For disabled war veterans, returning to school can be a challenge as they learn how to cope with the persistent reminders of their military service.
UB students Dmitri Tsabai and Mark Schneider are living proof that disabled veterans can overcome their challenges with the help of UB's Disability Services and the Serviceman's Readjustment Act.
Tsabai, a junior business major, is a former US Marine. He suffered a spontaneous brain injury while stationed in North Carolina just before his unit was deployed to Iraq. He believes the injury was related to an anthrax vaccination he received just prior to the incident, though the exact cause was never reported.
The resulting disabilities made returning to school difficult.
"It wasn't easy, especially with the brain injury," Tsabai said. "I have really bad short term memory loss. I see double now."
Schneider, a non-traditional psychology student, sustained significant hearing loss as a result of his time in the Navy as a meteorologist. The military considers high levels of hearing loss a disability.
UB offers disabled veterans the same services they provide to any other disabled student, but the program does not seek them out, according to Randall Borst, director of Disability Services. Disabled veterans can receive wheelchair accessible transportation, modified administration of exams, assistive listening devices and lecture notes, according to the Disability Services Web site.
"Everything that we offer...is based on individual need," Borst said.
The Office of Veteran Affairs also provides services to disabled veterans. However, the two offices do not work together.
During his 11 years with Disability Services, Borst has found many reasons why disabled veterans have not sought his office's help.
"They might not even think of themselves as having disabilities," Borst said. "So when they need assistance of some kind and when they need accommodations in the classroom, it may not occur to them to check with Disability Services."
Borst has seen veterans struggle with returning to higher education, particularly those with mental disabilities.
"Some of them do have things like post-traumatic stress disorder," Borst said. "What tends to happen is that renewed stress...tends to trigger old responses. For example, course tests...if you're in a big room full of a lot of people and you're under stress to get it done, you can really faze out into your stress instead of being involved with the test."
Disability Services often relocates these students to a quiet area with less people and gives them more time to complete tests. The goal is to relieve as much of the stress of as possible, according to Borst.
Chapter 31 of the US military's Serviceman's Readjustment Act offers many types of services to disabled veterans, so veterans don't need to rely on the university as much.
Borst believes that Chapter 31 and disabled veterans pushed the envelope for all disabled people in the US.
"The disabled vets were really the ones that got vocational rehabilitation and ultimately equal rights for disabled people," Borst said. "They were the first to have official recognition status."
The US military currently offers all disabled veterans "Vocational Rehabilitation." It is designed to provide a "seamless transition from military service to a successful rehabilitation and on to suitable employment," according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs' Web site.
Chapter 31 benefits are available to most veterans with disabilities. It covers problems as severe as amputations and mental problems, as well as other issues such as sight impairment and hearing loss.
"It pays for your tuition, your books, you have an allowance for supplies...and a $500 cost of living stipend every month on top of that," said Schneider, who is also a work-study student at the Office of Veterans Affairs on campus.
Disabled veterans can accept the program in addition to the G.I. Bill, a sum of money to which all veterans who complete their service are entitled.
The two acts were passed following World War II in an attempt to help veterans find success in the post-war boom.
Tsabai found Chapter 31 to be extremely useful.
"I think if you let the program work for you, build the relationships with your counselors, and utilize all the things that are made available, it's really a fantastic program," Tsabai said.
Unfortunately, while Chapter 31 can be useful, many disabled veterans are unaware of its benefits.
"A lot of the vets don't realize what's out there," Schneider said. "When you go in to talk about benefits with a counselor, they won't bring that up. I don't think it's on a willful negligence that they don't tell people, but they're not forthcoming with it."
Since Tsabai and Schneider found Chapter 31 and have experienced success in college, they have been grateful to be in higher education.
"I shouldn't be here to begin with," Tsabai said. "They called my mom and they told her they were going to perform this procedure which would probably kill [me]...so when I did live through that one, they told her 'okay, he lived. But he's probably going to be in a nursing home for the rest of his life.'"
Tsabai recently purchased a home and started a business, showing that with some help, disabled veterans can learn how to deal with their new disabilities and transition back into civilian life with success.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
