Of 16,610 Madison Area Technical College students, 777 are veterans. Look around in your classes. Of 20-25 students, one of your classmates is probably a veteran.

Tina Stockton, Madison College’s only Veteran Service Coordinator, is frequently the first point of contact for veteran students. Stockton believes they bring amazing strengths. Their leadership skills, maturity and diversity of experience are major contributions to the Madison College community.

Jennifer Langenohl believes in this as well. Langenohl, 27, served as a Marine in Iraq. She ran radio support on convoy operations and worked in Fallujah, where her duties included providing security operations with female Iraqis at entry control points.

Langenohl now uses her Marine experience to “adapt and overcome” any difficulties in the school environment. She would like to pass along this approach to her fellow students who she sees get very anxious about assignments and exams. She hopes to relay “an infectious attitude of competence.”

John Frey, 40, veteran of Bosnia and Afghanistan, served as an infantry soldier. He hopes to affect at least one of his fellow students “to see life from another’s perspective,” and encourages veteran and nonveteran alike to be open to one another’s differences and unique experiences.

Despite their strengths, Stockton does see veterans for a variety of challenges that are unique.

Across the nation, veteran students report a sense of alienation from their fellow students, according to HigherEd.com. They miss the intense and close community of the military. They report a lack of understanding among their nonveteran classmates and instructors regarding the difficulties military members face, and challenges endured during their service. Being older and with vastly different experience, their priorities are frequently different than their peers.

Langenohl expressed concern about being seen as “a machine, no feelings” or that others may be intimidated by her combat service.

Frey conveys a belief that a veteran’s approach to dealing with life is frequently very different. Trying to communicate across that boundary can be difficult. His concern is that because veteran students may remain anonymous in our midst, nonveterans may not recognize the “hair trigger reflexes” that come with the daily rigors of battle. Most people can’t understand such as treating a wounded friend and retrieving body parts so that a family can have a service member for burial.

Frey hopes that the Madison College community can be more thoughtful and consider what they say and how they say it, he said.

Stockton’s background and training is in education, not in counseling or therapy. Her role in many situations is to refer to internal and external resources such as Madison College Disability Resource Services, Student Services for counseling, Madison Vet Center, or the Veterans Hospital for therapy on readjustment and PTSD. She considers it critical that veteran students know that there are resources available and encourages them to reach out to her before problems become so severe they consider dropping out. A particular challenge she deals with in her position is difficulties with the GI Bill and returning to or adjusting to the college environment.

After the structured life of the military, veterans sometimes have difficulty with time management, financial planning and general life preparedness for school, in addition to readjustment issues, PTSD and seen and unseen disabilities.

Madison College is attempting to address general preparedness among veterans with an innovative class called College Success for Veterans. The three-credit class has been offered since January 2010. The focus of this course, taught by Deb Olsen, is to emphasize the strengths brought from the military and to attempt to fill in the gaps that would be pitfalls to college success. Stockton believes one of these pitfalls is the hesitance among veteran students to share their military experiences.

“As much as I didn’t like being there, I think it is my best time in the military,” Langenohl said. “It reminds me of what we have good over here.”

Langenohl is proud of her service and hopes that the Madison College community will be more supportive of the local military organizations. Care packages and letters from home are the very desperate needs of disabled and homeless veterans in our community, she said.

In sharing their experiences, Stockton believes veteran students would be enriching the nonveteran experience. They would be reaching out to other veterans who haven’t felt comfortable opening up, and relaying what Stockton believes is the critical message of “you are not alone.”