By India McCarty
Actor and veterans’ advocate Gary Sinise recently partnered with CreatiVets, an art-therapy program designed to help returning servicemen and women process their wartime experiences.
“In the military, you’re trained to do serious work to protect our country, right?” Sinise told AP News. “If you’re in the infantry, you’re being trained to kill. You’re being trained to contain any emotion and be strong.”
While those skills are important during combat, it can be difficult to turn them off once members of the armed forces are back home.
“Quite often, our veterans don’t want any help,” Sinise explained. “But through art — and with theater as well — acting out what they are going through can be very, very beneficial.”
Related: Gary Sinise Gifts Solider and His Family Special Home This Veterans Day
Through his foundation, Sinise has donated $1 million to CreatiVets to help them purchase an abandoned church in Nashville that will be used as a center for veterans to take part in this art therapy.
“CreatiVets’ goal is to offer opportunities for relief and healing for the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country,” the organization’s website reads, listing songwriting, visual arts, music, and creative writing as ways they help veterans “cope with service-related trauma.”
The website continued, “Creative art forms like those offered by the CreatiVets’ programs have shown tremendous effectiveness in reducing PTS symptoms, reducing the severity of depression that often accompanies PTS, and improving the quality of life for veterans and their family members.”
“Over the last two decades, researchers and clinicians have found the relief and healing provided by expressive writing, music and art is possible because these forms of expression do not necessitate exposure to the facts of the trauma, and also allow the individual to avoid the stigma of receiving mental health treatment,” the site concluded.
Sinise’s partnership with CreatiVets is far from his only work with veterans. The FORREST GUMP actor recently spoke to Fox News about his mission to help returning servicemen and women.
“We’re always going to change with the needs as the needs shift,” the actor said. “I made a pretty flexible mission statement at the beginning that I wanted to be able to adapt as the needs changed, because I wanted to continue to help folks.”
Sinise acknowledged that “those needs have shifted somewhat, but yet, within the veteran community, there are always going to be ways that we can support,” adding, “I want to always be able to provide the support that’s necessary as times change.”
Sinise has changed the lives of thousands of veterans and their families through his tireless work on their behalf.
Read Next: Why Gary Sinise Commits His Life to Honoring Our Nation’s Heroes
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