Former servicemen reveal struggles of returning home
Two Army veterans visited USC Thursday as a part of the university’s first Student Veterans Week to tell their stories of difficult assimilation back into civilian and student life after years of service as an infantryman and a medic.
The veterans, 1st Sgt. Peter Laura and Sgt. Jeremy Hale, led the dialogue, which was titled “A Walk in the Dark: A Veteran’s Untold Story” and hosted by Student Success Center and the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs (OMSA).
Hale described the main differences between veterans and regular civilians.
“Veterans in general often share the same values gained in their military service, and that makes us different from everyone else,” Hale said. “You also know what failure and success looks like when you’re in the military; they’re always greatly explained, and you’re not really allowed to fail. When you go back into civilian life, the safety net to prevent failure is no longer there.”
Hale and Laura both discussed the need for veterans to keep busy once they re-enter civilian life, leaving their highly regimented day-to-day life in the military behind.
“You go from working from 5:30 in the morning to 7 at night and start feeling like a dirtbag when you wake up at 9 a.m.,” Laura said. “Of course, I’ve gotten more used to sleeping in.
Now I don’t mind sleeping until 9 or 10 ... or 12,” he said with a chuckle.
One of the most frustrating aspects of the “plunge back into civilian life,” according to Hale, is that there is no manual.
“You have to find something to do with yourself,” Hale said. “I myself got back into school just to keep my mind going.”
However, the one idea that Hale and Laura consistently stressed was that student veterans often want nothing more than to avoid being seen as separate from their civilian classmates.
“When I went back to school, I didn’t want to stand out,” Laura said. “I wanted to blend in; I didn’t want people to question me.”
Hale echoed Laura’s sentiments.
“Sometimes, I don’t even tell people I’m a veteran because I don’t want to deal with their questions,” he said.
According to Student Success Center Coordinator of Transfer and Special Student Population Services Paul Millard, the population of student veterans on campus has increased from 500 to more than 1,000 in the past three years.
“We really need to raise awareness not only on campus but in South Carolina and across the country,” Millard said.
The Student Success Center is in the process of establishing Student Veterans of America as a student organization that will “help advocate for and raise awareness about student veterans at USC,” Millard said.