CSUN On Point

The Pew Research Center says approximately one-quarter of all veterans say its difficult to transition from military life to civilian life, and nearly half the veterans who served after the September 11 attacks say their adjustment has been difficult.

About 700 veterans attend CSUN. CSUN Veterans Affairs Coordinators Vanessa Ochoa and Noe Aguirre said there are plenty of veterans resources on campus. “We process applications, transcripts, do the evaluations, and they [veterans] make the decisions,” Aguirre said. “We’ve also been given the flexibility. If we need to make any exceptions [for admissions], we’ll go ahead and do that.”

Aguirre said one of the difficulties in providing services to help, is that many veterans and active duty military are so used to following orders that sometimes it is difficult for them to “accept their own decisions.” She described it as a form of brainwashing, caused by years in the service.

Dr. Abram Milton served in the United States Marine Corps for 23 years before retiring in 2016. He’s now a clinical psychologist at CSUN’s University Counseling Center.

“The transition services [personnel] they had back then weren’t as familiar with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as they are now,” Milton said. “A lot of the time, what we see in individuals is that they may have a traumatic experience that could be combat related, or even [from something like] a traffic accident,” Milton said. “When you are coming out of combat areas, there are [now] psychologists or many health professionals who help with PTSD.”

Veteran  and CSUN student Kevin Ogletree said he joined the military to follow a family tradition. Both his parents also served. Ogletree was in the U.S Army and the U.S Marine Corps for a total of seven years. He said his transition to civilian life was difficult. He didn’t have a good enough support system, and he had to drop out of his first attempt at college life. “It wasn’t until years later, now I have matured in life experiences, and I was able to come back to school in a better state of mind.”

Robert Graves, of Disabled American Veterans Department of California, said those who have spent years in the military don’t always know what life is like after the military. “When you leave the military itself, you leave behind your network of knowledge” Graves said. “When veterans with disabilities come out of the military, they don’t know how that will affect their placement in jobs, how they study in college, or how to reintegrate with their friends or their families.”

He said transitioning is a never-ending process.

Moderators: Leslie Estrada and Emmanuelle Yang

Producer: Mareo Ahmir Lawson

Anchor: Matt Roth

Reporters: Rudy Aguado, Leslie Estrada, Mareo Ahmir Lawson, Matt Roth and Emmanuelle Yang

Adjusting to life at home is a difficult step veterans face when they return from their service.

“The biggest challenge in making that transition would be the difference in the military culture versus the civilian culture when they come back,” Veterans Resource Center Coordinator Patrina Croisdale said.

CSUN student and Marine veteran Juan Flores said his toughest adjustment has been getting his family, friends, professors and colleagues to understand his challenges. Flores said he has had trouble relating even to his closest friends and immediate family members because they just don’t understand what he has gone through.

CSUN provides the veterans on campus with many resources to help them adjust to their new surroundings. The Veterans Resource Center (VRC) reaches out to veterans to  make it easier for them to meet other veterans on campus and adjust to the different lifestyle. The VRC also provides mentors for veterans and helps them further their educational and professional goals.

Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) differs from the VRC by offering accommodations such as support services, academic coaches, and work ability programs to any students with disabilities. DRES also helps with the psychological process involved with students accepting they have a disability.

“They’re wanting to discuss their diagnoses, and how it impacts them in their current academics,” DRES counselor Joaquin Marinez said.

DRES also offers services to veterans on campus with a disability or diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Flores was diagnosed with PTSD three years after returning from Iraq. He experienced difficulty sleeping, anger issues and mood swings. DRES tries to push veterans into getting involved with the Thriving and Achieving Program (TAP), which helps them work on developing a journey to success and deciding the factors in their plans after college. Flores said he uses the TAP program to help with his classes, to learn time management and to get strategies for dealing with PTSD.

Some veterans with PTSD report that they have attention concentration issues and when their symptoms are triggered, they have to leave the classroom. DRES helps with getting priority seating, along with note and test taking strategies. He said without the professionals he would not have known what was wrong with him.

“To me, that’s what helped me,” Flores said, “because I knew and felt like I had something wrong with me besides the sleep part and my mood swings, and I had a couple of people, like friends, tell me something is wrong with me, and from there that’s when I realized I need to go seek help.”

The staff at the VRC also helps vets apply for private scholarships and find employment.

The VRC holds a weekly Meet Relax Eat, and a monthly Neon Lights event to allow students to come hangout, enjoy good company, listen to music, and eat free food. The VRC will be celebrating November 11 with Veterans Awareness Week and full schedule of events to recognize and honor veterans.

“Students will be able to come and participate in an art project, which we will donate towards an organization that supports and works with veterans everyday, specifically those suffering from depression or PTSD,” Croisdale said. “This is called ’22 is Too Many’, referring to the 22 veterans who complete suicide each day.”

Marinez said there are vets on campus who do not want to be known or aren’t willing to seek help. Marinez, along with DRES, tries to reach out to vets in different areas and get them involved and show them as much support as they need.

Moderator: Robert Zamora

Producers: Andrea Bautista and Strongman Osom

Anchor: Courtney Wallace

Reporters: Roy Azoulay and Calsey Cole

Social Media Editor: Laura Camelo

After 20 years on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Zev Yaroslavsky is leaving office.

That leaves his seat on the notoriously entrenched board open, and
candidates are vying to represent the third district, which stretches
from the West Valley to West L.A.

With issues like business development, homelessness and transportation on the
plate, whoever gets the seat will have a lot on his or her hands.

One candidate, former Santa Monica mayor Bobby Shriver, said that an
infusion of new political blood will allow for positive change.

“The current state of play needs significant reform,” he said. “It
keeps you up at night, but it also makes you pretty outraged.”

Former state legislator Sheila Kuehl, also vying for the seat, said
that reform can be significant because of how much the board oversees.

“The county has a lot of responsibilities that people don’t know
anything about,” she said. “Healthcare, mental health, foster kids,
transportation, environment. Just a whole panoply of issues.”

For candidate John Duran, one of the most important responsibilities
of the county is encouraging business.

“Government doesn’t create wealth,” the West Hollywood councilmember
said. “Government relies on other people creating wealth so we can tax
part of it and use that tax money to provide social services.”

Kuelh said that the county itself is a powerful tool for employment.

“We have 100,000 people working for the county,” she said. “That’s an
important workforce. That’s an important aspect for avoiding
unemployment.”

But Shriver said the recent relocation of Toyota’s headquarters from
Torrance to Texas was indicative of a greater problem.

“I think we should have competed to keep them here,” he said.

“I think we’ve lost 200,000 jobs here in L.A. In the last 20 years,”
he said. “That’s not the result of the recession; that’s the result of
capital, private capital, leaving the area.”

Kuelh said that developing county public transit could create jobs–and
improve transportation throughout the county.

“I think the light rail is essentially coming back to Los Angeles,”
she said. “It was very different when people could take public
transportation.”

Shriver said that, although an improved transit system would be a boon
for the county, it would be a long term solution.

“The subway to the airport is great, 10 or 15 years in the future,” he said.

A near term solution that worked in Santa Monica was giving Santa
Monica College students free rides on the Big Blue Bus system, Shriver
said.

“Although that hasn’t solved the traffic problem heading east at
night, it certainly has made a significant contribution to offloading
the roads there and decreasing the amount of the money being spent on
new parking structures,” he said.

Duran said that more Metro stops could be a solution, but the process of creating
them often gets bogged down by political red tape.

“To get from the city of Santa Monica to the 405 during rush hour
takes an hour. It is three miles,” he said. “There is no reason that
should exist. But it exists because of political compromise.”

Duran said the county should be doing more to encourage the arts.

“In some ways, we’ve been somewhat neglectful, waiting for students to come to the arts rather than taking arts out to the students,” he said.

“It should definitely be a priority,” Kuelh agreed.

More than that, it’s very possible because L.A. County owns and
operates its own theaters, symphonies, and museums, she said.

“The LAC in LACMA is L.A. County,” she added.

Shriver said that arts have always been an important part of Los
Angeles culture and economy.

“Someone once said that more people in Los Angeles make their living
off imagination than anywhere else in the country,” he said. “We want
to keep that energy here. We want to keep the imagination business
alive and strong. The county should be doing a lot to make that
happen.”

Election day for the third district seat is June 3. If a candidate
receives more than 50 percent of the vote, he or she will be elected
to the board of supervisors. If no candidate receives 50 percent of
the vote, a runoff will be held in November.

Moderator: Hannah Townsley

Producer: Colin Newton

Anchor: Nelssie Carillo

Reporters: Hannah Townsley, Nelssie Carillo, Judith Retana, Mahina Haina, Adam Schumes and Colin Newton

Social Media Editors: Mahina Haina, Judith Retana, Adam Schumes and Jamie Gonzaga

Hundreds of students at Cal State Northridge are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These students can face a difficult time making the transition from military life to campus life, but some statistics suggest they have a good chance of graduating on time because of GI Bill benefits such as tuition and housing allowances, as well as early registration dates for classes.

“I’m much more dedicated to school than I was before,” journalism major and Afghanistan veteran Brenden Nakamine said. “It’s easier to study and do my work…I have three more years of school. Then I mean to graduate and have a career.”

Iraq veteran Nic Koppert said he is motivated to study and learn by remembering his comrades who died while serving. “It’s bittersweet that they died while over there,” Koppert said. “But it is making me a better person… Everyday I wake up appreciating life.”

Nakamine said he interrupted his college experience to enlist in the U.S. Army. “It was something I wanted to do, to give back to my country.”

Nakamine said his tour in Afghanistan involved trying to help the people of that country. He said he did a lot of office work, but that he also went on missions to meet with village elders and local leaders, to try the improve the quality of life and to try to get the support of the Afghan people.

Koppert said his decision to enlist in the Army was a “rush of blood to the head.”

“You get there, and at the end of the day, you just want you and your comrades to get back alive, and that’s all that it’s about,” Koppert said.