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Veterans to Share Their Stories With LSC Community

By Robert Patton

On October 14, 2011

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This fall, 21 military veterans have joined the student body of Lyndon State College.

Their lives as students are as different from their former lives on active duty in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps as they are from the lives of the traditional college students who sit beside them in classrooms.

Many are married, some have children, and all are older. To facilitate better channels of communication, members of the LSC Veterans Club have organized a panel discussion in which veterans will explain how their experiences in the military shape and impact their experience as students

The event, Soldiers in the Classroom, will be held in ASAC 100 from 4:30 to 6:30 PM on October 25 and all members of the LSC community including family members are welcome. The objective is to foster mutual understanding between veterans, teachers, administrators, and fellow students.

In addition to the veterans panel, there will be presentations from various groups who collectively comprise an invaluable support system for returning combat veterans. Thom Anderson, a mountain recreation management professor and a Marine veteran himself will chair the panel and introduce the speakers.

For much of the day from 10:00 AM to 6:30 PM a veterans information van will be parked just outside of ASAC 100 offering a wide variety of literature and information about veteran benefits available to all who have served in the military at some point in their lives.

For more than ten years the U.S. government has been stationing troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and 61 other countries around the world. Many of those serving in the military have experienced the deaths of close friends. Some have killed other human beings and many have sustained severe physical injuries. Few have returned unscathed.

For those who support our military policies, these veterans are heroes, while, for others who view these policies as aggression, veterans are among the victims. In either case, they need and deserve support.