The Transition Never Stops

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