War Stories

On September 15, 2016 the Peter Wall Institute presented War Stories from Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflict zones told by foreign correspondents, combat veterans and scholars. Moderated by Emmy Award winning journalist Peter Klein, War Stories featured:

  • 2:49 Photojournalist Farah Nosh – From the inside: Humanizing the war experience.
    Farah Nosh is an award-winning photographer who has worked in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza, and Egypt. Her work has appeared in leading international publications including The New York Times, TIME and Newsweek. In September 2002, Nosh was based in Iraq, one of the few freelance photographers working in Baghdad under the Hussein regime. She returned to Iraq repeatedly, covering the war’s civilian impact as well as being embedded with the American military forces.
  • 19:45 Writer/photographer Ann Jones – The “Usual Experience” of Civilians and Soldiers: Hysteria and the origins of PTSD.
    Ann Jones (PhD) is an independent scholar, journalist, photographer, and the author of ten books of nonfiction. She has written extensively about violence against women, reported from Afghanistan, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East on the impact of war upon civilians, and embedded with U.S. forces in Afghanistan to report on the damage done to America’s soldiers. 
  • 35:31 World-renowned geographer Derek Gregory – Precarious Journeys
    Derek Gregory’s research focuses on the ways in which modern war has—and has not—changed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. After 9/11 much of his work addressed military and paramilitary violence in the Middle East but more recently he has mapped the trajectory of Euro-American military power from 1914 through to the present. 
  • 59:50 Contact! Unload, directed by George Belliveau, is a performance by Canadian veterans depicting what it means to transition home after overseas service. 

    Contact! Unload Cast

    Corporal Timothy Garthside (Ret’d.)
    700 Communications Squadron, 2002-2008; Afghanistan: 2006

    Major Chuck MacKinnon CD
    The Royal Westminster Regiment, 1978-Present; Cyprus: 1992-1993; Afghanistan: 2009-2010

    Sergeant Stephen Clews
    The British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Cannought’s Own) 2003-Present; Afghanistan: 2007-2008, 2009-2010.

    Corporal Luke Bokenfohr RM (Ret’d)
    Royal Marine Commandos, 2001-2011; Northern Ireland: 2002; Iraq: 2003, 2005; Afghanistan: 2008-2009

    Corporal Tim Laidler CD (Ret’d)
    The British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Cannought’s Own) 2002-2015; Afghanistan: 2008

    Officer Cadet Phillip Lopresti
    The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, 2016-Present.

Following the presentations the performers engaged with the audience in a Q&A discussion.

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