William Comes Home

“William” is a life-size puppet soldier carved from foam rubber by artist/performer Kevin Augustine (kneeling below), who runs the Lone Wolf Theatre troupe, which performs avant-garde puppet theatre.  Augustine describes William as a piece of performance art and a symbol of the American soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  An alarming number of those veterans ultimately commit suicide, which has quickly become an epidemic among those soldiers.

Members of the troupe and The Fort Greene/Clinton Hill Peace + Justice Group (above), who collaborated on the street theatre piece, convene at South Oxford Space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn to prepare before taking their show on the road, in hopes of raising neighborhood awareness of this disturbing phenomenon.

Augustine must use his entire body to operate the puppet, and peace group member Will Keefer (above, left) helps him and William across Fulton Street in Fort Greene, as he might try to keep pace with the unsteady gait of a lost and frightened soldier.

As they continue down Fulton Street past a busy sidewalk cafe at the height of the weekend brunch rush, seated diners turn and gawk and one man dashes outside to snap a picture (above).

Reaching the corner of Fulton Street and Fort Greene Place, Augustine guides William into a collapse, falling with him on the sidewalk (above), his face fraught with emotion, channeling a damaged soldier in despair.

Once Augustine has laid William to rest, the rest of the group gather around them (above), writing facts about veteran PTSD on the sidewalk in chalk.

This fact (above) was the one that seemed to grab the most attention.

Augustine outlines William’s body with chalk (above), echoing a crime scene, as an artistic statement of the “crime” of the lack of support from the federal government for veterans dealing with PTSD.

Rolling Stone ran a story in 2009 about three soldiers stationed at Fort Carson near Colorado Springs who went on a murder spree there.  The army base has become notorious for the high incidence of violent crimes committed by soldiers stationed there, many of which were kept on duty when they should have been discharged after being diagnosed with PTSD.

Augustine hands an enthusiastic bystander (above) a piece of chalk to add her own message.

Ed Goldman (above, right), a leader in the Fort Greene peace group, follows Augustine and Keefer through the streets, beating a bongo drum in a military-style cadence.  A police officer shows up to warn Goldman that they could be arrested for “graffiti-ing” the sidewalk.  It’s time to move on.

Continuing down Fort Greene Place, Augustine and William resume their performance at the next corner.  One man who comes along is so moved by the scene that he involves himself in the performance, reaching out (above) to Augustine to help him up.

Keefer (above) tucks the folded American flag that had been clutched in William’s hand into his sweater as he takes in the scene.  Then, he thinks better of it and places it under William’s head (below).

A hush falls over the sidewalk as passersby (above) take William in and reflect on the cold, hard facts surrounding his demise.