For almost 90 years, Americans have spent Veterans Day honoring those who have served in two world wars, the controversial Korean and Vietnam wars, the Gulf War and other conflicts.
But in recent years, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan creating thousands more veterans – many of whom are college-aged – Veterans Day on the campus is increasingly honoring those sitting in lecture halls and eating in the dining halls.
“I’m 23 years old and a student, but I also serve in the United States Army,” senior criminology and criminal justice and government and politics major Edward Hernandez said.
In spring 2007, university President Dan Mote created a task force to look into how the university was addressing the needs of veterans on the campus. The task force – headed by Mote’s new Chief of Staff Sally Koblinsky – found that veterans on the campus were being overlooked and needed more attention than they had been receiving, according to the Veterans Programs Office.
Since then, there has been a greater push to increase programs designed for dealing with veteran student issues. This semester, the university increased resources for veteran students by creating the Veterans Programs Office and Terp Vets, a student organization formally known as the Veterans Student Association.
“These organizations were formed with a real purpose,” business graduate student and Navy veteran Steven Olivera said. “It’s not just a bunch of people who like wearing purple hats and said, ‘Let’s start a purple hat club.’ They’re filling real holes in the veteran student experience.”
Terp Vets holds mixers and social events to create a more comfortable social network for veterans, while the Veterans Program Office deals with transitioning students from military service to campus life and provides guidance for dealing with the administrative aspects of being a student, officials said.
Veteran students said that, though at a basic level they are still students at the university and have similar needs, they often are very different from their classmates.
“You can’t imagine how big of a change it is for someone who has served in Iraq for a year and a half, and saw his friends get shot,” Olivera said. “Especially when your peers are people who have just graduated from high school and have never had a real job before. There is a certain disconnect with how people can relate to them or how they can relate to their classmates.”
Some students said this disconnect can lead to misunderstandings and situations that discourage veteran students from voicing their opinions or reaching out to professors and other students. For example, students said politically insensitive anti-war statements being expressed in classrooms have made them uneasy.
Yet many students said the campus has overall been very supportive and receptive to veterans’ needs.
“I’ve been surprised that the way the assumptions people have about liberal campuses and the divide between the military and campus hasn’t been true,” junior English major and Air Force veteran Kenton Stalder said. “There are different worlds that are disconnected and can’t connect, but at the same time it’s not impossible for me to be of two worlds, and feel very much connected to both. There has been nothing but goodwill.”
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