‘We’re going to take care of you.’ Marine Corps museum offers veterans respite.

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The National Museum of the Marine Corps now has a “respite room” designed for guests grappling with wounds of war, or simply in need of a quiet place to reflect on comrades, loved ones, and battles fought long ago. 

Some find it surprising that it’s an initiative of the Marine Corps, which takes great satisfaction from its cultivated image as the roughest and toughest of America’s fighters. 

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A respite room at the National Museum of the Marine Corps represents growing recognition of the need for subtler ways to allow tough veterans to grapple with wounds of war.

But creating a respite room, with the implicit acknowledgment of its need, can help act as a “shock absorber” for those who are suffering, says retired Maj. Gen. James Lukeman, president of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.

Just having it on-site can also open a conversation about post-traumatic stress, he notes.

The respite room has relaxing spa music designed to soothe and provide some noise-canceling privacy. Martha Corvea, clinical research director with the Liberty Organization for Veterans and Emergency Responders, helped train museum staff and volunteers.

“You’re in the right business to take a moment in their lives – to take a piece of themselves and an experience that they’ve been through – and to make it a healing one,” she says. 

At the National Museum of the Marine Corps, staffers are getting training in how to spot folks who might be feeling post-traumatic stress while visiting the very realistic installations. There is a brief recap of the best – and worst – ways to reach out.

“Who wants to run up and hug them?” asks Michael Murray, a retired Marine running the workshop on this late-summer day. A few hands go up. “Yeah, don’t,” he says. “Slow your roll.” 

Likewise, approaching museum guests from the front is confrontational, from behind a potential ambush. From the side, in their sightline, “with empathy,” he says, is the way to go.

Why We Wrote This

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A respite room at the National Museum of the Marine Corps represents growing recognition of the need for subtler ways to allow tough veterans to grapple with wounds of war.

And if they don’t want help, that’s OK, too. The key is “giving ground and then turning away, gently, slowly, warmly,” adds Mr. Murray, founder of the Liberty Organization for Veterans and Emergency Responders. “There’s a possibility that they will come back to you.”

The occasion for the training is the opening of what the museum has dubbed its “respite room,” designed for guests grappling with wounds of war, or simply in need of a quiet place to reflect on comrades, loved ones, and battles fought long ago. 

Some find it surprising that it’s an initiative of the Marine Corps, which takes great satisfaction from its cultivated image as the roughest and toughest of America’s fighters.

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