thedrifter
08-19-08, 05:58 AM
College helps veterans navigate life after combat
By Cynthia Hubert - chubert@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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."
Ellie
By Cynthia Hubert - chubert@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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."
Ellie