Speaking at the inauguration ceremonies of HSU’s new Veterans Enrollment and Transition Services (V.E.T.S.) program Aug. 28 , the Humboldt native told the audience of 100, “Adding that ‘T’, that transition, validates our experience.”
Holt said V.E.T.S. provides current generation veterans with personal contact and understanding that a bureaucratic agency cannot offer. “We can pretty much address people as individuals, on a student peer level. Everybody’s going to be there for each other and we’re creating a good support group,” he said.
The HSU junior is President of the campus’s Student Veterans Association. He was a Marine stationed in the city of Fallujah in Iraq’s Al Anbar province, the theater of fierce fighting between U.S.-led forces and insurgents before minority Sunnis chose to side with Washington against Al-Qaeda extremists.
In an interview, Holt called his Iraq experience a milestone in his decision to pursue higher education and secure a career in it. “In war, you have to know yourself really well to deal with fear, and higher ed encourages self-awareness, too,” he said. “There’s a connection between any experience that challenges you, makes you look at yourself in a different way, whether it’s in combat or in education.”
Extending well beyond HSU’s past enrollment services, the new V.E.T.S program will provide tutoring, information exchange, housing opportunities and weekly on-campus liaison with the Redwood Veterans Center, the North Coast Veterans Resource Center, California’s Department of Employment Development, the Humboldt County Veterans Service Office and Dr. William Beegle, a private therapist. Expanded space is now available for veterans to meet other veterans on a regular basis. V.E.T.S. is headquartered in the basement of the Humboldt State Library, Room 58.
Through V.E.T.S., Humboldt State becomes the gateway for campus and community vet services, said Kim Hall, Veterans Certification Officer and V.E.T.S. program director. “We want HSU to be a home away from home for veterans, a safe learning environment that each alum will take with him or her in pursuit of a better future.”
Hall and Holt liaise with Troops to College, a statewide mandate from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to attract more veterans to California’s public universities and colleges. Colonel Bucky Peterson, Special Assistant to California State University Chancellor Charles Reed and head of the CSU taskforce to make the system’s 23 campuses more military-friendly, spoke at the Aug. 28 ceremonies in the Kate Buchanan Room. He said veterans constantly admonish him, “It’s not only about education and that degree, it’s about going on to get a good job.”
Peterson added: “Those G.I.’s after World War II made modern America, they transformed our country and there’s no reason why we can’t repeat it today.”
Hall can be reached at (707) 826-6191 and details are available at www.humboldt.edu/~ves.