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College-bound veterans say campus needs often unmet
By David Mercer
Associated Press
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CHAMPAIGN -- Nothing Derek Blumke saw during three Air Force tours in Afghanistan prepared him for college life. That was obvious to him during one of his first calls to the University of Michigan, when employees told him they couldn’t answer his questions because he wasn’t yet a student. Later, he found himself wandering the Ann Arbor campus trying to figure out how to use his military benefits to pay tuition.

“I was frustrated and angry and disappointed,” said Blumke, 26, a former gunship maintenance supervisor who’s now a senior studying political science and psychology at Michigan. “That frustration and anger turned into motivation. You don’t want me here? OK, fine. I WILL come here.”

As veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq return to campus, many are finding that colleges and universities are only beginning to figure out how to help soldiers, sailors and others transition back to civilian, social and academic life.

Many need help with paperwork. Others seek emotional and psychological support. And others struggle to fit into the social fabric of a campus where their classmates often are much younger.

“Obviously, nobody goes to combat and comes back the same person,” said Bob Wallace, director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a Marine veteran of Vietnam. “With multiple problems that we’re seeing, there is a stress on people.”

There are no firm statistics on the number of veterans attending colleges and universities, because some attend without benefit of the GI bill. According to the Veterans Administration, about 250,000 veterans are using the benefit.

But with more people returning from conflict than at any time since the Vietnam War — along with a new, more generous GI bill — the number of college-bound vets is expected to swell.

And universities are beginning to respond to their needs.

The University of Colorado at Boulder has an Office of Veterans Affairs to recruit vets and serve as their point of contact. The university tells vets it can help answer questions on anything from tuition to housing — and refer them for counseling help or to off-campus vets groups.

“United States colleges and universities are going to be looking at students coming in with mental problems,” said R L Widmann, an English professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and immediate past chairman of the school’s faculty council. “We have to serve this population and serve this population well.”

At Michigan, Blumke — president of a national group, the Student Veterans of America — said the university recently began offering a single point person on campus to answer questions, such as how to take advantage of education benefits provided by the military and transfer credits from courses taken before their service. It also can tell them where to get psychological help.

He also recommends that, like Michigan, schools set up veterans councils — groups of student vets who can help schools identify problems that should be addressed.

Absent such services, many returning veterans have begun banding together to help each other.

Megan Upperman dropped most of her classes during one of her first semesters at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville after she found it difficult to make the transition back to civilian life.

Upperman, who served in Iraq in 2004 in Army National Guard supply convoys, said she was uncharacteristically edgy for six or eight months after her return, still in what she called the state of “hyper overdrive” she’d lived in while riding up and down the roads of a country at war.

“At the drop of a dime, I’d just get upset over something that was ridiculous,” said Upperman, 23, a senior earning a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology.

At the urging of a boyfriend, she enrolled in counseling through the Veterans Affairs Department.

She also helped start an on-campus veterans group, Cougar Vets, to help other veterans find answers to simple questions — how to use military benefits like the GI Bill, for example — and to link them with other people who’ve had similar experiences.

At Eastern Illinois University, Army veteran Eric Hiltner and other veterans resurrected a defunct informal fraternity for Army vets called the Black Knights, building their own social and support network.

Hiltner, a 24-year-old journalism student who served in Iraq, found it more comfortable to socialize with other veterans than many of the other students on campus.

“They’re sitting there (saying), “I haven’t seen my dog in two weeks,”‘ Hiltner said with a weary laugh. “I’m going, ‘I’ve gone two and a half years without seeing my family.”‘

Andy King, the director of counseling services at the Edwardsville campus of Southern Illinois, said such groups are a good way for veterans to help themselves.

King helped Upperman and others start Cougar Vets about a year ago after hearing a warning at a conference from a Vietnam veteran about the influx of combat vets campuses could expect.

Not all want to be part of a vets group, King says, but many take comfort in knowing their experience isn’t unique.

“It should provide some normalization and validation for what it’s like to be sometimes a 23-year-old college freshman who’s seen some pretty horrible stuff, but yet you’re sitting in a freshman English course with a bunch of 18-year-olds who haven’t seen anything,” King said.

At Michigan, Blumke says he’s begun working with the university’s Depression Center on outreach programs for vets on and off campuses.

Dr. John Greden, director of the center, said he hopes to set up pilot sites at other campuses to test ideas ranging from mobile units that travel and offer counseling for vets to training veterans to conduct their own peer counseling.

The ideas, though, work best when campuses make them their own, he said — something vets like Blumke are often good at prodding schools to do.

“I think as a society we’ve got to really bend over backwards to make their local community responsible for helping (veterans),” Greden said. “And for those who are students, the university is part of their local community.”

Take a look
Megan Upperman studies Thursday at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. Upperman, who served in Iraq in 2004 in Army National Guard supply convoys, dropped most of her classes during one of her first semesters at college after she found it difficult to make the transition back to civilian life but is now close to graduation. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
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Reader comments on this story - 7 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

cats55ire wrote on Jul 21, 2008 1:36 PM:

" to Tom Terrific--thanks for clarifying that! Good point!
And I put Dicky D and Kerry on my "idiot list"--I wouldn't give my seat to either one of these losers!

to Jarhead - if you were standing in front of me, I'd shake your hand! THANKS for serving the US! I know there are more vets out there (or rather here in McLean Co.) same THANKS to you men/women!!!!! YOU ALL ROCK! "

Tom Terrific wrote on Jul 21, 2008 12:37 PM:

" Cats55ire, dont forget to add that while these brave soldiers are fighting, they have their own leaders mocking them and demoralizing them with insults. Dick Durbin calls our soldiers Nazis and John Kerry talks about how if you study hard you can make something of yourself but if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. What's up with that? I find it surprising that the ones who attack our soldiers verbally are the same ones who have no clue as to what they have been though. "

Jarhead71 wrote on Jul 21, 2008 11:36 AM:

" Face it folks, academia wants all of the freedoms of the USA, but none of the responsibilities. When I returned from Vietnam to ISU, it was a very unfriendly place to all of us. Times have changed, academia's prig attitude toward veterans that have secured the freedoms of academics has not. Notice that the article is all about what veterans are doing for themselves. Except for the most notable, University of Colorado-Boulder, which is actively seeking to make a campus friendly environment for vets. I left ISU behind and finished my degrees at a small private university, where I was accepted socially and welcomed with my GI Bill money. "

cats55ire wrote on Jul 21, 2008 4:33 AM:

" First of all, why isn't this article in large print at the top of the screen? Vets have sacrificed their lives for this country and for freedom--I think their deserve a bit more attention than a "lower case" recognition at the bottom of the news screen! Why don't you take Obama's face off the top and replace it with this article?
Second, why isn't the US helping these people (again) who have sacrificed so much!!!!! When I think of the do-nothings who are healthy strong individuals sitting around waiting for this PA check and then think of our VETS, I get sick!
Vets from Vietnam were forgotten--let's not make that same mistake again!!!! "

Meh wrote on Jul 20, 2008 9:45 PM:

" Freedom fanatic, paranoid much? This is an issue that is new to most colleges. They haven't had to deal with large volumes of students with PTSD and other results of war. They're fixing the problem, slowly but surely. This is probably the first time that colleges have seen large amounts of Iraq vets, considering that Bush likes to keep them over there until they burn out - sometimes longer via Stop Loss and extended tours

Still, it would be nice if the U.S. Government and the Military would step up and give our troops the help they need even after they're discharged... but oh yeah, that would be Socialism and once back home, its sink or swim, even for the troops. That's the Conservative view, isn't it? "

Freedom fanatic wrote on Jul 20, 2008 5:57 PM:

" It isn't surprising with the abundance of liberalism found on nearly ever college campus that our soldiers have these difficulties. "

McSame wrote on Jul 20, 2008 3:26 PM:

" Who need college? I graduated at the bottom of my class and I'm about to be President! "
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