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An NC Farmer's Journey To PTSD Recovery

An image of veteran farmer Alex Sutton
Courtesy Alix Blair
U.S. Army veteran Alex Sutton cradles a rock dove show pigeon, one of many heritage poultry breeds being raised on his 43 acre farm in Moore County, North Carolina in the spring of 2012.

Note: this segment is a rebroadcast from November 10, 2016.

A new documentary explores the personal journey of North Carolina veteran and Purple Heart recipient, Alex Sutton. Sutton carves out a life as a farmer after three military combat tours in Iraq. But his path to healing is marked by stark contrasts between bucolic farm life with his wife and children, and the challenge of grappling with both post-traumatic stress disorder and his own post-war identity.
Host Frank Stasio speaks with one of the film's directors, Alix Blair, and Dr. Irving Kuo, the associate chief of staff  for mental health services with the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.

Farmer/Veteran airs tonight May 29 at 10 p.m. on PBS's Independent Lens program.

 

Laura Pellicer is a digital reporter with WUNC’s small but intrepid digital news team.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.