Phil: These veteran students are very important to me. My feelings about this country are complicated, probably like everybody’s, but people who serve [pause] deserve a degree of consideration when it’s possible. Some help. In an environment like an academic institution, where help can be difficult to identify. It’s hard to know where to turn, especially when you don’t like the 19 and 20 year olds and you are 25. So where do you go? They should go to other vets first. But if a faculty member can be of assistance, I would like to be that person.
Elizabeth: Do you think Brooklyn College is doing its job in supporting their veterans?
Phil: We do as well as we can. As I was saying, some veterans don’t want to self identify and THATS the problem. When they do identify themselves, we do reach out to them and work hard, but if I don’t know that you are there, I don’t know how to help you. I am on the task force for veterans affairs, and we spend a lot of time trying to deal with the bureaucratic bullshit, but one of the several things that I made sure that Veterans Affairs does every semester around exam and final season is that we offer stress reduction workshops cuz one of my interviewees is now director of veteran affairs in a community college up in Westchester and he had one of his student veterans kill themselves, and I NEVER want that. So we brought mental first aid to campus. We make sure that people get hooked up with disability services if that’s appropriate. [end]
