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COLLEGE HELPS VETERANS NAVIGATE LIFE AFTER
COMBAT -- "Readjustment is not like a light
switch
that comes on automatically when they get home."
Catherine Morris, a counselor at
Sierra College, talks with Navy vet and student Ben Simmons in her
office recently. (photo: Randall Benton / Sac Bee) |
Story here...
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1167318.html
Story below:
-------------------------
College helps veterans navigate life
after combat
Day after day, the soldiers march into Catherine Morris's office at Sierra
College in Rocklin.
They bring the familiar baggage of student life: Worries about whether
they are majoring in the right subjects. Concerns about juggling work and
classes. Questions about how they might improve their English grades.
They also bring Iraq.
Most of the young men and women who visit Morris have done time in combat.
Their scars run deep, but are not always visible.
Looking into their eyes from behind her neatly organized desk in the
school's campus center, Morris sees more than most. A former Marine who
keeps a photograph of her younger self in uniform on a shelf, she runs a
year-round program specifically designed for veterans going to school
under the GI Bill.
 About
350 veterans are studying on Sierra College's sprawling campus, Morris
said, and more than 200 of them served in combat zones in Iraq or
Afghanistan.
Statewide, about 22,000 veterans are going to school under the GI Bill,
including 300 at Sacramento City College and 575 at American River
College. Each of the schools offers a range of veterans services.
But few colleges in the country, Morris said, have a program like Sierra's
with a counselor dedicated full time to helping veterans navigate life
after combat. Sierra even has a social club for veterans, and courses in
English and physical education adapted for men and women who survived the
war zone.
When fall classes begin later this month, Morris will see new faces, but
many of the same problems. Besides helping veterans map out an academic
path and untangle the red tape of military benefits, Morris, who herself
went to school under the GI Bill, guides them through the emotional
fallout of coming home.
"Readjustment is not like a light switch that comes on automatically when
they get home," said Morris, who spent 15 years in the military and is
trained to counsel veterans who suffer traumatic brain injuries and
post-traumatic stress. "It's phenomenal for them to be home, but they
don't feel connected anymore."
Getting back on track
Terry "T.J." Boyd sought out Morris after he returned from the battlefield
in 2005.
The former Marine sergeant, who spent 18 months fighting in Iraq as part
of an elite counterterrorism unit, came home to a hero's welcome in his
small Midwestern town. But after the parties ended, he was a lost soul.
"I thought, 'OK, the ticker tape's over,' " said Boyd, who is 28 years
old, with broad shoulders and a disarming smile. "What do I do now?"
Boyd was haunted by images of mortar fire and shrapnel wounds, yet he
missed the adrenaline rush of battle and the camaraderie of his fellow
Marines. His college classes and bartending job in Illinois seemed
meaningless. He fell into a deep depression.
During a night of heavy drinking, a suicidal Boyd got a phone call from a
friend in Sacramento. Within a few weeks, he had packed his bags and
headed west. He met with Morris, who helped him choose a career path and
deal with his stress.
Now Boyd lives in Roseville, works as a personal trainer and is pursuing
an exercise science degree at Sierra.
"I still have my 'spells,' " he said, "but I'm doing OK. I have my life on
track."
Like Boyd, Cody Conway found life after Iraq to be strange and
disorienting. Morris and Sierra College are helping him find his way in
the civilian world.
Conway, 25, enlisted in the Marines before the terrorist attacks of 2001.
"I absolutely loved everything about it," he said.
In 2003, he was called to Iraq, and his unit faced immediate resistance in
the form of flying bullets and mortar fire. During a fierce sandstorm one
day, he and his men were using a crane to lift the engine from a damaged
assault vehicle. The sand beneath the crane shifted, and the engine
smashed into his right shoulder as he tried to steer it away from other
Marines.
Conway put off surgery and finished his tour, and his shoulder has never
been the same. He also has memory lapses and sleep problems, and gets
jumpy at the sound of backfiring cars or popping balloons.
He has found refuge at Sierra College, where he is working on a degree in
psychology and social work. One day, he said, he hopes to work as an
advocate for fellow war veterans.
"I have a couple of buddies in Iraq right now, and I don't want them
coming home to the same problems I had to face," said Conway, whose cell
phone rings to the tune of the Marine Corps anthem.
Vets struggle to fit in
At least 60 percent of Sierra's student veterans are in remedial classes,
Morris said, trying to catch up academically to younger classmates who
cannot relate to their war backgrounds. Veterans with mild traumatic brain
injury often have trouble concentrating on lectures or assignments. Many
deal with ongoing nightmares and insomnia. Some numb themselves with drugs
and alcohol.
About 17 percent of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have
suffered disabilities related to their duties, from amputations to severe
anxiety, according to federal figures. Morris believes that number is
misleading, saying many veterans with combat anxiety or PTSD refuse to
file disability benefits because they are afraid it will affect their
future employment.
"Some of these veterans are truly more afraid of going to college than
they were of going to Iraq," said Morris, who has served in the Army
National Guard and the California Air National Guard as well as the
Marines. "They are so overwhelmed, and they feel very isolated."
They have a hard time coping with classmates who complain about such
menial things as "the wrong kind of chocolate in their latte," she said.
"Given what they have been through, they have a very low tolerance for
that sort of thing." They get upset when they see war protesters, or hear
classmates question the morality of the conflict. Morris talks them
through their anger and confusion.
"The war is not over for them when they come home," she said. "It's
playing over and over in their minds. Society seems oblivious to that.
"One of the most important things we do is give them a place to get
together with people who understand their feelings."
Chris Sederquist, who served as an Army infantryman and sniper in Iraq,
learned after he returned home in 2004 that most of his squad had been
killed in action. Suddenly, his civilian life seemed frivolous. He became
angry, anxious and stressed, and remains so.
Sederquist is disgusted, he said, by civilians who "don't even vote" but
slam the war, and the soldiers fighting it.
"Most of them don't understand the idea of picking brains out of your
boots, things like that," said Sederquist, 27. "It's hard to talk to
people" who have never been in combat.
He has found fellowship among other veterans on campus, who seem to be the
only ones who can relate to him, he said. But four years after coming
home, he has joined the Army Reserve and is "all about going back" to the
war front to be with "like-minded people," he said.
It is not an uncommon scenario, said Morris.
"A lot of these veterans end up going back to the war zone because they
need that adrenaline rush, and that sense of purpose, and they miss the
connection with their military buddies," she said. "They need to feel that
they belong again."
-------------------------
posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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