Doc Dinger’s convoy

The Horn of Panjwai, perhaps one of the deadliest regions in Afghanistan, is considered the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. Over a decade of NATO operations in this flatland region has proved unsuccessful in rooting the Taliban out this province.

Stephen Derendinger, a US Army combat medic from the California National Guard, found himself celebrating his birthday in the Horn of Panjwai. His unit was tasked to escort 50 dump trucks through the area, with his team of engineers in five armored gun trucks, over dirt and gravel roads in blistering 100-degree heat. For weeks, the Taliban had been probing the area. Eventually, the insurgents would wage a complex ambush against his unit.

“Normally the Taliban wait ‘til it cools down in the afternoon before they go pew-pew, but on that day they said fuck it,” says Derendinger.

At approximately noon, the insurgents attacked Derendinger and his convoy. An RPG fired by the insurgents slammed a direct hit into the lead convoy disabling the entire forward momentum. The deafening explosion and smoke disoriented everyone behind the lead truck; no one was able to identify if it was a rocket or an IED. Before the group could react defensively, the air began to crack and snap around them. The insurgents were beginning to unleash a hail of lead from their machine guns from multiple positions.

“For me it was a crazy experience,” said Derendinger, “since it was my first trauma situation and I had to hit the ground running and it was a mass-casualty incident. The firefight lasted maybe 10 minutes, then the insurgents broke contact to pull to a safer distance and engage us since our gun trucks collapsed down.”

Derendinger was the only medic and had to deal with six trauma care patients in the midst of an ambush. He recalls the first thought that ran through his mind: “Fuck, this is happening.” He momentarily went blank before his medical training quickly came back to him. Right before he dismounted his vehicle the final moment of truth ran through his head, “This is my job and I have to do it.”

For his actions, Derendinger was awarded the coveted US Army Combat Medical Badge. Within a year and a half after that ordeal, Derendinger found himself readjusting back to civilian life in the Bay Area, taking classes at De Anza where many students have no idea of his actions. For many war veterans in the United States military, their acts of valor and courage go largely unnoticed and often unappreciated when they settle back into the civilian academic environment.

One of the most unwelcoming statements many student veterans have to deal with when they transition back to college is hearing the phrase, “did you ever kill anyone while you were over there?”

A lot of military veterans who choose to leave the armed forces and join the world of academia abhor that question. It dehumanizes them and creates the negative stigma that war veterans only exist to rob human life. Most veterans simply want to be treated like a fellow human being. For a medic like Derendinger, the question if he has killed anyone is downright offensive.

Some of the challenges that veterans face upon transitioning to academia are the skewed perceptions of the military by their fellow students. Whether it is a lack of understanding of military culture and it’s people, or a lack of communication between the Soldier and the civilian, the perceived differences were only created by an alternate path of life experiences. These different paths in lives create the rift in mentality between veterans and fellow students.

In the military, particularly the US Army and the US Marine Corps, the average service member in these branches have been subjected to extreme hardships including: sleep deprivation, food deprivation, physical exhaustion, mental anguish, violence, mind numbing boredom, dehydration, and the exposure to the elements. Hearing a college student complain about their homework evokes little to no sympathy from the student veteran. Most first-world complaints fall flat in the face of the typical veteran enrolled in college.

“Compared to us, who at the same age were getting trained in foreign languages, jumping out of airplanes, getting deployed, and serving a job with a higher purpose. We were able to do more at the same age,” says Travis Grothaus.

Grothaus, a former paratrooper under the Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, served four years and immediately enrolled into college in order to use his GI Bill benefits when his enlistment contract ended. Grothaus sees that being a veteran provides some unique advantages.

“Critical thinking and problem solving come more easily to me, which makes all of my homework a breeze,” says Grothaus, “I don’t even procrastinate anymore, I know that a 15-page long research paper can either be an all-nighter with a terrible grade, or 20 minutes a day and turn out great.”

Despite petty grievances of civilian life, many veterans such as Derendinger and Grothaus are optimistic about the future. Grothaus says it was a unique experience on campus seeing 18 year olds actually look happy for once, in comparison to military life, which can often times be demoralizing and traumatic.

According a recent article from The Journal of Higher Education on student veterans, many service members noted that they were extremely motivated to finish up their degree. A lot of the motivation for academic immersion stems from the mountain of life experience and critical thinking skills veterans developed over the years to mold themselves from war fighters into intellectually capable students.

“Critical thinking, that’s clutch for military, especially under pressure,” says Derendinger, “I’ve noticed at least this last mid-term I didn’t get boggled down trying to read into the questions. I just looked at them from a logical and basic view, best grades I’ve had so far in my educational history.”

While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have faded from the mainstream consciousness, it does not mean that the presence of the military and its people will fade. Waves of veterans will continue to enroll into college for years to come. These individuals have shed their boots, uniform, and rank in order to develop themselves in a higher capacity outside the armed forces.

They are men and women from all walks of life, with incredible insight from a mountain of life experience combined with a sharp work ethic forged from their military service to offer. The diversity of the military veterans reflects the diversity of the American public, and they have ascended from their wartime purpose to the world of academia in order to redefine their purpose in American society. These are Americans who have sacrificed a number of their prime years to serve this nation’s armed forces. These individuals are no longer service members, they are not victims, they are now students.