PVCC Puma Press

From the Battle Front to the College Front
PVCC Veterans Association assists transition
By Miguel Saucedo, October 2009
World News Editor

Servicemen and servicewomen returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan are now trading their old weapons for a new kind of armament.

Books and pens are slowly becoming the newest hardware for the modern warrior returning home from battle in the 21st century.

With 250 registered veterans at Paradise Valley Community College this fall semester, the services provided by the college’s new, reorganized veterans’ club or Veterans’ Association is an invaluable resource to assist the new and returning military veterans to the PVCC Campus, says Student Adviser for the club, Michele Marion, who is also an Air Force veteran.

“Veterans are still being ‘out-processed’ from the military, sometimes three-to-six months after their official termination dates,” says Marion. “Some veteran students are having to return to various posts for medical and physical examinations and other classified briefings as a process of their release.”

Marion says that the Veterans’ Association is here to assist vets as they slowly become acclimated to civilian and college life. “Some are still going through ‘re-entry shock, plus they have lived in extreme… conditions. This is why I can’t overemphasize the importance of the club.”

“We also want to pass on important information through the college Web site to those still on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and other parts of the world, by letting them know of the association’s existence, and other services that are available to them through the college,” she says.

Nader Terani, president of the Veterans’ Association at PVCC, who also served in the Navy’s elite President’s Honor Guard says, the association’s motto is: Service to Country. . .Service to Community, which is the defining principle of the organization.

He adds that “since we now have a total volunteer military, there now exists an unrivaled, unprecedented and profound notion of giving up the self—self-sacrifice for the sake of your country. So when a service person leaves the military, that person’s heart is left with an enormous void. That’s why the Veterans’ Association is so vital.”

“The club,” he continues, “gives those that served, an opportunity to keep serving their country by providing the proper direction so they can now serve their community. This gives them the satisfaction of honor fulfilled.”

Marion says that her job is to give direction to the Veterans’ Association and not to define it. “It’s up to the membership to decide where and how far they want to go.”

She also believes that Terani, who resurrected the club in the fall of 2008, is determined to rebuild the association so that it will have a lasting legacy for future veterans.

“We have a… nucleus of very strong individuals that are right now building the infrastructure of the association so that it can be here when new veterans come home year after year,” says Terani.

One other person who is helping to bring change to the new Veterans’ Association is Brinn Aaron, a PVCC student and veteran, who is also advocating the need for a new association. Aaron who says he loves jumping out of perfectly good aircraft, which he did as an airborne reconnaissance scout for the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq says, veterans need a place they can go for assistance, talk to other vets, and find something in common.

Aaron who is currently studying Foreign Language at PVCC says, he loved parachuting while getting paid, saying that his job was collecting Intel over the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan and recalls his service as a great honor. He says he is going to continue his service to his country in a more personal capacity as a special agent for the FBI.

Terani ends by saying that the Veterans Association with the assistance of Cheryl Moore in the registration office has a current membership of 30 students and notes that a student does not have to be a veteran to join the club. He encourages other students to get involved with the association and advises that if anyone who sees a veteran in the mall or church or on campus, that we should all let them know how much we appreciate their service to our country.

“Talk to them,” he says. “Visit them at the VA Hospitals, sit with them in a park and listen to their stories. They want to be heard, want to be acknowledged. This kind of goodwill goes a lot further than most people think.”

For more information about PVCC’s Veterans’ Association, contact