"The way the recruiter described it, it was like every American boy's dream."

Jeff Englehart sat with his guitar under the flashing red and blue lights at Meadow Muffins, remembering why he initially decided to join the Army.

"Surviving in the woods. Crawling through grass in camouflage ... I got in the Army and found out it wasn't so fun. In actual combat, we were the ones who were most dispensable."

Englehart told of his experiences as a Cavalry Scout with the 1 st Infantry Division, how his experience serving in Iraq was "a political awakening," and how it led him to folk music, before launching into his own song, sung to the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home."

"The captain called them jihadists/but the soldiers only saw women and kids/ in the U.S. oil war."

Yet, despite his politicized statements, the monthly Veterans' Open Mic Night at Meadow Muffins is not a political group. Co-founder Jose Barrera said it's important to allow all voices to be heard, because that act of communicating allows collective healing to occur.

Barrera remembers they way he was treated when he returned from the Vietnam War and the pain of not being able to tell others what happened to him in war.

"I was at an airport and I was invisible," he said. "People didn't look at me. They deliberately turned their eyes away."

The experience was by no means isolated. When the country repudiated the war in Vietnam, it repudiated the soldiers as well, and many returned home labeled as psychopaths and baby killers.

Barrera, a graduate of Colorado College, began organizing events beginning on April 30, 1985 - the 10-year anniversary of the fall of Saigon - that brought veterans together to share their experiences, so that healing could occur.

Last spring, Barrera organized a series of "impact panels" at CC, which discussed the impact of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and the toll it was taking on veterans.

Rick Duncan, medically discharged from the Marine Corps in August 2006 after experiencing a traumatic brain injury during his third tour of Iraq, saw information about the impact panels on CC's Web site and decided to give Barrera a call.

Duncan had been experiencing a different kind of neglect than Barrera upon his return from the war in Iraq.

"When I was medically discharged, it was very traumatic. It was all I knew," Duncan said. "I spent a third of my life in the Marine Corps. It's like having my family say, 'you're not good enough for us anymore, but have a nice life, and here's a check every month.'"

After leaving the Marine Corps, Duncan lived in Oceanside, CA just south of Camp Pendleton. One day he walked into a coffee shop and discovered a group of Vietnam vets telling war stories. The more he heard about their problems: the nightmares, the flashbacks, the difficulty reintegrating with their families and society - the more he began to realize how much he had in common with other veterans.

He also discovered there was a tradition of G.I. coffee houses and newspapers stemming from Vietnam, and that the current wars needed a similar outlet for veterans. After moving to Colorado Springs, he did an Internet search and came up with Jose Barrera's name. They decided to get together and start the Veteran's Open Mic Night.

Veterans of all wars and conflicts are invited to come and share their experiences.

"The purpose is to let healing occur," Barrera said. "Because only when veterans are received with respect can healing occur."

They called their monthly meeting at Meadow Muffins an open mic because they wanted all kinds of people to show up, including the wives of veterans and civilians. Many of the veterans want civilians to hear their stories and are tired of only seeing a symbolic support of the troops.

"I'm sick of bumper sticker patriotism," Duncan said. "Either do something about it or stop wasting my time. Anybody can slap a bumper sticker on their car."

Garett Reppenhagen stood in front of the crowd of 15 people at Meadow Muffins last Thursday, a scarf around his neck and an Iraq Veterans Against the War t-shirt on, reading his poem, "Accidental Terrorist," which he wrote about himself:

"I'm a mercenary that kills for college tuition/A time-honored American tradition," he said.

Reppenhagen shared his own story of bumper sticker patriotism:

"I was in a bar and this song about the war just took my friend to a bad place. He fell down outside and these two guys came out of the bar and said, 'Hey, why don't you take care of your druggie friend?' I said, 'He's not a druggie, he's an Iraq war veteran and he has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Can you help me get him into the car?' They just got into their truck with a support the troops ribbon on the back window and drove away. We support the troops. Bye."

Reppenhagen described how during his year in Iraq, he came to know the people on a personal level, saw them working in their shops on a daily basis. He saw the IDs of the bodies, people he knew, and remembers the betrayal of being told these were foreign jihadists.

Reppenhagen knows the tragedy of war. His father died of cancer from exposure to Agent Orange 20 years after leaving Vietnam.

Jay Maloney, Chief Development Officer at Colorado College, lost his father to alcohol when he was only 5 years old. Maloney's father was a marine in World War II who experienced the horrific battles at Guadalcanal and Pele lieu, and he believes that he drank himself to death because he was unable to come to terms with what he saw.

"Every person in war comes back spiritually damaged," Maloney said. "You learn to function without that limb. You learn to function for the sake of all those 18-year-olds who were never able to get old, gray, or even to have a bad day. It's a matter of seeking context."

Maloney received the Purple Heart for his work as a medic in Vietnam from 1968 to 69. As a medic, he dealt with ghastly injuries on a daily basis. When he returned home, Maloney described himself as a spiritually dead person, with no emotion but anger left inside him.

"Then one day it hit me. I'd think about being you if you died. You died dirty, scared, never able to go home. For me to be angry means I brought this place home with me. That was the mental trick that worked for me. Have a hot shower on someone's behalf. Or go to bed when you're tired."

Maloney, like Barrera, remembers the bewilderment of returning home from the war and being ignored by civilians.

"I was angry, puzzled, and hurt," he said. "I was a child of World War II, of a generation where soldiers and marines were respected. It was an assumption like the sun comes up in the east."

As veterans from Vietnam and Iraq shared their stories on Thursday, you could almost feel the tension being released, the healing inherent in expressing something traumatic.

Mike Durner stood at the microphone talking for the first time since getting back from Iraq, every sentence was a struggle. Every sentence was punctuated by his choking back tears.

"The past four years, I've basically submerged myself in work, school, to forget ... I forgot names, but not faces ... It's the first time I've really talked about it."

While he spoke, theroom full of veterans and civilians were all on the verge of tears themselves. When he stepped away from the microphone, he was greeted by Duncan, who was there with a big hug.

"I do it for guys like Mike, who won't drink himself to death or choose suicide by cop," Duncan said later.

For more information, contact Jose Barrera at jjbarr46@yahoo.com or Rick Duncan at rick@coloradovets.org.