On Tuesday January 20, we were luckily enough to meet with the award winning Author Patricia McCormick. She is an author of many books such as, Sold, Cut, Never Fall Down, I am Malala, My Brother’s Keeper and many others, but the one that caught our eye was Purple Heart which is about a soldier (Private Matt Duffy) who had TBI (traumatic brain injury) and 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.
Patricia McCormick gave us a lot of information about our social justice project. She talked about her book and about how tough it is for veterans. She told 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. This is for many different reasons, such as that people don’t know what to say because they are nervous and the veteran just fought for this country. Also, some veterans get scared and anxious on many different occasions. For example, when they see a pile of garbage on the street they think it is an IED because that is where IED were hidden . When they hear a loud noise they think they are being shot at. In addition, when they are in crowds sometimes veterans get anxious because when they were fighting they were told to spread out from crowds because then fewer people will die in an explosion. She was a great help because she didn’t just gave us information she gave us ideas for what we are doing next by telling us who we should contact with and how.