Need to book an appointment with a librarian? Click here!
This project centers on the experiences and history of veterans. Past students researched the transition of veterans from their military service to college, examined the history of the treatment of wounded and dead soldiers, and military monuments; raised funds for the NWACC Veterans Scholarship (awarded to veterans each year).
This link opens in a new window This link opens in a new window
The War Comes Home by
The War Comes Home is the first book to systematically document the U.S. government's neglect of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Aaron Glantz, who reported extensively from Iraq during the first three years of this war and has been reporting on the plight of veterans ever since, levels a devastating indictment against the Bush administration for its bald neglect of soldiers and its disingenuous reneging on their benefits. Glantz interviewed more than one hundred recent war veterans, and here he intersperses their haunting first-person accounts with investigations into specific concerns, such as the scandal at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. This timely book does more than provide us with a personal connection to those whose service has cost them so dearly. It compels us to confront how America treats its veterans and to consider what kind of nation deifies its soldiers and then casts them off as damaged goods.
Preparing Your Campus for Veterans' Success by
This book is intended for everyone in higher education - whether in the classroom, student affairs, administration, admissions, health services or faculty development - who is, or expects to be teaching, advising, or serving student veterans. This book is the outcome of a partnership between the Center for Teaching and Learning and the office of Disabilities Services at the University of South Dakota that led to the development of the Fides program whose goal was to establish high-quality, evidence-based development opportunities specifically designed to enable key university constituencies--the faculty, staff, and administration--to understand their role in providing extraordinary learning experiences for veterans. The program was funded through a congressionally directed FIPSE grant. Materials from Fides have been featured by prominent educational organizations, and are being used by the National Center for PTSD, colleges, universities, and boards of regents across the US. This book provides the background and guidelines you need to leverage the strengths that student veterans bring to your institution, to ease the challenges they face in transitioning into higher education, to facilitate their learning, and to ensure their successful graduation. Student veterans bring many strengths to your campus - maturity, significant life experiences, and cross-cultural awareness. They are highly motivated to serve others and value education. Student veterans may however face significant challenges. Student veterans have typically been out of high school for some time, where they may have earned average grades. Many are married with children and more than a few are single parents. They are approximately 20% less likely than non-veterans to attain a bachelor degree and slightly more likely to drop out of higher education without attaining a degree of any sort. Deployments extend their time to degree, and multiple deployments can significantly delay graduation. The challenges associated with transitioning from the military into higher education are heightened when a student has a disability - physical, psychological, or emotional. Common disabilities that are emerging from Iraq and Afghanistan include amputations, hearing loss, traumatic brain injury, and post-traumatic stress disorder. To enable student veterans to succeed, institutions need to develop holistic initiatives to mediate student veterans' transition and persistence, and develop appropriate programs and services that recognize their skills, family responsibilities, and distinct needs. This book outlines best practices for student affairs; describes innovative approaches to administrative services and support; suggests streamlining policies and procedures to make the campus "veteran friendly"; proposes ideas for academic programs; looks at the implications for course structure and design; considers the classroom environment; and explores how classroom policies impact student veterans. One chapter examines the issue of student veteran success specifically from the point of view of two-year institutions. The authors stress the importance of collaborative approaches across divisions and functions providing all stakeholders on campus with a comprehensive view of how they can support each to ensure the success of their student veterans.
Never Too Late by
As anyone who has done it knows, going back to school is a major undertaking. For younger and older adults alike, starting or returning to school presents different challenges than those encountered by teens fresh out of high school and heading straight to college. Countless Americans take on this task while working, raising kids, caring for parents, volunteering, serving in the military - and in some cases all of the above. This book includes practical advice for the busy moms, frustrated employees, and ambitious adults who are applying to college or hoping to finish earning a degree.
Veterans by
This book provides insights into the political, social and health issues for Veterans in today's society. Chapter One explores the emotions of shame and guilt in Veterans based on research examining moral injury, survivor guilt, military sexual trauma, and stigma. Chapter Two provides an overview of agricultural initiatives in the transition and reintegration of Veterans. Chapter Three explores the political, social, and health management changes that have occurred in the field of chronic, non-cancer pain in order to provide world class service for our nation's Veterans. Chapter Four reviews the Emotional Freedom Technique to treat Veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Chapter Five offers suggestions based on clinical experiences for when and how to include family members in Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy for PTSD, while maintaining fidelity to the treatment protocol. Chapter Six explores research that has been conducted upon the oral health of veterans since 2000. Chapter Seven examines potentially mutually exclusive objectives utilising the principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence in relationship to bioethics and the concept of need. Chapter Eight discusses the continued existence of ethnic disparities in health care for U.S. Veterans Affairs Emergency Departments.
Invisible Veterans: What Happens When Military Women Become Civilians Again by
Combining research with narrative, this book exposes common threads of lived experience and reviews the latest data on military women and their healthy reintegration into civilian society. Female veterans share their stories of seeking to be seen in a culture where they don't quite fit and their struggles to find community and friendship. Some fought during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as the first women in combat in American history. How and where, for example, does a female combat Marine find her tribe once she leaves the service? Through the stories of these courageous yet entirely human women, readers learn about the experiences of a new and often forgotten generation of veterans; about the challenges surrounding family and career choices that millions of American women face; and ultimately, about sacrifice, resiliency, loss, and love. This book will inform readers with an interest in female veterans and women's health and mental health issues, as well as researchers, students, and professionals working in fields encompassing women's psychology, health, and social work.
From the Marine Corps to College by
The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have taken a harsh toll on our military's population. Some service members come back from combat ready for a change of pace, others get caught up in the draw down currently occurring within the services. Many of these service members decide to pursue higher education. Veterans' education benefits are a source of much discussion, but often hard to decipher. From the Marine Corps to College: Transitioning from the Service to Higher Education aims to simplify this process. Designed to help Marines navigate the world of higher education and their available state and federal benefits, this accessible guide will better prepare veterans for tackling their new mission: college. From the Marine Corps to College can be read as a book from cover-to-cover, or as a reference manual section-by-section. The easy to follow format will assist Marines in furthering their educational goals.
What's Next for Student Veterans? by
With the passage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill in 2008, more than 1.4 million service members and their families became eligible for higher education benefits, and veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan enrolled in colleges and universities in record numbers. The first wave of research about these new student veterans focused primarily on describing their characteristics and the transition from military service to civilian life and the college campus. This new edited collection presents findings from the second wave of research about student veterans, with a focus on data-driven evidence of academic success factors, including persistence, retention, degree completion, and employment after college. An invaluable resource for educators poised to enter the next phase of supporting military-connected college students.
Wounded Warriors by
Robert C. Vallieres struggled to find his "new normal" when he returned home after serving in the military. An accident in Kuwait left him suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and internal injuries, leaving him in constant pain. After clinics, bottles of painkillers, and behavior modification pills, hope seemed to vanish. Then a local weekly newspaper ad caught his eye: a bird-watching trip to see raptors in the mountains of New Hampshire. An Emily Dickinson poem that states, "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune--without the words, and never stops at all," sprang to his mind. Wounded Warriors is Vallieres's story of self-healing from crippling "invisible" wounds through the help of birds. The problems of TBI and post-traumatic stress disorder do not have definitive solutions. His story of recovery offers a winged hope to thousands of military personnel who suffer these physical and mental battles. Watch an author interview. View a hawk watch.