After recovering in Walter Reed hospital from an amputation in 2005, I went straight to the classroom at The George Washington University. My initial thought was, I have surpassed so much adversity, life of a college student should be no problem.

I quickly found out that the life of a 23 year old veteran entering freshmen year was not as easy as one may think. I experienced the same hardships as most freshmen, trying to maintain good study habits, learning how to navigate around the campus to find needed resources and adjusting to the structure of a classroom.

However, the difference was the isolation I felt and finding like minded individuals I could share my experience from the military with. My day to day life consisted of classes and studying in between but very little interaction with others. I felt that there would not be any reason to develop relationships with the other students because our backgrounds were vastly different and the likelihood that other students would understand anything about me was slim.

After spending the first 2 years with this attitude I met another marine that recently transferred. After noticing we had the same issues we decided to start a student veteran’s organization. Surprisingly, we found there were more veterans on campus then we had anticipated.

Through this organization I started to recognize that the university and its students not only were responsive to our backgrounds but were interested. Reaching out has helped me and other veterans on campus feel like part of the community and allowed us to collaborate and share the similar camaraderie of the military.

Now, a senior, I have learned that although the other students have different backgrounds and may not be able to relate to a veteran, my college experience has measurably improved with reaching out to others. I have also learned that it is up to us, the veterans, to change our perspective of non veterans and should not be left up to the other students; after all, we can’t blame them for not being able to relate to a war zone.

If veterans truly want to transition into the civilian world then we need to adapt and overcome the differences of military and nonmilitary life.

Kevin Blanchard is a senior at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.