RALEIGH—Words from veterans across North Carolina were transformed into the acclaimed theatrical production “Deployed” and now are the focus of a new video released by the North Carolina Arts Council. This video celebrates the service of veterans of all ages as Veterans Day is observed on Wednesday, Nov. 11.

North Carolina has one of the largest military populations in the United State and is home to Pope Air Force Base, Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg, one of the largest military complexes in the world.

The video showcases the collaboration between Joseph Bathanti, past N.C. Poet Laureate and Appalachian State University professor, and the Touring Theatre of North Carolina that led to the creation of “Deployed.” The production is based on writings that veterans shared about the front lines, prison camps, training grounds and even stories about returning home and everyday life.

“As North Carolina Poet Laureate my signature project was to harvest the stories of returning combat veterans and their families,” Bathanti said. “Brenda Schleunes, the artistic director of the Touring Theater, and I sent out a call to veterans, VA hospitals and others to gather the stories of returning combat veterans and their families and received diaries, memoirs, poems, stories and other artifacts from six wars.”

The Touring Theatre, a nonprofit professional theatre that produces works that focus on dignity across lines of ethnicity, gender, economic status, religion and age, gave voice to veterans and their families through skilled actors who shared the deeply moving and haunting stories that stretch over a century and a half of military conflict. Although the writings are from different wars, they are juxtaposed, one war against another, showing that a veteran of Iraq shares a certain kind of kinship with a veteran from World War I and how that World War I veteran touches the experiences of a veteran from Vietnam.

The four-minute video, produced by Minnow Media of Carrboro, features an interview with Col. Pam Harvey, executive director of Arts United for Davidson County, who wrote about her own deployment and that of her daughter, Mary Catherine.

You can watch the video, produced for the N.C. Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmSdu3lAMqg.

Bathanti is a professor of creative writing at Appalachian where he is also director of the Writing in the Field program and writer-in-residence in the university’s Watauga Residential College. He has taught writing workshops in prisons for more than three decades and is former chair of the N.C. Writers’ Network Prison project.

About the North Carolina Arts Council

The North Carolina Arts Council works to make North Carolina The Creative State where a robust arts industry produces a creative economy, vibrant communities, children prepared for the 21st century and lives filled with discovery and learning. The arts council accomplishes this in partnership with artists and arts organizations, other organizations that use the arts to make their communities stronger and North Carolinians – young and old – who enjoy and participate in the arts. For more information, visit http://www.ncarts.org.

About Appalachian State University

As a premier public institution, Appalachian State University prepares students to lead purposeful lives. App State is one of 17 campuses in the University of North Carolina System, with a national reputation for innovative teaching and opening access to a high-quality, affordable education for all. The university enrolls more than 21,000 students, has a low student-to-faculty ratio and offers more than 150 undergraduate and 80 graduate majors at its Boone and Hickory campuses and through App State Online. Learn more at https://www.appstate.edu.

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