washington College.

Mary S. Hull is a native of New Jersey, which she still considers home. She attended undergraduate school at Northeastern University in Boston, MA and graduate school at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO.  Mary spent close to 22 years on active duty in the Army with many assignments, both stateside and overseas.  Her official military retirement date was New Year’s Eve of 2010.  Mary is a big supporter and advocate for the arts as part of the healing process.  She is especially interested in the Healing Arts for Wounded Warriors and Military Families. Mary considers it an honor and privilege to be a special guest at ReEntry at Round House. A special thanks to KJ, Jenn, and Blake.

Tuesday, October 25

With Kristina Kaufmann
Moderated by Round House’s Blake Robison

Kristina Kaufmann is a 10 year Army wife and military family advocate. She is currently serving as the Executive Director of the Code of Support Foundation, a DC based non-profit founded by MG (ret) Alan Salisbury. COSF is dedicated to bridging the gap between civilian and military America, by providing a high visibility platform for a select group of vetted non-profit organizations that effectively support service members, veterans and families. In 2009, Kristy published her op-ed, Army Families Under Fire, in the Washington Post. The article addressed challenges facing military families, identified gaps in the Defense Departments current approach, and provided suggestions to improve family support and readiness. Since that time, she has briefed and collaborated with civilian and military leadership, including Michelle Obama, Dr. Biden, Secretary of Defense Gates, Secretary of the Army Geren, GEN Chiarelli (VCSA) and members of Congress. Kristy also partners with non-profits, veteran and military service organizations, universities, corporations and the media – to raise awareness and incentivize policy changes to more effectively support service members, veterans and their families. In 2010, Kristy spoke to Congress about the impact 10 years of war have had on the mental health of military families, including suicides among Army spouses. She’s addressed an audience of over 5000 people at the American Legion’s National Convention, and has spoken at numerous conferences and events across the nation.  In the spring of 2011, she moderated a panel discussion at West Point’s Battle Command Conference, and developed the first family support curriculum to be included in West Point’s Capstone course for cadets. Kristy is recognized as a subject matter expert on the challenges and needs of military families, and has been interviewed for numerous publications, radio and television stations. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and grew up in New Rochelle, NY with a wonderful family of six. She currently resides in Alexandria, VA.

Wednesday, October 26

With Nancy Sherman
Moderated by Round House’s Blake Robison

Nancy Sherman, a University Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown and currently a Woodrow Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar, is a specialist in military ethics and the ethics of ancient and modern philosophy. Selected as the inaugural Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy in the mid-nineties, she became a civilian in a military world and began to understand her veteran father’s secret world. She started teaching and writing about the moral challenges of going to war and returning home. She is the author of The Untold War. In it she argues that the wounds of war are not simply physical or even psychological injuries, but also moral injuries. The book draws on her training as both a philosopher and psychoanalyst as it recounts the stories of some 40 soldiers whom she interviewed. The Untold War has been a TIME Magazine “pick” and New York Times “Editors’ Choice.” Sherman is also the author of Stoic Warriors as well as The Fabric of Character and Making a Necessity of Virtue. She has written over 50 scholarly articles on ethics and moral psychology. She previously taught at Yale University and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. She is the recipient of many awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Philosophical Society, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, the Mellon Foundation, and the Newcombe Fellowship Foundation of the Woodrow Wilson. In October of 2005, Sherman was invited by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs to visit Guantanamo Bay Detention Center to observe and advise on medical and psychological conditions of detainees and matters of medical ethics. Sherman’s work on military ethics has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The LA Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Boston Globe, The San Diego Tribune, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Baltimore Sun, The Hartford Courant, Huffington Post, The Daily Best, and many other metropolitan and regional newspapers and on-line venues. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, WB11, FOX news and has been a frequent guest on Bob Abernathy’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. She has been interviewed on over 50 radio stations nationwide and abroad, including NPR’s  “Diane Rehm Show,” “This American Life,” the “Kojo Nnamdi Show,” the BBC, Irish Radio, and Australia’s ABC.  She lectures widely at universities, institutes, and war colleges here and abroad. She lives in the D.C. area with her husband, Marshall Presser. They have two grown children.

Thursday matinee, October 27

With Dr. Stephen Xenakis, Brigadier General (Ret), USA
Hosted by Round House’s Jessica Burgess

Dr. Stephen Xenakis has an active clinical and consulting practice, and is the founder of the Center for Translational Medicine. He has an active practice and conducts research on the clinical applications of quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) to brain injury and other neurobehavioral conditions.     He worked most recently as the Special Adviser to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for Warrior and Family Support. Retiring at the rank of brigadier general, he served 28 years in the United States Army as a medical corps officer in a variety of assignments as a clinical psychiatrist, staff officer, and senior commander including Commanding General of the Southeast Army Regional Medical Command. Dr. Xenakis has been written widely on medical ethics, military medicine, and telemedicine and published in national magazines and journals, including book chapters and legal reviews. He is the Founder of the Center for Translational Medicine, a nonprofit that conducts clinical research on tests and treatments of neuropsychiatric conditions and blast concussion affecting military veterans.

Thursday evening, October 27

With Dr. Frank J. Tortorello, Jr.
Hosted by Round House’s Jessica Burgess

Dr. Frank J. Tortorello, Jr. is a contracted socio-cultural anthropologist who develops and researches foundational issues that impact the Marine Corps’s global deployment and war fighting capabilities. Dr. Tortorello focuses on Marine Corps culture and how the Corps replicates its values through training and everyday work. His research examines how Marine Corps culture both enhances and detracts from its ability to deploy globally across the spectrum of missions from conventional warfare to humanitarian relief. He has a special interest in resilience training, defined as managing value conflicts and ethics in warfare, and in the assessment of the impact of cultural training on Marine Corps operations.

Friday, October 28

With Jonathan Morgenstein
Hosted by Round House’s Jessica Burgess

Jonathan Morgenstein has served 20 years in the Marine Corps Reserves. Attending Officer Candidate School while a sergeant, Jonathan is a Captain and currently up for promotion to Major. Jonathan served a brief tour in Bosnia where he helped repatriate the first Muslim returnees to Srebrenica ‑ the site of Europe’s worst massacre since the Holocaust.  He later served two tours in Iraq: one in charge of rebuilding 1/3 of the city of Ramadi and his second embedded with, and training, the Iraqi Army. As a civilian he has been a human rights observer in Chiapas, Mexico, taught high school in New Hampshire and San Francisco, served as a conflict resolution trainer for the US Institute of Peace, and most recently served two years as a civilian at the Pentagon working on Strategic Communication and Human Rights issues.

Saturday matinee & evening, October 29

With Dr. Frank J. Tortorello, Jr.
Hosted by Round House’s Jessica Burgess

Dr. Frank J. Tortorello, Jr. is a contracted socio-cultural anthropologist who develops and researches foundational issues that impact the Marine Corps’s global deployment and war fighting capabilities. Dr. Tortorello focuses on Marine Corps culture and how the Corps replicates its values through training and everyday work. His research examines how Marine Corps culture both enhances and detracts from its ability to deploy globally across the spectrum of missions from conventional warfare to humanitarian relief. He has a special interest in resilience training, defined as managing value conflicts and ethics in warfare, and in the assessment of the impact of cultural training on Marine Corps operations.

Sunday matinee, October 30

With Dr. Kent Corso
Hosted by Round House’s Jessica Burgess