A Veteran’s Long Journey to Fine Arts at Kean

By L.K. Mata Cuevas | Published by December 21, 2021

Miyoko Bell, a Kean University junior, could hardly bear the heartbreaking video footage of Afghan citizens wailing behind locked gates and chasing after planes as U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan.

A former military nurse with a specialty in anesthesia, Bell was stationed in Afghanistan after 9/11 and grew to love the people she cared for during that time.

“The thing is these people are like you and I,” she said. “They are pawns in their own country, pawns from their government, pawns from their leaders. They are shifted in what have you, you know they follow the rules and you know they do the best they can.”

Coco, as she’s known at the Office of Veterans Students Services, is one of the 258 veterans actively enrolled at Kean University as of Fall 2021semester, according to Director and VA Certifying Official, Vito Zajda.

Now back in school and majoring in Fine Arts/Metal Working, her new journey is giving her a challenge and an opportunity to find a new path through the arts, metalwork, paint, or photography.

Bell fears for the lives of anyone who helped any American in Afghanistan during the last two decades, either intentionally or unintentionally. She went to Afghanistan thinking she was going to be helping American soldiers only but the circumstances showed her otherwise. She helped U.S. soldiers, American contractors, soldiers from other nationalities, and Afghan nationals with whom she bonded deeply.

“The people I helped the most were fellow soldiers and Afghan nationals,” Bell explained. “I touched at least three of four people specifically, and I know I affected their lives tremendously.”

One of them was Bethany Gulalai, a 12-year-old Afghan girl, ‘who was caught in the midst of an IED attack in Nangarhar province. She faced life-threatening wounds to both of her hand legs and abdomen region,’ reads an article in a magazine that Bell showed.

“I was assigned to take care of her,” Bell said “and I gained the respect of her family, gained the trust of this young lady and she came around and started to make remarkable progress. The chaplain and his assistant sent me this magazine later on because they knew that I had made a huge difference in this young lady’s life.”

In the same way, the Afghan people touched Bell’s heart and mind, it also reshaped her beliefs and reasons for being there. When she learned of the American pullout, she recalled the words of an Afghan tailor’s assistant whom she met while deployed there as an Army nurse.

The man was happy the U.S. came to help his country, saying it meant that the Afghan children would finally be educated in the deeply corrupt country.

 “He told me, ̶ but the corruption will go away. Not with my children’s education, not with their children’s education. But maybe with their children’s children’s education. It’s through education that corruption will go away ̶ ” she recalled, visibly emotional. “At that, I was sold. I was like ‘okay, I can be here for that, I can have my fellow soldiers in arms, and be fighting for that.’ I couldn’t stomach the rest without that, without some hope.”

Now, twenty years after that conversation, the remaining American troops were withdrawing,  leaving Afghanistan in the hands of the Taliban once again.

“So, what caused me to have issues with living and how we left Afghanistan,” she emphasized “was that tailor’s assistant who had to stay there. The fact that he helped Americans and now he’s on that list of people who must be punished.”

Bell didn’t start out wanting to be in the military and didn’t expect to be back in school now as an adult.  She joined the military after graduating from the University of Alabama as a nurse with a degree in social work. In exchange for seven years of service, the Army paid for her graduate school, which she very much enjoyed and described as high functioning, problem-solving to the highest degree.

“I got a master’s in biology with an emphasis in anesthesia,” Bell said. “It was like the top of the range in nursing.”

She was done with the military when 9/11 happened, and she felt the moral and professional responsibility to serve her country in wartime.

“I have a very high conscience level.” She explained. “So, right after I finished anesthesia school, and had two children, I just couldn’t leave the military because I just kept thinking, ‘this just wasn’t right.”

For a while, she volunteered as a backfield within the United States going to places like Washington or Georgia when she realized that her out-of-borders deployment was imminent.

“I also knew that I needed to go to war.” she asserts, confidently. “I felt the need to go to Afghanistan, and to go  help in the front line.”

Serving in the military and on active duty involves much more than just holding a gun in the open field. It means that at some point they’ll be leaving their families behind and stop doing normal day-to-day activities on behalf of others that might or just don’t want to.

Bell was determined to go out there and help as much as she could but she feared that going there could change her and her behavior to affect her family life.

“I didn’t want to put that up on my kids and husband,” Bell said.

The demanding job took a toll. After six months on duty, Bell developed Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder, becoming one of 500,000 U.S. soldiers diagnosed with PTSD after serving in wars over the past 13 years, according to a study published on the National Center for Biotechnology and Information website.

“It breaks my heart, it causes me severe stress,” Bell said. “I can’t watch any news; I cannot carry on conversations with friends about stuff like that. I cannot, cannot, none of that.”

She’s been to horse therapy, which is also known as an  ‘equine therapy’ an experimental program where veterans improve their assertiveness, emotional awareness, empathy, stress tolerance, flexibility, impulse control, and more, according to military.com.

Improvements that Bell actively and continuously puts to practice by helping others like her at the campus through the veterans’ office programs.

“Koko comes to help, supports, and offers all the knowledge to what is out there for the military.” Said Zajda. “She is an advocate of knowing their rights, their benefits, even when it comes to Kean, how to apply with financial aid. She’s is a big advocate for mental health for veterans.”

Bell has also been watching some inspirational online TED Talks that she found were helpful to stop intrusive thoughts.

“There was a TED Talk that I watched,” she said. “The guy said to ask yourself, are these thoughts helpful in any way, and if they are how? Otherwise, the thoughts just have to stop.

Above all and with much determination and great support from her beautiful family, Bell keeps working on herself and her life mantra. And yet she has no regrets.

“For all the hardship and everything I’ve seen and can’t say, everything I’ve lost, everything I’ve gained,” she said. “ I would do it all over again. I love my country and I would serve it again.”

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