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This story has been edited since publication.

Underneath his blankets, a cold sweat interrupts his sleep. That single, life-altering day two years ago still haunts his dreams — well, nightmares.

The Marine unit was on a routine mission in Fallujah, Iraq, at 2 a.m. Everything seemed normal. Matt Stroh was on top of the Humvee keeping a lookout with his M240G machine gun, which was attached to the top of the vehicle. He sat down. Not a second later, he heard a loud bang, followed by a bright flash of light. Stroh’s head slammed against the side of the vehicle. His body twisted and he landed in pain. They’d been hit.

He jerks himself awake. Heart racing, he realizes where he is, or, more importantly, where he is not.

Alone in his parents’ basement, Stroh, Wichita sophomore, remembers what his dad told him days before; they could hear him yelling while the nightmare played in his sleep.

Before returning to Kansas in Spring 2008, Stroh was stationed in Fallujah as an active duty machine gunner with the Marine Corps’ 2nd Battalion 6th Marines, Golf Company. While on a mission, he was hit with an improvised explosive device. He suffered severe back injuries and has difficulty hearing out of his right ear.

“At first, I drank all the time so I didn’t really have to deal with anything. It didn’t really hit me until this spring,” Stroh said. “I feel like a 42-year-old in a 22-year-old’s body.”

Since his return, Stroh has faced a slew of emotional and psychological problems, but that hasn’t stopped him from being a full-time student at the University of Kansas since Fall 2008.

According to Betty Childers, the University’s Veterans Affairs certifying official, Stroh is one of more than 325 students currently certified as veterans at the University.

“More veterans are enrolling in universities because of the GI Bills,” Childers said. “It’s great, but it can be really hard for them to go to class with other students who haven’t had quite the same experiences when they get back.”

Like Stroh, many student veterans face problems returning to civilian life, but going back to school after serving active duty creates additional stresses.

While veterans deal with the same school-related issues as non-veteran students, they experience further complications because of money, social acceptance, psychological complications and military stigmas.

“School is incredibly hard for veterans,” Stroh said. “Our generation has grown increasingly more abrasive. It’s a hard thing to have to deal with.”

GI Bill benefits

The Post-9/11 GI Bill and the Montgomery GI Bill, which offer a variety of educational benefits for veterans after serving active duty, have attracted more student veterans to universities than ever before.

As of Dec. 6, the VA Web site listed more than 14,000 payments for veteran education benefits, 6,900 of which came from the Post 9/11 GI Bill.

Childers said while the GI Bills greatly benefit veterans, sometimes payments are slow in coming.

“They are now more than eight weeks late in getting in,” she said. “Students need that money.”

Another obstacle is complications with the GI Bills. Childers said it is her job to direct veterans to the correct place within the VA or elsewhere.

“The GI Bill Web site is too vague,” Childers said. “Sometimes the information vets are given at their discharge is incorrect or incomplete.”

Felix Zacharias, Wichita senior, served four years of active duty in the Marine Corps, the last part of which was spent in Iraq. He went on more than 100 combat missions in Iraq as a co-intelligence chief from the middle of Ramadan in 2006 to May 2007.

The GI Bills are a topic Zacharias is passionate about. During the summer of 2008, Zacharias lobbied on behalf of the 21st Century GI Bill and the following summer, he interned in Washington D.C. for Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).

His father, Mark Zacharias, understands why his son is so passionate about veteran benefits.

“There have been some problems when funding dries up temporarily,” Mark said. “Sometimes I have to make a shortfall financially to keep it together, but it has been a big help to us.”

Stroh, on the other hand, said he doesn’t use the GI Bill even though he is eligible for its benefits. He said he makes his financial situation work on his own by not spending his money frivolously.

“I don’t go out much anyway,” he said. “I want to, but I don’t want to go out and spend $5 on a beer just to talk to people who I might never see again.”

Even though he doesn’t use the GI Bills, he does use the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program, which is offered through the VA and helps “veterans with service-connected disabilities to prepare for, find, and keep suitable jobs.”

Socially accepted

Although veterans who return to school are considered students, they don’t always easily integrate into the college environment.

“There are some intense situations that can be hard to deal with, but you just have to keep your head about you,” Zacharias said. “I don’t consider myself a racist, but it’s interesting interacting with Arab students. There are times when I see a group of guys and wish I had a gun. I’ve worked very hard to separate myself from that kind of thought, but it’s still there sometimes.”

Adrian Lewis, director of the Office of Professional Military Graduate Education and retired Army veteran, said when a veteran returns to a college setting, there are certain stressors that can sometimes provoke anger.

“They have to adjust to the sights and sounds of the battlefield,” he said. “It becomes the norm. When they get back they have to adapt and adjust again and people around you just don’t understand.”

Similar to Zacharias, Stroh said social integration was especially difficult for him when he returned. He said he tended to be wary of new people and used distractions, such as heavy drinking, to avoid them.

They both said one of the most difficult parts of being around peers at the University was listening to the trivial things other students talk about. The two veterans find their generation to be ignorant at times and naïve. While they were trying to avoid being killed, college students were concerned about what to wear to a party.

Even now Stroh has not completely adapted to college life.

“I’ve been back for two years now and have yet to have a social life,” he said. “I spend most of my time with school. Most of the friends I do have are 40-plus years old. It feels like people don’t understand me at my age.”

Crowds make some of the veterans uneasy and they say making new friends is difficult. Learning to trust people, particularly strangers, is complicated.

“I have a tendency to shut down,” Stroh said. He said he said he never knew who could turn around and stab him in the back.

One particular mission continues to influence his behavior. Stroh and his unit entered an Iraqi’s family home and were greeted with kind faces and offers of food, water and cigarettes. But on a routine check they searched the upstairs area and found detonation cords and other bomb-making materials.

“Their faces changed almost immediately from kindness to pure hatred,” he said.

When he returned home, he said his friends thought he looked different, angry. He said he asked someone once why she wouldn’t come near him. She said she was afraid.

“I always looked pissed off,” he said. “The first time they saw me when I got back they thought I was going to hurt somebody.”

Just as difficult is reuniting with old friends. Relationships change, particularly romantic relationships.

“I was in a relationship when I was deployed,” Stroh said. About a month after I left I got a ‘Dear John’ letter.”

A “Dear John” letter, he said, was what significant others sent when they “got tired of waiting” for the other to return.

“We’d only been dating for a couple of months when I left,” he said. “It wasn’t that big of a deal for me, but it was for others who had been with someone longer. We just had to focus on the task at hand and try not to think about it until we got back.”

Psychological issues

Tom Padilla, social worker at the Lawrence VA Community Outpatient Clinic, 2200 Harvard Rd., said lasting psychological problems, which can be combat-related, oftentimes cause social difficulties. They can include depression, bipolar disorder and the most common, post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and drug abuse.

According to the VA Web site, experts think 12 to 20 percent of Iraqi war veterans suffer from PTSD.

PTSD is defined as “the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor,” according to the fourth edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Padilla said these stressors can be caused by a slew of different events, including threatened death or serious injury, witnessing a death or injury and even by learning about a violent death, injury, or threat of death.

“Some veterans back recently enough from active duty hear sounds like explosions,” Childers said. “It’s a hard thing to stop overnight. It’s been ingrained in them to be protectors.”

Symptoms such as these have been relevant not only during recent wars, but also in past wars, particularly in Vietnam.

“Among Vietnam veterans, 30.9 percent of men and 26.9 percent of women experienced PTSD,” Padilla said. “That’s a significant jump from 5 percent of men and 10 percent of women in the general public.”

He also said the total veteran population in the United States and Puerto Rico, as of September 2009, totals nearly 23 million.

“Everyone comes back with some PTSD, but mine was minimal,” Zacharias said, recalling his time in the Sunni Triangle surrounding Baghdad.

Mark Zacharias said because of roadside bombs in Iraq, his son was a little jumpy when he heard loud noises or drove over potholes when he returned home. Felix would go around bridges instead of driving under them and he was quick to react to loud noises. He also didn’t like fireworks during the Fourth of July holiday.

How they deal

With all of these issues in mind when returning to school, veterans have to find a way to cope.

Some choose to look for comfort in a bottle, as Stroh did at first, but others look for comfort from students groups and their peers.

“I got over-involved when I came back to school,” Zacharias said. “I was involved in about five student groups. The people in them really helped me readjust.”

Zacharias said he finally realized it was possible to get used to being the only veteran in a group of people. He is now president of Collegiate Veterans Association, a campus organization designed to help veterans and their families. He said he wants to help other returning veterans with the adjustment to college life.

Aaron Harris, Kansas City, Kan. sophomore, served two tours in Iraq’s Al Anbar providence. Harris said campus organizations also helped him readjust to college life.

“I thought I would be on my own here and if I wanted something done, I’d have to fight for it myself,” Harris said of coming to the University this fall. “But it was the total opposite. So many people here were helping me with the adjustment — in CVA and at the Registrar’s Office.”

There are numerous programs the University offers veterans upon their return, including the University’s Wounded Warriors program, which is offered for graduate students. To be eligible, students must already have a bachelor’s degree and be diagnosed with a 30 percent or more disability rate, which is determined by VA testing.

Lewis said the KU division was implemented in May 2009 and currently includes 12 students.

Other programs, such as veteran-specific scholarships, are also available through the Registrar’s Office. Other educational programs, however, are available through the VA, including some psychological services.

Even though more efforts have been taken to integrate psychological programs with the military, Lewis said there still is not a sufficient amount of mental health specialists available.

“If we had all of the people we needed right now, we wouldn’t be having the problems we’ve had at Fort Hood and Fort Campbell,” Lewis said. “We not only have a shortage of qualified people to fill spots in the military, but there also aren’t enough mental health professionals to tend to them.”

In this past semester, Fort Hood and Fort Campbell have both experienced direct and residual problems after an officer at Fort Hood, Texas killed 13 people and wounded another 30 on Nov. 5.

While many veterans acknowledge they have PTSD or another disorder, many refuse to take advantage of military services because of the stigma attached to counseling.

“There’s a stigma about seeking counseling in America, period,” Lewis said. “We’ve been trying to break it down, but it’s still there.”

Such is the case for Stroh. After he was hit with an IED while stationed in Iraq, he refused medical care. Despite his severe back injuries, he continued to serve until he literally collapsed and couldn’t any longer.

“We are so used to being self-dependent,” Stroh said. “In my unit if you went to the medical officer you were in a world of shit.”

Even though he has night terrors and momentary fits of rage, he said he still thought about going back because he feels as if he disappointed his unit.

“I want to go back every day,” Stroh said. “I know I have nightmares about it and shouldn’t want to, but I feel like that’s where I need to be.”

— Edited by Arthur Hur

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