John Dunlap: The live transcript feature in the Zoom menu is available for this program.
Both closed captions and transcripts are being provided by a real time transcriber to ensure anyone who could benefit from captions receives an accurate translation of the spoken word.
Thank you in advance to Tina Baker, who is serving as our captioner.
I would also like to thank our always reliable UITS Client Service team for providing technical support for this event.
With that, it's my pleasure to introduce President Meehan.
Marty Meehan: Thank you, John, and good afternoon, everyone.
I want to thank all of you for joining us for today's Veterans Day Program.
I also want to extend a special welcome to three President's Office staff members, who are Veterans: John Dawson of UITS, Josh Stockwell of the General Counsel's Office, and Brian Burke, who is also of the General Counsel's Office.
John, Josh, and Brian are among more than 300 of our UMass system colleagues who self-identify as Veterans.
In addition, there are nearly 2,000 students in the University of Massachusetts who identify as Veterans, and likely, many, many more.
I also want to thank our DEIA team for their important work in organizing these terrific programs and continue to build conversations and connections among our UMass System colleagues.
I'm delighted to welcome Tom Lyons and Patrick George two proud, distinguished, Marine Corps Veterans who will share their stories about helping their fellow service members throughout their careers.
Tom Lyons is the founder of the South Boston Vietnam Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization that erected one of the first community-based Vietnam memorials in the country. He's a former Executive Director of the New England Home for Homeless Veterans, and a recipient of the UMass Boston
Robert Quinn Award for Outstanding Community Leadership. Tom served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969.
Patrick George is the Director of Veteran Services for Watertown. Patrick is also President of the Massachusetts Veterans Services Officers Association, the statewide organization of Veterans Services Officers. His Marine Corp career has included two deployments in Afghanistan, as well as five years on the Marine Corps Base Hawaii. I'm sure the Afghanistan tours were a lot tougher than being at a base in Hawaii. And I've been out to that base as a member of Congress. It's a great facility.
These are outstanding individuals doing important work to keep our Veterans Services Organizations going strong.
I also want to say how proud I am of the work we're doing across the UMass system to create welcoming, supportive environments for our veterans as well as guardsmen, reservists, and active duty military students. Each of our students have programs, physical spaces, and services dedicated to addressing the unique challenge that Veterans have when returning to college and making sure that Veterans and their families have access to education-related financial benefits that they have earned.
I had a lot of experience with this when I was a Chancellor for eight years at UMass Lowell. We made a commitment to making sure the environment at Lowell was an environment where Veterans wanted to come and felt comfortable and had the best space of any organization on the campus. As a result of that, over a period of eight years, UMass Lowell, while I was there, had the largest number of Veterans of any college or university in New England.
Part of my perspective on the importance of Veterans and making sure that people who served the United States of America, are taken care of when they
give back to the United States in terms of health care, in terms of educational opportunities. It is because I was fortunate enough to serve for 14 years in the United States Congress on the Armed Services Committee and visited with men and women in uniform all over the world. Specifically four times visiting Iraq, four times visiting Afghanistan. And when you see first hand the sacrifice people make for this country, it becomes painfully obvious
that we need to do more once our men and women who serve come back to the United States.
Last November, the V.A. Central Western Massachusetts Health Care System and the UMass Chan Medical School celebrated the opening of a new community-based outpatient clinic for Veterans located on the Medical School's campus in Worcester.
Also, our Unified Procurement Services Team is working to create more opportunities for Veteran-owned businesses to provide goods and services to the University. In fact, from fiscal 21 to fiscal 22, we increased our spending with Veteran-owned businesses from $3.6 million to
to $6.8 million.
Today, as we approach Veterans Day, it's my hope we all come together from this conversation, with a better understanding of what it means to be a Veteran and how we as individuals can support the men and women who are Veterans, who are part of our work family and our community.
So, Tom, Patrick, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for all you have done and continue to do for our Nation. Please welcome Tom Lyons and Patrick George.
Tom: Thank you, Mr. President, for the warm welcome, and thank you for all you did when you were on the Armed Services Committee. That was very important work to the men and women in uniform and I think when they see members of Congress out in the field, looking at what they are doing, and understanding what their role and what their mission is, I think that's really critical to the morale of all the troops. So thank you for all you have done.
Marty: Thank you, Tom.
Tom: Veterans Day is a day dedicated to American Veterans of all wars. Veterans Day 2022 is this Friday, November 11.
In 1918, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month Armistice of temporary cessation of hostilities was declared between the allied nations in Germany in World War I, better known as the Great War.
Commemorated in many countries as Armistice Day the following year, November 11 became a federal holiday in the United States in 1938 in the aftermath of World War II and Korea. Armistice Day became known as Veterans Day.
I had the honor of serving in the Marine Corps after graduating from South Boston High School in 1967. I joined the Marines with five friends that I grew up in South Boston with from the time of Grammar School till we graduated from High School. The five of us... six of us, got to Vietnam just at the start of the Tet Offense in 1968. Three of my good friends were killed that year.
I was fortunate enough to come home, and to, as a way of trying to remember my friends, I organized a committee and went about building the South Boston Vietnam Veteran Memorial, which, when after doing some research, we found out that 22 other young men from the town were killed in Vietnam between 1967 and 1969 for a total of 25.
And I think what makes our memorial so unique is not so much the 25 names on the front of the memorial, and the inscription on the bottom of it, which said: "If you forget my debt, then I died in vain."
I like to tell people about the back of our memorial because on the back of our memorial we have the five insignias of the armed services, and right in the middle we have, "To all the men and women who served during the Vietnam War," and in big letters, "WELCOME HOME."
And why I'm so proud of that is that if you think about it, back in 1979, 1980, we were actually thinking about the women who were serving in the military. The nurses that took care of us on the front lines. And not everybody who serves goes off to war. We wanted to make sure we included all those who served during that time frame and remember them in a way that for us was very meaningful and powerful.
And then the two words, "WELCOME HOME," which has now become synonymous with the way we treat our men and women when they come home from the armed services.
I've been asked by family and friends over the years to tell them a little bit about my time in Vietnam. I have to say without too much emotion some things I cannot talk about. There's some things Veterans can only share with other Veterans. But what I do tell people as a reminder of how that war became so powerful to guys like myself that come home.
I tell people that in 19... January 1968 in one day, 245 Americans were killed, in one day.
The month of May, 2,415 were killed in one month.
And I dare say this, if those numbers were the kind of numbers this country faced during the Iraq or Afghanistan War, we never would have been in that war for all the years that we have been in and fortunately, we are now out of.
I am proud of my service, and in fact tomorrow is the Marine Corps Birthday. We'll be celebrating our 247th birthday of the Corps. And Patrick and I, if we see each other, if not today, tomorrow, we'll wish each other happy birthday. For Marine's, there's two birthdays: Your birth, when you're born, and your Marine Corps birthday.
As has been said, I've been fortunate to work in the Veterans community now for over 40 years. With the Memorial. I was Deputy Commissioner of the Veterans in Boston. I went on to become Executive Director at the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans. Then I ended my career at Mass Housing helping to build not only affordable housing, but create mortgages for returning Veterans coming home.
Volunteerism, we all talk about it, and many colleges, really ask their students to do it, even in high school now. And I'm sure there's many folks on this call today that have volunteered at their local food pantry or their nursing home, library, boys and girls club. But, to me, the ultimate volunteer program is joining the military. When you see a man and woman in uniform that person has volunteered to take three or four years out of their lives to serve our country, and may be called upon to defend and maybe die in combat.
When you see a memorial with the names of people from that community or state, those individuals are the men and women who died in the service of their country.
I will just close with a couple ideas for folks to think about on this Veterans Day.
Attend a Veterans Day event.
Ask a Veteran to share their story of service.
Visit or volunteer in a V.A. Hospital or homeless shelter.
Call a Veteran family member and tell them, "Thank you for their service."
Write on your Facebook page your appreciation for the men and women who have served and who are serving today.
And I will close with one of my favorite quotes.
"Poor is the Nation that has no heroes. Shameful is the Nation
that has them and forgets."
Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you staff for allowing me to be able
to spend a few minutes with you.
Patrick?
Patrick: Thanks, Tommy.
You brought up a couple good points and one I wanted to specifically mention.
When I started in Watertown, one of the first families of a Veteran that reached out to me was a Veteran named Paul Gorman. Paul was a Marine Crops Veteran, and after, you know, unfortunately during his service in Vietnam, was killed in action. Paul was one of I believe 11 Watertown Marine Corps Veterans who ended up taking a train down to Parris Island. There's a photo at the Marine Corp League in Watertown commemorating them on their trip.
I bring this up because his sister, Bonnie Gorman, was a Navy Nurse on a hospital ship off of Vietnam when her brother was killed. And I spoke with her about two years ago. She recalls the Chaplain coming over to the ship to inform her that her brother lost his life and this really is sort of encapsulates it - even back then, that there are more than just veterans or the service members on the front lines, more than just men serving in the military.
Tommy mentioned there are so many different ways you can acknowledge the Veterans in your lives.
And I think the most important one that I mentioned was sharing information. I'll update the link. I hope everyone can see the link fully on the presentation now.
But sharing information with all the five other action items.
If you know a Veteran, please share information with them.
If you live in a community that has great VSO, or a great Veterans organization, follow those, especially if you have Veterans that live in Massachusetts. This is information that can really transfer over. More often than not, it does transfer over. If there's a benefit in one community, it is in another one.
But this is all information we just want to make sure all of our Veterans are aware of. And everyone on this call that knows a Veteran. You are some of the most useful and supportive ways for us to get that information to a Veteran.
I can't see everyone here, but I'm sure most people have seen or heard of the show "Squid Games." So last year, there was a portion where there was an image of someone from Squid Games presented with two buttons and didn't know which to pick.
To bring this back to the Veterans perspective, it was referencing when the Veteran takes a hearing exam, and whether or not they hear the beep. And after sharing that and referencing hearing loss and tinnitus claims among Veterans, I think I got five or six calls. And it was more of my wife told me to call you because she saw this online.
And so we are indirectly sometimes we'll indirectly support Veterans that way, but as long as we get the information to them, that's really the most
important part.
And I wanted to mention that before I forgot, I think I forgot to introduce myself.
My name is Patrick George. I'm the Veterans Service Officer in Watertown. I'm the President of the MVSOA. It's an honor to speak here. It's been an honor to work with Tommy the last couple years. And as Tommy mentioned, before with his career, I was born and raised in Boston. Joined the Military after High School, got out, immediately went to college, and then worked for a few years at the Statehouse before I became a VSO.
I think all of this is to also say that among Veterans, the diversity of a Veteran's background is interesting, as well as what their jobs might be in the Military and then what their careers might be afterwards.
So, it's good to be able to communicate with all of our Veterans and provide this information to any interested parties to assist the Veterans in your life as well.
I think that's all I have to share. I'd be happy to answer questions and move to the dialogue if anyone has anything they would like to ask or how we can as an association be supportive or any other networks we're familiar with.
John Dunlap: Okay, thank you very much. Could we stop sharing the screen at this time?
I'm going to turn it over to John Dawson.
John Dawson: Hello everyone.
So if you want to use your reaction button, down on your tool bar to raise your hand if you have a question for our guests and also you can put in
chat and we'll read them off and I'll just name the name and you can go ahead.
(No audio).
We have a question from Brian Girard. Go ahead, Brian.
Brian: Thank you and Patrick and Tom, thank you very much for your service.
My stepson actually reported as a Navy recruit earlier this week. Just curious, what are some of the reasons that you choose the Marines over other branches of the Military?
Patrick: I can start with this one.
I'll be honest. I had a family member, my uncle was a Marine, so the connection was already there. I remember actually back in fourth grade, I had a flag day presentation and stole my Uncle's uniform to wear for that day. I think that was a little bit of what made me choose it.
Ultimately when it came to picking the branch in high school the Marine Corps recruiter was the first and only person to call. And that made it a lot easier too. I communicated with them. I had a friend in high school as well who just joined and had just enlisted in the Delayed Entry Program, they called it. And it's an outreach effort for the Marine Corps. If someone was in the program and got somebody else to speak to the recruiter, they would get points and accelerate the first promotion in the Marine Corps.
So that's how it worked out for me. Met with the Recruiter and ended up getting my friend promoted.
John Dawson: Thank you Brian. Any other people want to raise their hands or put a question in the chat?
We have Carol Walsh. Go ahead, Carol.
Carol: Hi, Patrick and Tom. Thank you both very much for your service.
My Dad was a World War II Marine. Tom, I appreciated your comment. There are just some things that Veterans will not speak about. We took our dad when he was in his 80s to see the World War II Memorial. After years of all us kids trying to ask him questions, he just never talked about it. Within five minutes of being at the Memorial he was in a circle of I'd say about 20 Veterans. They stayed for about four hours talking to each other. So Tom, your point was really well said.
My question is, and maybe this is me being naive if I'm not a Veteran, there's always on our applications for jobs and what not, always a question of "Are you a Veteran?"
I can only imagine that question is there, I'm not sure what the reason is, but I was thinking it's there because maybe Veterans face some type of bias in the workplace that I'm unaware of because to me there's nothing but honor and integrity and hero. That's what I relate to when I come across Veterans like yourselves and John Dawson.
But in your experience, in the workforce, did you ever face any biases from folks because of your Veteran Status?
Tom: You know, I can't remember ever facing any biases. When I got out of the Marines in 1969, I actually tell people I had a real job once. I worked in a Boston Edison company; now it's Eversource. I dug ditches and ran cables all through Boston in the manholes.
It was interesting when I took over as Executive Director at the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans, the question came up about that on an application. And after much discussion, we changed that question from "Are you a Veteran?" to "Did you serve in the Military?
What that did was open up to Women Veterans to check off that box. Many women will not check that box off because they don't consider themselves Veterans because they didn't go to war, or they weren't in combat, whatever the reason being, once we opened up that question to "Did you serve in the Military?" it was amazing the response we got, and I'm going, as I say, this is back in 1996, 1997.
Within a year, we opened up a Women's portion of that facility specifically for Women... I think we had 20 or 25 units.
So, you know, for me, I would prefer to see, "Did you serve in the Military?" because I think that opens up a much larger opportunity for people to check that off
because even some of my counterparts, today, when we have our Vietnam Memorial Ceremony which this past year, we just celebrated our 41st Anniversary of
our Vietnam Memorial in South Boston, and I'm proud to say we've never missed a September. We've always gone back to remember our friends. I still have friends or guys who don't attend because they don't feel like they were...they contributed, because
they didn't go to Vietnam.
So, there are still some, you know, some issues out there when we use terminology that really isn't inclusive.
I hope that...
Carol: Yeah, great point. Thank you.
John Dawson: Thanks, Tom. Okay, we have Jacquie Kittler. Do you have a question?
Jacquie: I do. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick and Tom for your service.
We spoke about the individual Veterans. The effects serving their country had on them. So I'm the proud daughter of a Vietnam Veteran and witnessed personally the struggles my father had but I've also witnessed the effect it had on other loved ones such as my mother.
Do you have advice about services for family members of Veterans or how we can support the loved ones of Veterans as well?
Tom: I think this is a question for you, Patrick.
Patrick: Yes, unfortunately from a generational standpoint, you are absolutely right. Unfortunately, the Vietnam War, especially was extremely unpopular at the time with previous generations and everything else.
I think in my capacity now, we are still seeing Veterans from Vietnam being told "Welcome Home," for the first time. And you know, we just ended a different war, and all these other conflicts that we've had. So it is absolutely tough.
What I can say from a broad perspective, there are Vet Centers, that are supported for Veterans, and they have some supports for family members as well.
And that's really one of the options. Another option is the Home Base Program, which is over in Charlestown.
And those are options from a mental health and therapy standpoint to just help out, as you are absolutely right - it is tough.
And as mentioned earlier, too, with the World War II Veteran, there are some things that aren't communicated, so even some of the Veterans organizations in the areas might be supportive. A lot of them have auxiliaries that aren't directly the Veterans. And a lot of those auxiliaries are the family members of Veterans that served as well.
So even from a less professional, or a less clinical standpoint, that might have information and resources for family members as well.
Jacquie: Thank you.
John Dawson: Thanks, Patrick. Michael Milligan, you have a question.
Michael: Absolutely. First, Tom and Patrick, I want to thank you for your service. I also want to recognize quickly my dad, who was a Chief Warrant Officer in Vietnam, and my two grandfathers, who both fought in World War II, as some great mentors of mine, and leaders.
Tom and Patrick, specifically, we do a lot of hiring here within the President's Office. We're always looking for the best and brightest. What are the main attributes of a Veteran that we should be spotlighting to help us lead our organization?
Tom: You know, that's a good question, because it's something that I think a lot of companies, corporations, who are doing hiring, when a Veteran does go in for any interview, and they look at that individual's DD-214, history of their service, many HR folks don't know how to read or know little about what they are looking at when they look at someone's time in the Military.
It kind of goes both ways, if you will.
The Veteran needs to know how to go into an interview and sell him or herself to the interviewer, and be able to talk about their time in the Military and their strengths.
You know, in the Marine Corps, I was a grunt, infantry, a trigger-puller. But I also became an NCO. And so if were to go into an interview, and I tell the young kids today, the skills that you have - the structure, the discipline, the ability to carry out missions, the ability to lead, those are qualities that a lot of companies, corporations, are looking at and need when they are hiring.
And so I think from that standpoint you really have to be able to know a little bit on both sides, so, you know, in that interview process you have the opportunity to get the best and the brightest.
John Dawson: Thank you Tom. Christine Packard had a question before Bill Smith. Christine?
Christine: I couldn't figure out how to raise my hand. I admit it in front of this large group of people.
My sister is a Veteran. She served in the Air Force. I'm incredibly proud of her.
But my question to you is how has attitude changed over the course of time, so back in the era of Vietnam, I know when soldiers returned, they were treated hostilely, and, then, you know, during 9/11, how folks felt about Military service, and there seems to sometimes feel like we're changing back to being less grateful. How does that impact our Veterans?
Patrick: Tom, I wasn't alive in the Vietnam era, so I'll let you handle that one.
Tom: You know, I think it's taken a lot of years for me, to kind of move beyond the... rather lackluster welcome home I received, all Vietnam Veterans received when we came back. I think the time frame back then and now is so dramatically different. Back then, we had a draft. And we had a lot of people protesting the war in the draft. And I'd like to think the lessons we learned from the way we treated our Vietnam Veterans when they came home has changed dramatically as to not only how we welcome our Veterans home, but how we send them off today.
And those lessons from Vietnam, as hard as they were, I think has put this country in a much better mindset when it comes to all-volunteer force now and how we take care of Veterans.
And just going back to the Draft, it took guys like me a number of years to realize that the people who were protesting the war, in many respects, they were making a choice of either go or don't go. I made my choice to go. And so it's taken me time to really flesh that out and understand that they were making a choice and that was their choice.
As is today - young men and women make the choice to go.
So I think unfortunately there's far too many Vietnam Veterans who have died since they came home that never got the appreciation or got to hear the words,
"WELCOME HOME."
John Dawson. Thanks, Tom. Bill Smith, I believe you're up next.
Bill : Yes, thank you. Tom, Patrick thank you both for being here today and for your service.
So there's a lot of organizations out there that help Veterans. I'm just curious if you have any strong opinions about, you know, which organizations maybe in Massachusetts would be best, if you wanted to donate time or money. Are there any in particular you would recommend or a place to look for the most favorable organizations?
Patrick:I would probably start with the V.A. There's a whole bunch of V.A. facilities around. There are the big V.A. hospitals, but there's also what they call CBOC. The acronym escapes me right now. C-B-O-C.
Tom: Community Based clinics.
Patrick: Yup. Community Based clinics.
Then, another one, I would suggest reaching out to whatever community you live in. I would look for their Veterans Services Officer in their communities. They will have more insight on what locally is there. For example, in Watertown, there's an organization called Operation American Soldier. And Wendy and her team put together care packages to go over to Veterans overseas, on ships, and everything else.
But that's really the only information I have available to me because I live in Watertown and work in Watertown so I would certainly suggest connecting with your Veterans Services Officer to see what other organizations are available locally.
Bill: Great, thank you.
Tom: If I could just add to that, I would suggest I'm the Chairman at the Chelsea Soldiers Home. And I think between the Chelsea Soldiers Home and Holyoke Home, there's opportunities to donate to recreation programs, as well as an opportunity to volunteer at both facilities. So I would just include that to what Patrick said, and really utilizing the local Veterans Service Officer in your community to kind of look at ways that you can serve.
Bill: Thank you both.
John Dawson: Thank you. We're going to go to Thomas Miller first, then we'll get to Stephanie Lyons.
Thomas: Great, thank you, John. And Tom and Patrick, thank you for your service, as well as John Dawson. I don't know if Josh Stockwell is on the call, but really appreciate it.
I am the proud son of a Veteran. My father was a Korean War Veteran. My uncle was a World War II Veteran. I myself had the opportunity to serve my first career in the United States Coast Guard. You can see over my shoulder one of our proud ships from the Coast Guard.
But a couple comments and a question.
To Michael Milligan and Stephanie Lyons, I saw your comment, one of the things that, well, first, I get the fortunate opportunity to lead the William Joyner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequence at UMass Boston and one of the groups we're partnered with is Edge for Vets based out of Fordham University's Human Resilience Institute. And what they do is they connect transitioning Veterans to the workforce. UMass Lowell and UMass Boston are partners with this group and they conduct two sessions every fall and spring, bringing Veteran students or just Veterans in and they teach them how to translate their military experience and walk them through a two week online program. They get to meet with HR Executives from around Boston, and establish those connections directly with the different companies that are involved. There's probably maybe 10 to 12 companies around the Boston area that are involved. And it's really been quite effective in helping those Veterans transition from Higher Ed into the workforce so I don't know if the UMass System at large might consider joining that group as an employer.
And then to Patrick, a question, as a VSO, what do you find are your biggest challenges in connecting with the Veteran community in Watertown? And do you find that, you know, it's easier to connect with the older generation or are you connecting with the younger generation too that are now starting to come out?
Patrick: There are obstacles with both. I think what I notice, some the older generations of Veterans, when we talk to them about the V.A. benefits when talk to them about other things they might be eligible for, usually one of the first things I hear is "I don't really need it. I'm saving it for the next guy,
the next Veteran," everything else.
And I think that goes to the point, what I mentioned earlier about the outreach and talking to family members as well. And I guess I would say the most success I've had talking talking to that generation is explaining to them setting up the ground work now to take advantage of Veterans benefits you've earned. If you have an ailment or injury that affects your day-to-day life, because of your military service, you're not stealing from the V.A. or taking from another Veteran. And when you start the process now, you're supporting your family in the future, when unfortunately, maybe you've passed from those injuries, and, you know, the VSO or V.A. now has documentation that you suffered from those injuries and that unfortunately led to your passing whenever that is, and now the family members are now eligible for certain benefits.
And that's when the Veterans Service Officer can really come in and help and provide those types of services to the family when the last thing they are thinking about is V.A. Claims and fill out paperwork because a Veteran just passed. That's when the VSO can really
help and get to that paperwork.
And for the younger generation, I know there's... we could probably have a whole hour long class on Veterans organizations, how to get them going and how to not, and everything else.
I think from a generational standpoint, it's just some of the Veterans are younger. I've seen some data... I think typically the Veteran's age of joining a Veteran's organization is like 47.
So a lot of the post 9/11 Veterans are still young. They're probably still in college, maybe at the UMass System or maybe somewhere else, starting families and everything else.
So I think there's some onus on Veterans organizations to be more flexible.
I think we're seeing that. When I consider real quick with the Veterans organizations in Watertown, we're working with another Veterans organization called Frost Call that specializes in sort of playing video games. Yes, that's a younger generational thing that I think a lot of younger generation, a lot of younger Veterans are interested in but I've seen a lot of Veterans that say I'd like to learn how to do that so I can spend more time with my grandkids. It's a good way to reach as many people as we can. It's exciting to see Veterans organizations trying to be more flexible.
But all this to say, if a Veteran wants to get active or stay active, that's great. As long as we can make sure they are aware of all this information so that they to make that choice when they want to, then that's really what - as long as we can say that they know all this information, we can say we've done our job.
John Dawson: Thanks, Patrick. We do have a chat question for either one of you. As a follow up to the previous HR question, how can higher ed institutions better support Veterans looking to pursue a degree once they have transitioned to civilian life? Are there specific challenges or barriers to be more aware of to provide better support for our Veterans? How can we do better?
Patrick: I can say when I got out, when I decided to not re-enlist military, I made the decision knowing college was the next step. At my time, I went to Suffolk University. When I was there, one of the first things we did was we rebooted the Student Veterans Organization, and we got working with the Registrar's Office to create a summer orientation, a specific module for Student Veterans.
And we got a lot of success with that because it was a good way for the Veterans to meet colleagues, people that were peers, because when I joined and got to college, I think I was 24, and all of my peers were 18. So there's a six year age gap there, so it was good to meet some people that were sort of a similar age,
similar experience. And that definitely helped with the transition into college.
As far as, let's see, barriers, I think, you know, a big barrier, and... I'll admit I'm not entirely familiar with the tuition and everything else at the UMass System specifically, but when I was in college, I think there were two government shutdowns maybe three. And you know, the stress of having to worry about making sure the G.I. Bill kicked in exactly when it needed to and everything else was really, you know, kind of weighed on you during the times those were going on.
So anything, you know, in terms of making a Veteran's life easier especially when their in college, if your organizations are mindful when the time comes up, and letting them know, ensuring those options, they are aware of what the options are so they don't necessarily have to worry about writing a paper and figuring out
a stop gap in their tuition, I think that would go a long way for the students at your system.
Marty: John, if I could just comment on the question. What we found, when I was at UMass Lowell, we found that there were a lot of for-profit Universities, some folks that were always out promoting and trying to get Veterans to go to these universities that had lousy retention rates, lousy graduation rates, and oftentimes, people would come to our door having exhausted or depleted their Veterans benefits for higher education.
So I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done.
Part of what we were able to do at Lowell is... Veterans talk to each other. If there's a good experience somewhere, good information somewhere, and they find out, it's like this networking thing.
But a lot of - candidly, a lot of Veterans get screwed, because they end up getting into a program that isn't so focused on retention, or getting a degree. They exhaust their benefits, and then they come to a place like us.
So that's one comment I would have. We have to do a better job of providing specific services to Veterans and understand what their benefits are, understand, you know, the challenges they face. Make sure they get networking when they come to a university. They are talking to each other. That's why space is so important.
The other thing, I also think that, to the extent that we can have a University where all our campuses have specialized services for Veterans, we're going to be better off. And the extend we can communicate directly.
So that's just some of my experiences with dealing with a lot of these issues.
The bottom line is states can do more. I think we all can do more. And this is not something we should ever feel that... Be complacent about. This is something that requires constant improvement. The challenges Veterans face are changing. I mean, if you look at Iraq and Afghanistan, and anyone that goes into that kind of service, we got to be prepared for them when they come to the universities.
I didn't mean to butt in, but I wanted to comment on it.
Tom: Those are all excellent points, Mr. President. And to your point about going to other schools, a lot of private schools took advantage of the Yellow Ribbon Program. And the Veterans start - I have this program, I'm going to this school, and it was just more of - And I don't know, this 100%, I'm just going off what I'm talking to people, just a matter of the schools looking at the individual as a money resource rather than an actual resource that needs assistance.
I would say in terms of outreach, I think the new administration coming in, there may be an opportunity with the new governor, working with whoever the Secretary for the Department of Veterans Services is, an opportunity to work with them and maybe start creating a program where the Veterans can go and learn a little bit more what's available through the State System in higher education.
Marty: Yeah, to the extent I can help with that Tom, just let me know. I'd love to be helpful with setting something like that up.
Patrick: The last thing I would say on this one specifically is the first class I took in college was "The Ethics of War and Peace." After I deployed twice
to Afghanistan, I was convinced that I knew everything about this class. I think it was a good wake up call for me to walk into that class, and realize that I didn't know much of anything, especially when reading ancient Greek and talking about it with the Chair of the Philosophy Department at the time.
So I think it comes to creating this program to welcome Veterans in and even some of the curriculum itself, sort of helping Veterans navigate through these things in a program like that was probably the reason I was successful as I was in college.
John Dawson: Great. Thanks, Patrick. We do have a question in chat from Kerri Hudzikiewicz.
One of our interns recently left to join the Marine Corps. He successfully completed the program and mentioned that he is considering enlisting full time. Do you have advice on how to support him, or to help with his decision?
Tom: When the individual said full time, did he join the Marines to go into the Reserves or is he looking at it as a career?
Kerri: No, he joined the Reserves. So he went to Parris Island to go through the Marine Reserves Program. Now he's thinking about enlisting full time, and I'm not quite sure how to support him as somebody that has not been in service to our country.
And thank you both for your service to our country. It's one of the bravest things I think somebody can do and I honor that tremendously.
Tom: Well, Kerri, I think probably what he found upon graduating from Parris Island, which Patrick and I did - you find so much pride you find so much inner strength, that you say, you know, I want to do this, I want to be able to do this and maybe go full time.
I would recommend that, if he's home, he go and talk to a recruiter, or go and talk to, depending on what unit he's going to - he may be going to 21st Marines up there in Fort Devens, but I would talk to his subordinate - his Lieutenant, Captain, or whoever, and express to them he would like to go and sign on for three or four years.
John Dawson: Great. Thanks, Tom.
We have a chat from Deborah Ferreira.
Thank you for your service and for all the information you're sharing. My question is how is the military doing about being inclusive around those who want to join and are LGBTQ?
Tom: I think the Military today is probably one of the most inclusive institutions we have in this country, and I would like to believe we're doing a much better job when it comes to getting away from that "Don't ask, don't tell" mentality.
Patrick: I don't have too much to add. I think Tommy's right. At the state level, there was discussion recently about how the state can support Veterans who were processed out of the Military based on "Don't ask, don't tell," and have different types of characters at discharge that may be barriers for them to utilize Veterans Services based on them being of the LGBTQ population.
So it did certainly happen.
I know that at the state level we're working to rectify it. At the V.A. Level, they are doing the same thing with characters of discharge upgrades. VSOs are obviously doing our best to help out and point them in the direction of those resources.
And as far as individuals joining now, I don't think there are any sort of limitations on that. I don't think there's any limitations on benefits for same-sex marriages, or anything like that in terms of marriage benefits or VAS and other things in the military.
John: Great. Thanks, Patrick.
We have one last question from Brendan O'Connor.
Thanks to all who served and to the families who supported them.
Mr. George, what form of immediate assistance can the non-military supporters volunteer or offer to help VSOs deliver services?
Patrick: Yeah, like I said earlier, I think the most useful would be to share information that you hear about. You know, I think even just having this discussion now, everyone on this Zoom can say, Oh, I talked to... We had a Veterans Day presentation today. I learned this or that about something else.
And that might start a conversation.
And additionally, I think with resources, take a look at your specific city's website or if they have social media presence. If they have a newsletter - anything like that, sign up for that and share that information.
Like I said, if they're a Veteran that lives in Massachusetts, most things translate, so if they live in Boston, there's probably a similar benefit in Watertown, probably similar benefit in Amherst or Lowell or anything like that.
John Dawson: Great. Thanks, Patrick.
I think we're going to turn this over to John Dunlap for final comments.
John Dunlap: Thanks so much, John.
Tom: John, can I just close our portion with a quote I think people would appreciate. This is from our very first President, George Washington.
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportion to how they perceive the Veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by their nation."
I think that really speaks to what it is that we are looking at and trying to do today, is to let people know how we need to take care of the returning Veterans, the men and women serving today, because we will need men and women serving down the road.
John Dunlap. Thank you, Tom. And thank you Patrick, that was really moving. Everything you shared.
On behalf of all the President's Office, I want to thank you both for being here. I want wish you a Happy Birthday, one day early, and a Happy Veterans Day two days early. Most importantly, and I know that everybody shares in this, we want to thank you for your service to this country. And I also want to thank the other Veterans who are with us for your service to this country as well. And great turnout! Over 120 people with us, which says a lot about this event. And once again,
thank you to everybody, and have an enjoyable, peaceful Veteran's Day.
Tom and Patrick: Thank you.