Veterans who gain the most attention in the United States typically fall into one of two categories. There are the ones celebrated for the heroism they displayed while battling in war zones and the others who’ve returned broken from those same locales, battling conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and struggling to readjust to civilian life. But most former soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen exist unnoticed somewhere in the wide space between.
“There’s this whole group of stealth veterans,” says Joshua Perschbacher, director of the Veterans Center at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. “They probably sit in the same pew at church next to you. They’re at the baseball games. And unless they are invited to stand up on 9/11 or Veterans Day, you might never know that person is a vet.”
Currently, more than 400 student veterans have found a home on the UMSL campus. They blend right into the rest of the student population as they work to earn their degrees and brighten their futures. Here are a few of their stories.
Paul Nator, former Green Beret, civil engineering major
Paul Nator was attending Ranken Technical College and working construction jobs on the side back in 2010, but he couldn’t escape this persistent feeling he could be doing something bigger. He enlisted in the United States Army and eventually earned his way into special forces, spending five years as a Green Beret. He served five deployments, including two in Iraq and three in Southeast Asia.
Nator was first deployed to Iraq as Operation Iraqi Freedom gave way to Operation New Dawn, but he returned years later as fighting flared up again. His experiences overseas shaped him. “You go through these hardships and successes with people that are like you and understand you to coming back here, and it’s just not the same I guess,” Nator says. “It wasn’t easy to leave behind.”
Nator knew he had to find something to challenge himself as he transitioned out of military service. He thought the UMSL/WUSTL Joint Undergraduate Engineering Program could do just that. He still had a difficult time leaving behind the camaraderie of his unit.
“It’s cliché, but we fight for one another,” he says. “I spent two years in the infantry and five years in special forces, and even more so on a special forces team, you know every single one of their wives and kids. It’s a big family.”
After discharging in 2017, he remained wary of returning to school and uncertain how he’d fit in after so much time away. “I know at first I was very standoffish in thinking I might be too old for this,” Nator says. “The commuter population and the veteran population made it easier than I originally thought.”
Nator hasn’t only been working toward his degree in civil engineering. He’s also been studying entrepreneurship and spent four months last year interning with startup Jrop through the Ameren Accelerator program. Just being in that environment and interacting with other interns inspired Nator to explore launching his own business.
He’s brought his military expertise to Green Hat Shooting Solutions, which opened last May and provides firearms training. He also took part in the inaugural Entrepreneur Quest Student Accelerator as he grows the venture. “As a business, we’re really getting a lot of momentum,” Nator says, “and having conversations with different military units that want to hire us on as contractors.”
Margaret Rheinecker, Air Force veteran, nursing major
Margaret Rheinecker spent seven years as an aerospace medical technician in the U.S. Air Force. “That’s a very long way of saying medic,” says Rheinecker, who was stationed most of that time at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas.
The experiences she had working in the flight medicine clinic there and during three deployments – one to Kyrgyzstan and two to Qatar – gave her an up-close look at health care and ultimately steered her toward her intended career in nursing. “I like interacting with patients and the ability to potentially help somebody – whether it’s just a minor scrape or abrasion or they’re on their deathbeds,” Rheinecker says. “It’s really rewarding.”
She started making plans to study nursing and had settled on UMSL after researching the BSN program and the Veterans Center even before she separated in July 2017. Rheinecker started classes a month later and has been making steady progress toward her degree. The Dupo, Illinois, native had already had a year of college coursework at the University of Missouri–Columbia before her enlistment, and she’s now on track to graduate in 2020. Ultimately, Rheinecker would like to end up working with trauma patients, either in an emergency room or trauma intensive care unit.
“I want to do something a little fast paced and a little bit more hands on,” she says. “When I did my rotations at the trauma center, I felt like I was able to help more. You could see anything from folks who were sick to somebody who broke a bone to a full trauma code.”
Rheinecker has maintained her military connections since she started school, serving one weekend a month and training two weeks a year in the Illinois Air National Guard. She hasn’t ruled out re-enlisting after graduation. “I have not made that decision yet,” Rheinecker says. “I’ve just wanted to focus more on school. You always have the ability to go back to active duty. I’ve been kind of eyeballing it, but I’ll just have to see where it goes in two years.”
Jarrett Hickman, Marine Corps veteran, psychology major
Jarrett Hickman had been enjoying his time in the military, especially the stretch in which he was stationed overseas in Okinawa, Japan. “That place was like a vacation,” he says. “I would love to retire there.”
He also thought he was getting ideal training for the type of job he wanted post-service by working as a military police officer in the Marine Corps. But a freak back injury suffered while lifting weights during his stay at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina threw his future in criminal justice into disarray.
“I couldn’t sit in a patrol car longer than two or three hours, and it limited my ability to run,” he says. Doctors didn’t recommend surgery but instead gave him spinal injections, and Hickman began working with a chiropractor while starting to reconsider his future.
The native of Alton, Illinois, long had an interest in psychology, so he decided to pursue that upon separating from the corps after five years. He started at Lewis and Clark Community College and then transferred to UMSL at the urging of one of his instructors. His first semester back in school was rough as he attempted to work full time and maintain a full course load with a child at home. He’s since dropped his job to focus solely on studying while his family has grown. He and his wife, Britney, now have three children, ages 1, 3 and 5.
Hickman’s on track to graduate this spring and has been applying to graduate programs. He wants to be a clinical psychologist, and he recognizes it’s a career that could help him serve other veterans. “Right now, I’m studying PTSD in the lab, and I did that because, like most veterans, I’ve had people that I know who’ve committed suicide after getting out or right before they got out,” he says. “If I could learn skills to help people go through that transitioning process, I’d really like that.” It’s not the only group he’s interested in serving. He’s also honing his Spanish skills so he can work as a bilingual counselor because he sees a need among the growing Hispanic immigrant population.