During The Real World Brooklyn, it was clear that Ryan Conklin was conflicted about revealing details about his experience as a soldier in Iraq. The first sense of it was when he didn't want to mention his veteran status too soon to his roommates, because he was concerned that they would prejudge him as being the stereotype of a veteran with "problems". In fact, he did tell them early on about being a veteran, and as time went on, he answered a lot of questions from the roommates and guests about some of his experiences as infantryman in Iraq. However, there was a sense that there was a lot of deeper stuff he wanted to tell but couldn't, not without feeling like the roommates had the right level of readiness and interest in learning about what it is truly like being a human working and living and existing for every minute of the day as a target to be killed in a combat zone.Despite saying he was open for discussing anything, he did hold back. It wasn't until the latter part of the RW experience that he started to, as he said, "open my shell in this house." He then opened it at least enough to use some indirect methods to communicate what he wanted to covey about the important part of his life that was his time in Iraq.
One thing he found he could use to tell his story was his photo scrapbooks. He showed them to Katelynn Cusanelli. He felt at the moment that she was the person most interested in learning about the Iraq War, due to her attention to foreign policy. He didn't feel like any of his roommates could really understand what it was like, but perhaps could understand at least the extent of what they could see within the frame of each photo.
Another opportunity that presented itself as a teaching tool was a book release party sponsored by the Iraq Veterans Against the War. The event was for a book that described some of the darkest aspects of the conflict. Ryan went to it just to hear what they had to say, but he also took Scott Herman along with him. After it was over Ryan told Scott that he appreciated him coming. Scott said he was glad to go because he had interest in those things. Ryan said he realized that and that was why he only asked Scott to go.
Notwithstanding the tapes of his roommates asking him about Iraq, Ryan said, "Nobody else in the house really asks me anything. So, you're the only one that actually ever has. I got no problem talking about it." In this case, Ryan still didn't talk about it, but rather made use of other veterans talking about it. In this way, he hoped to enlighten his friend Scott about the unpleasant details that he himself had not expressed.
In a interview after the RW had aired, Ryan stated that he felt that none of the roommates had shown interest in learning about his Army life. Of course, he meant had shown the level of interest sufficient for Ryan to feel he could open up enough to reveal whatever he wanted to say.
It's interesting that Ryan has written that the manuscript that became his book was intended originally for his eyes only. There's no reason to doubt that he felt that way on a conscious level, but it's possible that on another level he had finally found the way to tell the tougher details of his story -- without waiting for anyone to ask.
