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| photo courtesy of Wilson |
“I always say that I have such a
low set point,” Wilson explains. “Even with law school, where everyone’s super
stressed. But I always say ‘today is not one of my top 20 worst days’. So
anything I do, I’ve had something that I’ve done that’s way worse.”
Schoolwork makes up a typical day
for Wilson now, but it wasn’t like that a few years ago. She is a U.S. Army
veteran after having served for 5 years. Wilson deployed twice, each time for a
full year, working in legal services for the army.
Monique says deployment is like a
state of stasis. She remembers how things were when she left the United States,
and coming back home after her tour, she found herself struggling to adjust to
a country that seemed fast-forwarded a year.
“When I came back they told me that
Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor,” she said. “I thought they were joking. When
you’re so far away from everything else you can’t see things as they’re
progressing.”
Now, she’s returned to civilian
life, and student life. After her
second tour, Wilson’s parents allowed her to spend 6 month to relax at home and
decompress; something she says helped her transition back to civilian life
tremendously. From there, however, it was back to school. Wilson worked her way
through another undergraduate degree before making it to UF’s law school.
Schools across the country are
working to adapt to the influx of student veterans like Wilson. In April, UF
created the Collegiate Veterans Success Center, which houses valuable resources
for these student veterans, including help understanding their benefits.
Other organizations are working to
partner with student veterans. The Counseling and Wellness Center offers resources for veterans who are working to adapt to their new
environment.
“(We help with) stress management,
transitioning, family stuff,” says UF Counseling and Wellness Counselor Amanda
Ross. “Just whatever we can do to support them in that.”
The CWC is currently working to
understand what university faculty and staff know, and feel, about student
veterans. Ross says the center is working to implement a training plan for
faculty to help make the campus more veteran-friendly.
Wilson says people ask insensitive questions about her deployment all the time.
“A lot of times it’s surprising how
civilians see people in the military,” Wilson said. “In my class a student gave
a presentation on a man, a war veteran, who killed an elderly lady. The student
flippantly said ‘You know how those people are. They go to war and you don’t
know how they’re going to come back.’ I thought, well I went to war. Do you
think I’m going to become violent, too? It’s kind of interesting to see the
disconnect.”
However, Wilson credits her family,
her patience, and her time to heal after deployment as her way of handling
those questions in the hopes that some other
veteran won’t have to.
“I say it’s
like picking up rocks. The road is kind of rough so I just pick up rocks so the
next person does not have to trip over the rocks,” she said. “That’s kind of my
main goal.”
So as Wilson
navigates life as a law student, she also does so as a veteran. She plans to
stay active in Success Center, and work to help other student veterans with the
transition, hoping to clear the path in the way.
To find out more about student veterans at UF, you can visit and listen to my radio story on WUFT.
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