Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Last year the Provost of the University, Ben Polak, and I had discussions regarding my experience as a veteran who had been working at Yale for over 25 years.
He was extremely interested in issues related to military veter-ans at Yale and asked for my thoughts on the matter. I told him that, for the vast majority of my time at Yale, very few people knew that I had served in the United States Air Force and even fewer knew about my year of service in Vietnam.
He asked why and I responded that my military service had nev-er been relevant to my job in financial administration at the Child Study Center, on Project X or in Anesthesiology.
We also discussed the relatively recent celebrations of Veterans Day and how important they were to those who at-tended, especially those who had served or those with family members in the military.
He asked me to help to develop an approach to members of the Yale Community who are military veterans or who have relatives serving. We agreed that the issues were not well understood and I agreed (enthusiastically) to support this work when I retired from my full time job at Yale.
We have learned a great deal and know that we have only scratched the surface.
The Yale Veteran’s Network (YVN) publishes this newsletter and is a primary source of connection and information. I plan to write a short column each month to review issues and to ask for input or to respond to areas of misunderstanding wherever possible.
I appreciate the opportunity and look forward to your questions and comments on how we might support those who have served.
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