On Tuesday January 20th, my group, Fighters 4 Fighters were given the opportunity to interview the award winning Author Patricia McCormick via Skype. Mrs. McCormick is an author of many books such as, Cut, Never Fall Down, I am Malala, Sold My Brother’s Keeper and many others. A book she wrote called Purple Heart got our attention and motivated us to get in touch with her considering her book is about a soldier (Private Matt Duffy) who had traumatic brain injury (TBI).  In the book Private Matt Duffy had to overcome his injuries in order to go back to finish his tour of duty. In the book, he wakes up in a hospital in Iraq and he is given a Purple Heart for his wounds in combat. He is having a tough time because he can’t remember what happen when he was injured. Later he gets accused of killing a boy and that troubles him. Then he writes down what he remembers and looks for the truth. Because of the book we wanted to talk to the author.

While interviewing Mrs. McCormick she had been givng us a lot of information about our social justice project. She talked about her book and what inspired her to write about the specific topic. We also talked about how poorly veterans are treated in society. We  then told her about the struggles of young men when they get back home from the war and they don’t have a job and their struggling with life back at home. She also explained about how people don’t know how to talk to veterans because many of them had PTSD and they didn’t trigger it in a negative way. For example, if a veteran with PTSD heard a loud noise they could think they were being attacked and get a flashback to war. Overall Patricia McCormick was a great help because she gave us contacts that we can in touch with in the future and she inspired us to make big changes in the world and never stop working hard.