By Gabrielle Moore, Editor in Chief, and Emily Slater, News Editor
The Student Veterans Association of Lone Star College-Kingwood will be hosting an event titled Veterans Awareness Panel Discussion as an effort to create a dialogue between veterans and civilians within the community on the struggles that veterans face when returning to the civilian realm of the United States.
“Being able to put a face on these veterans, to give them their personality back outside of what they’ve been through would be a big help in getting back into the regular culture, but that starts with the community not being afraid of talking,” Commanding Officer of SVA Daniel Sublett said. “You have to be able to discuss these things openly, or they’re not going to be solved.”
In the evening of March 23 in the Student Conference Center, veterans of the campus and the community will share their stories, along with having professionals sharing resources, ultimately leading to an open forum between SVA, Veteran Affairs, and the community.
Flier advertising the Veterans Awareness Panel Discussion. Courtesy of Student Veterans Association.
“One of the biggest things we want to do with this is we want to illustrate to other people, we want to illustrate specifically to other veterans, that asking for help is not a weakness,” Sublett said.
Sublett, who is a veteran after serving six years in the Air Force, had been diagnosed with PTSD and found that “talking is what actually fixed me,” instead of the prescribed medications which “just plugged the hole…stopped a leak, but it didn’t fix the problem.”
SVA is now an official chapter of the non-profit national organization Student Veterans of America which provides this student organization at LSC-Kingwood the “[ability] to bridge the gap to associate civilians with veterans, so that we have a presence,” Sublett said, as well as “[giving] us the foothold to continue on.” Furthermore, SVA is now expanding its membership to those that are related to a veteran or active member of the military.
