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Cody Nichols: We were deployed to a camp called
Al-Tadamum which is between Falluja and Ramadi which was, at that time not the best place
to be. And I spent most of the first half of the year as a fifty cal gunner on one of
our gun trucks. But I remember when I first came back when I was driving home from my
unit I thought to myself, wow I have to buy groceries. How do I go about buying groceries?
How do I go about cooking food?
Natasha Crawford: I served in the Army for almost nine years. I deployed a couple times
to Kuwait and Iraq. I was there during the initial ground war in 2003. After almost nine
years in the Army I came back to school. The first semester was just getting back into
the flow of college life. There was nobody there to tell you to get up and go to class.
It's all on me. Coming back to college, I wasn't a typical freshman. I had bills, you
know, I have a family. Even before classes started I came up to the VETS office.
Nichols: There's a history of positive culture about the military here at the University
of Arizona. The VETS Center today is in the heart of campus. It's in the USS Arizona Student
Union Memorial Center a building that was named after the USS Arizona. Having others
you can identify with, others who have walked in those same shoes you have walked in is
tremendous. The key is to sit down and actually listen to what our student veterans who are
here now need and move form there.
Michael Marks: One of the innovations that came up here at the University of Arizona
was our supportive education for touring veterans curriculum. Acclimating back from a military
environment to a higher education environment there is a learn to teach to learn course
which focuses on identifying your own learning skills and how you best learn so you can then
adapt that to how information is conveyed to you in the classroom. And we have a leadership
course that looks at taking the leadership skills you learned in the military and transferring
them over to the civilian world
All three courses were designed to help student veterans be more resilient and increase the
likelihood of their success in college. I come from the Vietnam generation I saw the
Siddharthan river of guys that didn't go to school or didn't make it. I said I'll be darned
if I'm going to let this happen to the next generation of veterans. So that was my impetus
for beginning this program. We actually have colleges and universities from all over the
country wanting to emulate what we are doing here for our student veterans.
Ricardo Pereyda: I served in the United States Military Police Corps in the United States
Army. I was twenty when I went in. I turned twenty-two in Iraq. I am the president of
the Student Veterans of America chapter here at the University of Arizona. In 2010 we were
recognized as being the chapter of the year by our national organization. It was quite
an honor and it's no wonder why the University of Arizona is leading the nation in the advocacy
for our veterans, for the services and resources provided to our veterans, the commitment for
our veterans. We're out there constantly asking ourselves what needs to be addressed? I love
what the University of Arizona did with the Student Union Memorial Center. We have a lot
of art work and designs that are specific for the USS Arizona, specific for the United
States Military, specific for different branches, for men and women who have paid the ultimate
sacrifice for our nation. Who have laid their lives down for the freedoms we enjoy, for
the reason that I am able to go here and go to classes. We want to feel like we are making
a positive impact on our community because we've seen terrible things. It helps us when
we help others and helps our community.