It was a story every journalist dreams of, one that comes around once in several years, a piece that guarantees readership and, if done well, has editor’s whispering about awards.
The story was to be a profile of the family of Aaron Van Belle, a young man in his early 20s who returned from a tour of duty in Iraq sometime in 2005. Upon setting foot on American soil, the weight of anxiety his mother toted for over a year was lifted off her shoulders. She was relieved. She had plans for her son, a bright-eyed man with a thin neck and thinner arms and the rest of his life in front of him.
But Aaron never really left the war, and the war never left him. He got distant, had problems keeping a job and his relationship with his girlfriend ended. He was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but the Veterans Administration never treated him.
“I felt like I was fighting for his life,” his mother said.
On Nov. 27, 2008, he stumbled back to his apartment after a night drinking with friends.
“Maybe it was a goodbye party,” his mother told me at the Biggby Café on Stadium Drive, her eyes reddened from crying, her hand holding a worn, soaked Kleenex dyed with her eye makeup.
The next day, no one knew what happened to him. Friends tried to call. No answer. Mom tried to call. Nothing. It wasn’t like Aaron to not answer his cell phone, so his brother drove to his apartment. Aaron’s truck was in the parking lot.
Not good.
His brother walked around back and peered thought the doorwall. There was Aaron, spread out in the living room, dead, a single gunshot to his head.
I wanted this piece like I’ve wanted no other. I’ve written hundreds of stories, maybe even a thousand. This was the piece I got into this career for. This is the story that seldom gets told, the one that makes you feel something, the one that makes your heart race when you write it – the colors, sounds and emotions swirling in your mind as you punch-out the piece on the keyboard.
But journalists can be a selfish lot. I know it, because I’ve been that way, too. Journalists want to be recognized, they want to be praised, have their egos stroked by editors and the reading public.
I got selfish with his piece, because as much as I wanted to tell this family’s story and shed light on a growing problem of our bravest coming home with PTSD, I also – maybe even more so – wanted to see that piece on the page. Ten inches out front. Grab the reader by the throat, then send them inside. Two full pages. Great art. Powerful writing. Reader can feel themselves there. With mom, at the kitchen table, in the car, driving by Aaron’s apartment, where she hasn’t set foot since the tragedy. Describing Aaron, his personality, his traits, the way he is remembered.
To feel this story flow though my fingers onto the computer screen and be proud of what I read. That’s what I wanted. And that was wrong.
I called Aaron’s mom this afternoon.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I talked with Aaron’s dad. He’s just completely opposed to this. I’m sorry, really, I am.”
I’m sorry, too, Donna.
