From the Battlefield to the Classroom, War Vets Go to College

TEMPE, Ariz., Oct. 30, 2008 — -- John Villarreal stands out in stark contrast to his fellow students at Arizona State University, and not just because he's a decade older than most of them.

Villarreal, a 30-year-old Army veteran, has been to war and back. "I just look and think about where I was when I was their age," he said. "I was in Panama training to kill."

The battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan may be far removed from U.S. colleges, but Villarreal suggests that the brutality of war and its psychological reminders are bound to define the life of student-veterans and how they interact with idealistic college students -- for better or for worse.

"I don't care what people say, you definitely don't come back the same as you went," the junior said. "You see everything differently."

Villarreal is among 850 students at Arizona State University who are receiving some form of veterans benefits, according to university officials, which means that veterans who're footing the bills themselves are unaccounted for. Nationally, the exact number of veterans attending U.S. colleges is just as hard to come by. But the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 250,000 veterans are in school on the GI Bill, which helps them pay to study.

And more generous benefits are expected to attract additional veterans as they return from service in numbers not seen since the Vietnam War.

Villarreal, of East Chicago, Ind., decided nearly 12 years ago to enroll in the Army right after high school to train for war and combat.

"I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do after high school. I wasn't ready to go to school [college]," Villarreal said. "Financially and mentally, I just wasn't ready."

Instead, he enlisted in the Army after high school, in 1996, before eventually joining the National Guard and heading overseas. The experience never leaves his mind, he said, especially the time in Iraq.

He carried a gun every day for a year straight, Villarreal said, and he left the base never knowing for sure whether he would come back alive.

Returning to the states in 2005, he went through a difficult transition because he was juggling school and work, Villarreal said. He started at Mesa Community College, where he earned an associate's degree, before coming to Arizona State University, where veterans benefits cover his education.

'Best Decision I Have Ever Made'

He said the hardest part initially was being around a lot of people at once, as well as sitting in large classrooms. But he said he was determined to overcome those remnants of military conflict.

"I think it was the best decision I have ever made," said Villarreal, a journalism major who's a part-time hotel worker.

But the transition is not as smooth for all veterans who come back as college students, including Marine Michael Murray, who also served in Iraq but returned to Arizona from his final combat tour in May struggling to find his place.

Murray, 22, was a student at Scottsdale Community College when he died after being involved in a motorcycle accident last month. Although he died that night in the states, his mother, Silvana Smith, believes that he left a piece of himself in Iraq.

"He was straddled between two worlds, in his mind and in his heart," Smith said of her son, who was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. "He hadn't completely let go of that identity or that part of his life experience."

In the classroom, he struggled socially and academically, believing that he was inadequate, his mother sad. She encouraged him to seek tutoring, but he didn't.

"He had difficulty realizing it was normal to have deficiencies," she said of her son. "One of the things these kids have trouble with is that they don't realize that these various areas that they want to function in, that they don't have the self-esteem in or that they don't feel like they can compete in, is perfectly normal that they feel that way."

Too Many Reminders

Murray, who also served in Afghanistan, had trouble sitting in traffic, his mother said, because he was accustomed to being in large military vehicles and not stopping on the road. She also said he never felt safe living on the first floor of his apartment, a holdover from his days overseas.

"The way that these kids are trained to survive in combat will kill them when they come back," she said. "Because they're self-sufficient, they don't want help and they want to be able to do things for themselves. They really are handicapped to some degree."

But the effects are different for every individual, Smith said.

Leslie Telfer, a psychologist at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Phoenix, agreed, explaining that the severity of symptoms differs by individual and war experience.

"Somebody who is on a large base that is doing clerical support is going to have a lower level of exposure than someone who is on the bomb squad," Telfer said.

Trauma Is Trauma

But trauma is still trauma for the soldiers that go to war, she said, and her hospital puts patients through programs ranging from coping-skills training to exposure-based therapy, which she said is the toughest for returning soldiers.

"[The soldiers] actually come face to face with their traumatic memories and the situation they want to avoid," she said. "[The treatment] is more uncomfortable for people, but it's more likely to produce dramatic symptom improvement."

Murray received treatment before he died, but his mother said she believes he would've benefited more from group treatment.

As for Villarreal, who says he doesn't suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, life has been different from what he knew at age 18. But he said he is more focused after coming back from war and is committed to earning his bachelor's degree.

"I'm a little bit behind the power curve," he said. "[But] I have more experience in the world than other students. Everything happens for a reason."