MHCC OFFERS WELCOME AUTONOMY TO VETS

One vet’s perspective on the college experience at Mt. Hood and the cultural differences

It is almost hard to write a point-of-view article as a military veteran. Every veteran has their own unique experience, just like every person.

I have had hardships and trauma. I am sure there are students here that have gone through their own individual events and analogous parallels. Someone’s worst day is their worst day. Some of us couldn’t name a worst day, because we have had a few too many.

So, going to school here is different. I see people who each have their own struggle and that MHCC is there to help them.

For me, I have the ability to more or less speak my mind. I have teachers who have personal political views, and it shows. But it almost is comforting. In the military it is discouraged to have a dissenting opinion, and here it is allowed. I feel more human and able to be myself, and that is something that is newer after getting out of the service. But then again, college is a new thing to everyone going to school here.

Other veterans I have spoken to want me to emphasize we came from an objective reality – where a running time was timed to the second, you were weighed, you were educated and tested, and you were what you were. Your personality was also tested.

(On the latter point, veterans may come off a little coarse but at one point or another, we probably got into a fist fight with a good friend over something we laughed about shortly after.)

Not that MHCC doesn’t have tests and requirements, but here it is more of a subjective reality. That is something that is different. Veterans come from a place where you have a specialty already. You have to be a machine gunner, a corpsman/medic, a motor transport operator, an ammo technician, a cook, a drill sergeant, even a veterinarian or a dentist.

When I saw tampons in the MHCC male restroom my initial thought was not about trans individuals, it was that if they were in the female bathroom they’d be cleaned out quickly since they are a basic hygiene need.

If our chain-of-command ever gave us batteries for our optics and whatnot, we’d use theirs and save our own personal ones. Most of the time the command didn’t pay for batteries, though.

The Fall Term is coming to an end, and I am not sure what is coming up next term, and then after that one or one year down the line. When you make a plan, God laughs, ya know?

At MHCC everyone is still figuring out what to do and who they are, and I suppose so is the veteran that is going here alongside them.

Maybe some of these students next to me will decide to enlist and then write a new article for The Advocate in a few years.

But, hopefully I’ll be gone by then. The GI Bill doesn’t last that long!

Will Bishop