Arriving at the 91探花鈥檚 Seattle campus, Brandon Green had a familiar feeling of disorientation.

Green, 33, who transferred to the 91探花from Everett Community College after spending seven years as a U.S. Army medic, had travelled the U.S. and the globe, including two tours in Afghanistan. He鈥檇 undergone rigorous training and knew what it was like to deploy to foreign, often dangerous places.

Even with all that experience, college life was different.

鈥淎ll of a sudden you go from every day being very structured, everyone knows their place, as it were, and everyone supports one another to this world of pure chaos,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really easy to feel lost, especially stepping into a large academic institution, where not only is that sense of structure and camaraderie gone, but now you鈥檙e outside of your element. It鈥檚 like deploying to another country, but not having your training.鈥�

Green isn鈥檛 alone. The transition from military life to an academic setting is a challenge for many veterans. And yet, the promise of an education is one of the reasons many people join the military.

Since 1944, the GI Bill both paved and paid the way for veterans and their families to pursue a college degree, graduate school and other training. Federal mandates established under the Obama administration require college campuses to provide more. Called the , participating institutions must look after 鈥渢he whole person.鈥�

At 91探花Seattle, that鈥檚 part of the mission of Student Veteran Life, which provides about 3,066 veterans and their families with a community of peers and resources to help navigate the complex world of veteran benefits. With Naval Station Everett and Joint Base Lewis-McChord nearby, hundreds more veterans and their families attend 91探花Bothell and 91探花Tacoma. The tight-knit bonds that were established during military careers are touchstones for creating safe, supportive communities, designed to help people succeed in academia.

鈥淲e assume that people are being challenged intellectually in the classroom,鈥� said Samantha Powers, the director of at 91探花Seattle. 鈥淲e basically seek to fill in the rest.鈥�

Student Veteran Life at 91探花has evolved over the years. The office first was established to assist veterans and their families with receiving federal benefits. Since then, spaces were created for veterans on each campus, indoor and outdoor activities planned, and special resources added to help veterans find mental health counselling and land a job.

鈥淲e strive to equip all of our students with the tools and skills to succeed at 91探花and to thrive in their lives beyond. Key to this is embracing each student鈥檚 unique story and recognizing how their past informs their present,鈥� said Denzil Suite, UW鈥檚 vice president for student life. 鈥淭hrough their experiences and perspectives, our student veteran community brings an irreplaceable richness to our classrooms and our campus.鈥�

Veterans on campus

Each year, veterans at all three 91探花campuses organize events 鈥� some somber, others joyful 鈥斕齮o honor the dedication and sacrifice of the men and women of the armed forces. 听Ceremonies already are underway across all three 91探花campuses for , culminating on Thursday, when the country recognizes the Veterans Day holiday.

鈥淲e really want to try to provide opportunities for people to connect with other student veterans,鈥� Powers said. 鈥淲hile it’s great that they come to us and feel comfortable coming to us, it really is more important that they make that connection with each other, so that they are together through their entire time at the university.鈥�

Student veterans come to campus with specific needs, desires and perspectives. They can arrive fresh from active duty where they were experiencing life-and-death situations, Powers said. That鈥檚 different from most 18-to-22-year-olds.

鈥淏oth are hard transitions,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut you know, looking at dead body parts on a PowerPoint might affect a high school graduate differently than somebody who’s just gotten back from Iraq or Afghanistan.鈥�

Rosa Liu, director of veteran services at 91探花Bothell, said having a place for veterans on campus saves lives. Suicide rates are high among the veteran population: According , about 14% of all suicides in the U.S. in 2019 were veterans, and an average of 17 veterans took their own lives each day.

鈥淭he experiences that our veterans gained from their military career are profound,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey’ve seen more life than you and I, things that we may not even want to see.鈥�

Ben Studley, 42, who went to 91探花Bothell for undergraduate and graduate work after 16 years in the U.S. Navy, now works in constituent and veteran relations for U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene.

He honed his leadership abilities as a chief gunner鈥檚 mate and discovered that he could apply the same skills on campus.

鈥淚 found my path,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd I said I want to get involved with the veterans on campus. What do they need, what do I need to succeed here?鈥�

The camaraderie doesn鈥檛 end with military service, Studley said.

鈥淚t keeps you going, and it keeps you realizing that you still do have family outside of the military,鈥� he said.

Camaraderie among bowling, Dungeons & Dragons

Student Veteran Life sponsors bowling, art classes, ski trips, board games and more to provide opportunities for veterans to connect and thrive. Inside the Student Veteran Life office at the HUB, there鈥檚 always free coffee, chill music and a sense of belonging.

鈥淭he biggest thing is just being able to talk with students through their experiences,鈥� Green said. While studying for a degree in biology, Green has worked in the Student Veteran Life office, offering peer support and helping to establish an indoor activities program. 鈥淓ven if we don’t provide solutions, just providing a sounding board for them to vent and feel like they’re not abnormal, or this isn’t a weird thing that they’re going through, that it’s okay to feel like that.鈥�

Ryan Trepanier, 26, enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps right out of high school. He chose 91探花Tacoma to pursue computer science because he wanted a smaller, more intimate academic community.

Now in his senior year, Trepanier works in the , is president of the and was a senator in Associated Students of 91探花Tacoma.

“One thing that I missed about the military was the brotherhood and camaraderie,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 wanted to still get a sense of that on campus, so I knew that it would be easy to accomplish that by meeting people who had similar backgrounds.鈥�

Liv Fowler, 24, a sophomore studying linguistics and Hebrew, started at the 91探花in early 2020 at the outset of the COVID pandemic. 听A former U.S. Navy nuclear mechanic, Fowler left the service after her husband, U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Anthony Nimtz, died while serving in Hawaii.

鈥淚t’s really invaluable to be around people who kind of can empathize,鈥� she said.

Once at the UW, Fowler decided to join an online Dungeon & Dragons community sponsored by Student Veteran Life. Although she hadn鈥檛 played before, she felt comfortable trying something new among a group of peers with whom she shared a common experience. She now works for Student Veteran Life as a peer mentor.

Giving back and recognizing Veterans Day

Giving back and offering service to others is key to many veterans鈥� identities.

That鈥檚 why it鈥檚 important, veterans say, to recognize those men and women who put their lives on the line to protect freedom.

鈥淲hat we can do for veterans is respect their humanity and understand that they come from so many different walks of life,鈥� Fowler said. 鈥淰eterans Day is important because it’s a singular celebration of that.鈥�

Veterans Day is a way to bridge gaps between civilians and people who have made a pledge to fight for their country, Green said.

鈥淎t the end of the day I just really hope that people can get together and learn to share experiences and be there for one another, regardless of their background,鈥� Green said. 鈥淚 think that’d be a great way to really honor Veterans Day, to be able to try to understand people.鈥�

For more information, contact Powers at sapowers@uw.edu.

The 91探花 is among the , according to , an online career resource. The 91探花ranked No. 5 on the list.

The website looked at public universities across the country to find schools that best supported veterans.

鈥淲e continue to enhance and promote services for student veterans and military families and build programs that are beneficial for veterans, military families and our community,鈥� said Jordan Houghton, assistant director of the at UW.

Usage of the 91探花Office of Student Veteran Life has increased significantly in recent years, Houghton said. For this academic year alone, the office predicts a more than 27% uptick in student visits.

Out of 517 colleges, Zippia analyzed the rate of completion, the percentage of students earning at least $28,000 a year after attendance, and the percentage of student tuition spent on instruction versus other administrative costs. At the UW, 76% of graduates earn more than $28,000 annually and 82% of veterans graduated, according to Zippia.

Zippia only looked at public schools with four-year degree programs. It excluded private schools because while veterans fare well at private schools, Zippia said, only a fraction of veteran students attend them. Instead, Zippia said it wanted to provide an expansive look at the best colleges for veterans.

As people walk down toward it, the dark structure bearing 58,272 names prompts memories, prayers and quiet tears. Visitors take photos, leave flowers and gifts 鈥� a surprise to the planners 鈥� and even make rubbings of names to take home.

The in Washington, D.C., designed by then-architect student and installed in 1982, is many things to many people.

To of the Information School, the son of a World War II veteran and creator of the Documents that Changed the World podcast series, the memorial, the discussions it sparked and the hearts it helps heal 鈥� “the totality of the wall” he says 鈥� together comprise an important document.

The “simple, stark, elegant and ultimately beautiful” memorial, he says, “showed us more about ourselves and how we remember than anyone would have imagined.”

In the podcasts, Janes explores the origin and often evolving meaning of historical documents both famous and less known. 91探花Today presents these occasionally, and all of the podcasts are available online at the Information School .

He said he got the idea for this installment while watching a PBS documentary about the National Mall, which mentioned the famous memorial.

“Intrigued, I began to dig into it,” he says, and wound up wondering, “How in the world did they ever get this thing built? So many difficulties, so much opposition, the fundraising and Maya Lin’s design, not to mention her [Chinese] heritage 鈥� and the contentiousness of the war itself.”

Lin’s design was chosen from among 1,421 anonymous entries in a unanimous vote by an “expert” jury that, Janes notes, included not a single veteran. Her submission, number 1026, described the proposed memorial as “a rift in the earth.” Later, Janes notes, the memorial was also called “a black gash of shame.” Lin did the work for a class project for which, though it seems incredible in hindsight, she got a B. The 58-272 names are carved in granite from India 鈥� offers of stone from Canada and Sweden were not accepted as those nations had shielded American draft evaders during the conflict.

Janes was touched by the stories of what people did when the memorial opened: “Seeing themselves, as intended, in the highly polished surface, reaching out to touch names, making rubbings of them (less expected) and of course leaving objects behind (not at all expected).”

The first of those offerings, Janes says, was said to have been added by a naval officer who threw his brother’s Purple Heart medal into the trench where concrete was being poured for the memorial’s foundation. Many thousands of gifts have been left, Janes says in the podcast, and most end up at the Museum and Archaeological Regional Storage Facility in Maryland.

“Many come without explanation or names attached, so we are left to wonder. They all mean something to somebody, though without context or purpose, they’re adrift in our collective consciousness.”

But above all, there are the names, “each one documenting a life gone or missing,” Janes says.

“Perhaps, just perhaps,” he adds, “the Wall achieved its purposes, of reconciliation about a war that divided this country so deeply.”

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• The Documents that Changed the World podcast series is also available on , and is approaching a quarter of a million downloads so far.
• For more about this or any of the Documents that Changed the World podcasts, contact Janes at jwj@uw.edu.

Previous installments of the 鈥淒ocuments that Changed the World鈥� series

The researchers screened 35 veterans with blast injuries. They found that 42 percent had irregular hormone levels indicative of hypopituitarism, a condition that can often be controlled by replacing the deficient hormones.

鈥淭his could be a largely missed opportunity for successful treatment,鈥� said Charles W. Wilkinson, study leader and a 91探花research associate professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

He said up to 20 percent of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq have experienced at least one blast concussion. He said many of these veterans have a problem so under-recognized that even military physicians may fail to look for it.

Results from the study, 鈥淧revalence of chronic hypopituitarism after blast concussion鈥� by Wilkinson, Elizabeth A. Colasurdo, Kathleen F. Pagulayan, Jane B. Shofer, and Elaine R. Peskind, were presented at the Experimental Biology 2013 Meeting April 22 in Boston. The results were published in Frontiers in Neurotrauma last year, but the presentation included new data as well and the results be published again.

Wilkinson said studies in the past few years have suggested that 25 to 50 percent of people who suffer traumatic brain injuries later have low pituitary hormone levels — a decrease in the concentrations of at least one of eight hormones produced by the pituitary, a gland beneath the base of the brain.

Wilkinson said these studies focused on head injuries that civilians are more likely to receive, such as an automobile accident. He and his team decided to investigate whether veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq who suffer blast injuries show a similar frequency of hypopituitarism.

They collected blood samples from 35 veterans diagnosed with a blast concussion about a year prior — enough time for hormone changes to become evident. They then did a screen to compare blood concentrations of the eight hormones produced by the pituitary with the documented normal levels of these hormones.

The researchers found that about 42 percent of these veterans showed abnormally low levels of at least one of these hormones. The most common low hormone was human growth hormone, which can cause behavioral and cognitive symptoms similar to PTSD and depression. Low levels can also cause increases in blood lipids and changes in metabolism and blood pressure that can raise the risk of heart attack and stroke. The second most common problem was hypogonadism, changes in sexual hormones that can affect body composition and sexual function.

The researchers saw that some veterans had abnormal levels of vasopressin and oxytocin. Low levels of these hormones make it harder for people to bond with others and are linked to other mental health issues. Problems with these hormone levels, in addition to growth hormone, could contribute to difficulties with personal relationships, Wilkinson said.

He said the prevalence of hypopituitarism in the general population is estimated at 0.03 percent, a value far lower than that found in veterans with blast concussions. Therefore, more research is needed into victims of blast concussions.

鈥淲e鈥檙e screening hormone levels, not diagnosing definite disorders in this study,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hese individuals would still need a clinical evaluation.鈥� But, he said, if even 10 percent of these veterans have hypopituitarism, it鈥檚 a problem that physicians should be aware of.

The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs supported the study.

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