The Veterans Support Service (VSS) office awarded four veteran students with scholarships for their excellent academic performance and commemoration of their service to wrap up the week-long celebration of Veterans Week.
The award ceremony on Nov. 14 championed veteran students enrolled at OU, currently deployed personnel taking online classes and all veteran-connected community members. The focus of the week-long celebration was to connect the campus community with veteran students and show gratitude for their service.
“Our whole goal is to try to bring the student veterans together and for the campus community to experience who student veterans are, because you don’t know who they are, and they’re just regular people,” Lisa Rhoades, VSS coordinator, said.
Monday, Nov. 10, kicked off the week with a military mess-hall style breakfast; eggs, toast, gravy, hashbrowns and coffee. A push, pull, plank competition followed the day after to immerse students in the military Initial Strength Test standard.
“Then Thursday, they did a Ruck March, so [participants] had a backpack of food, and they did a mile around campus, and we donated to Caroline’s house up in Lapeer,” Rhoades said. “It’s a man who bought a farm with 20 bedrooms in it, and he brings homeless people in there until they can get on their feet. We split the donations with the Golden Grizzly Pantry to keep the community connection.”
The Veteran Recognition and Scholarship luncheon on Nov. 14 wrapped up the celebration, awarding four veteran students with scholarships donated by community partners like MAGNA. With a growing veteran population enrolling at OU, the office went from supporting about 250 in 2019 to over 300 this Fall semester.
“Our other shining star is our internship and mentorship program with Lear, we call it ‘OU Serves,’ Supporting Education and Resources for Veteran Excellence,” Rhoades said. “We had three students finish our first cohort this summer, and it is an internship mentorship program for students in their junior or senior year.”
Veteran students awarded recognition shared how their college experience was uniquely shaped by their time in service.
“I was a Nuclear Machinist’s Mate in the Navy,” Eric Dassatt, mechanical engineering veteran student, said. “I was on the USS South Dakota, the submarine; I was in charge of the engine room operations, basically as a type of supervisor.”
The transition from operating the water going to a reactor plant in a fast-paced environment to a Calculus two class was a learning experience in itself, Dassatt explained.
“My experience at OU has actually taught me to slow down, because when I was always chasing the next assignment, I kind of sometimes might have been missing the point,” Dassatt said. “I definitely say that learning to slow down and to go one day at a time has really helped me get here where I am today.”
In the spirit of gratitude, he also shared a memory that impacted his perception of service and appreciation for veteran-connected students. Sitting at a restaurant, an older veteran approached his family and “looked at my son, who was very young, and he said, I’d go back to war for you any day,” Dassatt recalled.
“I thought that was really weird, because that’s a really weird thing to say, the implications of what you just said — but he’s not talking about war,” Dassatt said. “The people who choose to serve already did so because of what society is, and they want it a certain way, either changed or the same, but they want it for, hopefully, the right reasons, and that’s why they do the right thing.”
Dassatt encouraged all students to do the right thing, even if it is challenging or small and to also think about who they are becoming to do the right thing.
“Just do the right thing, because you know what it is, sometimes it’s shutting up when the professor’s talking,” Dassatt said. “Sometimes it’s standing up for an injustice that you see, it doesn’t always have to be big. Sometimes it can just be a small sacrifice, like being quiet.”
