User:EvanRo/Ron Capps

Ron Capps is a writer, US Army and Foreign Services veteran, and founder of the Veterans Writing Project.

Service career
Capps enrolled in ROTC and joined the Coast Guard simultaneously while attending Old Dominion University in 1983. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1985. Later that year, he joined the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Germany. After three years, Capps moved to military intelligence work in Korea, serving as a US liaison to the Korean Defense Intelligence Agency.

Capps returned to the United States as an Army case officer, and earned a Master of Arts in Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University. In 1994, Capps transferred to the Army Reserve and joined the State Department as a Foreign Service Officer.

From 1996 to 2002, he served in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Kosovo, and Rwanda as a Foreign Service Officer. Additionally during those six years, Capps was deployed as an intelligence officer in Uganda and Zaire by the army. After the September 11 attacks, Capps was entered Afghanistan as a soldier. Later, he was deployed to Darfur and Chad as a soldier, and Iraq and Darfur as a Foreign Service Officer.

Throughout his career of service, Capps was often working in close proximity to murder, rape, and genocide during his services. He suffered from regular and intense nightmares, and was prescribed Prozac by an army doctor. In 2006, he nearly committed suicide. He was medically evacuated from service by the Regional Medical Officer of the State Department.

After deployment
Once returned to the United States, Capps worked for the State Department as an expert on the Darfur and Chad. He retired from government work and began pursuing a Master of Arts in Writing from Johns Hopkins University in 2008.

Three years later, he founded the Veterans Writing Project. The non-profit organization hosts free writing workshops and seminars for veterans and service members, as well as their adult family members.

Capps often writes freelance articles about PTSD. His work has been published in Time Magazine, NPR, and the New York Times, among others. He published his first book, "Seriously Not All Right: Five Wars in Ten Years" in 2014. It outlines his experiences with PTSD and his service during wars in Central Africa, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur.