Politics & Government

Dispatches: For Vets Returning From War, Shoreline CC Offers Opportunities and Support

School serves 300 veterans mostly from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts who face adjustment to college and a new career path

On Monday, President Obama, flanked by politicians from both parties, including  Washington Senator Patty Murray, signed the “VOW to Hire Heroes Act,” that provides tax credits to businesses that hire unemployed and disabled veterans.

While the incentive may not create many jobs, the gesture is still regarded as important with the national unemployment rate for veterans at 12 percent, according to Military.com.

Here in Shoreline, several hundred veterans at Shoreline Community College are focusing on life after the military. In most cases, higher education is likely to improve their odds of attracting better employment opportunities.

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 Still, some veterans often leave the service with a short debriefing and don’t know a lot of the programs and options available to them.

At Shoreline Community College, veterans get support on campus from the Office of Special Services that oversees programs geared at veterans and the disabled. And they help with negotiating the bureaucratic maze that often faces veterans.

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Post-Sept. 11 veteran Chad Springer, the veterans program coordinator, works in the office and serves as the school’s certifying official for veterans. Springer helps veterans access their benefits and process paperwork.

About 300 students at Shoreline use benefits from the G.I. Bill of 2008, said Office of Special Services Director Kim Thompson, which was passed by Congress for post-Sept. 11 veterans.

The majority of the students on the G.I. Bill at Shoreline plan to get an associate’s degree, then transfer to a four-year school like the University of Washington. Others enter specific programs that Shoreline offers in careers such as nursing or dental hygiene while a few go straight into the workforce after community college.

Under the G.I. Bill tuition and fees at an in-state school are covered along with books and supplies. A basic housing allowance for full-time students up to $1,400 a month is also included.

Veteran Samara Tissue, who is originally from Spokane, served in the Army as a specialist who trained personnel to deal with a chemical weapons attack.  She served in Germany but did not go to Iraq or Afghanistan. She’s taking advantage of the G.I. Bill and is applying to the dental hygenist program at Shoreline.

Bradley Brown of Bothell, 28, served as an Army medic from 2005-2011 and received many awards for his service in Afghanistan.

He is studying business at Shoreline and plans to transfer to the University of Washington and eventually get a Masters in Business Administration, all on the G.I. Bill if he can squeeze in enough classes.  Brown also serves as president of the campus vets group, Veterans Engaged for Tomorrow at Shoreline (V.E.T.S.).

The veterans programs at Shoreline are designed to help vets like Tissue and Brown adjust to their new life outside the military.

The main difference, Thompson said, is the people work in teams in the military and their days are more structured and you are told what to do.

By contrast, in college, the system allows a lot of freedom and doesn’t tell you step-by-step what you need to do, she added.

The needs of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan also differ than previous wars, Thompson said. More veterans are coming back disabled or suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or have brain injuries

“You have less chance of being killed but a greater chance of coming back disabled,” Thompson said.

The college is using a three-year $370,000 grant from the Department of Education to create a Center of Excellence for Veteran Students. A faculty counselor and academic advisor for veterans, Dani Blythe Dutro, was hired with the grant to help student veterans manage stress, time, and the transition from the military to school. The grant was one of 14 awarded by the federal government, Thompson said.

The Veterans Resource Center next door to the Special Services Office serves as a place for veterans to do homework, hold meetings, unwind and support each other.

Four years ago, the campus veterans education team or C-VET, that includes people from a broad range of campus departments was formed to ensure that unnecessary barriers aren’t set up for students who are veterans. A forum is held annually to find out how to serve veterans better.

“We asked veterans service organizations to tell us what we didn’t know about serving student veterans,” Thompson said. “It’s about communication, it was about educating ourselves, about what we didn’t know about veterans—what we didn’t even know to ask.”

Some student veterans still serve in the reserves and in the past if they were called up at moment’s notice, they often slipped through the cracks. Now policies have changed and veterans can choose options that are non-punitive and instead of failing a class, losing credits and money, they can take an incomplete and get their money back if being called up is the reason they have to drop a class.


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