Ron’s Story:
Ron Capps is a retired soldier and Foreign Service officer. Most of his 25-year government service was spent overseas and often in conflict zones including ten years spent in Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur. Working amid genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and full-scale war, Ron developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He was medically evacuated from his second tour in Darfur following a failed suicide attempt.
When he retired from government service in 2008, Ron began writing as a way of controlling his PTSD. He wrote and saw published a series of award-winning personal essays, and a memoir, Seriously Not All Right: Five Wars in Ten Years. In 2011 he founded the Veterans Writing Project, a Non-Profit that provides no-cost creative writing and songwriting workshops for veterans and their adult family members.
In 2018, Ron turned to songwriting. His first record, an EP titled Trying to Catch Amnesia, was released in June 2020. The five songs on the EP examine the lives of returning veterans and their families. Ron’s narrative approach is to recognize and acknowledge the inescapability of war, even once the soldier is home, and to tell the stories honestly and with an authenticity that only a survivor can detail.
Lyrics
When he’s there he thinks of home
He wonders if she cries when she’s alone
He worries about the kids at school
Are their lives stuck in mid-air?
But when he’s home he thinks of there
There is life or death each day
There is 6000 miles from home
It’s where his mind stays
Memories always on replay,
Home is where he feels alone
And when the walls close in
He’ll pray to Saint Tequila
Or she’ll find him somewhere
Standing in the rain
For no reason,
Just trying to catch amnesia
Things look more or less the same
That piece of trash beside the tree
Well that might be an IED
And the medevac bird is on the way
For those casualties over in aisle three
She’s seen that look a hundred times
the thousand yard stare
He’s looking for some peace of mind
His body’s home, but his mind’s still there.
Some memories must be put away
Like wedding dresses mothballed in a trunk
Not viewed each day
Like portraits on the wall
Of some melancholy hall
And when the walls close in
He’ll pray to Saint Tequila
Or she’ll find him somewhere
Standing in the rain
For no reason,
Just trying to catch amnesia
Social Medias
Facebook – Ron Capps
Twitter – @ron_capps
Instagram – @roncappsmusic
Bandcamp – Trying to Catch Amnesia by Ron Capps
Website – https://roncappsmusic.com/
Soundcloud – Ron Capps