Unmasking the agony: Combat troops turn to art therapy

WASHINGTON (NBC) -

The skull's left corner is gone, leaving a jagged, diagonal edge drenched in red. The eyes are black and frantic. All of it resembles the Iraqi man who, in his final minute alive, stared up at Maj. Jeff Hall.

For five years, that face tortured Hall, once a sharp Army leader later shoved to his own ragged edge. Not long ago, a woman handed Hall a blank mask, brushes and paints. She asked him to see what may emerge on the surface.

"That image, seared into my mind, began leaking out of me," said Hall, one of hundreds of active-duty troops who have created masks as part of an art therapy program at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. "I almost needed to regurgitate it.To be honest, it helped me let it go."

Many more masks, some resembling Hall'sviolent creation, some depicting abstract demons, adorn walls at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICOE) on the Walter Reed campus.

They reveal scars once carried and cloaked inside the minds of men and women back from war troops diagnosed with mild brain injuries and secondary psychological issues, including post-combat stress.

Hall, 43, who titled his mask "The Shock of Death," served a pair of year-long tours in Iraq spanning 2003 to 2005. Ultimately haunted by violent events he saw and survived in Iraq, including the loss of friends, Hall eventually contemplated suicide and became more isolated. His commander noticed Hall's behavioral changes and guided him into counseling in 2008. Two years later, Hall was invited to seek treatment for a traumatic brain injury at then-newNICOE, a Department of Defense facility offering research, education and treatment focused on TBIs and psychological health.

When service members initially enter the art-therapy studio, their faces often are blank and unyielding, hiding unwelcome war souvenirs within the mental cargo they've lugged home but can't shake. On their masks, they expose that secret turmoil: vulnerabilities, anger, grief or, often, fragmented identities.

"It's intense. They get really invested in this. It becomes very meaningful for them," said Melissa Walker, an art therapist who coordinates the masks program at NICOE.

Participants at NICOE must be active-duty troops who are dealing with a combination of TBI and psychological health concerns. Typically, they are referred by their primary health care provider or their commander. A designated team at NICOE determines which service members are most appropriate to receive treatment there. Attendees participate for four weeks. Art therapy is just one of the tools offered and the service members usually make one mask done during their first week at the center.

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Unmasking the agony: Combat troops turn to art therapy