Retired Military Recruiter Adjusts to Student Life

Posted on 08. Dec, 2009 by Samantha Stark in Uncategorized

By Samantha Stark

For the first time in over two decades, retired Air Force Sergeant Elky Jackson didn’t attend the Veterans Day Parade. She couldn’t. She had biology class.

After 24 years of active military duty as a health professions supervisor and recruiter, Jackson has a new gig. At 48, she’s a first semester student at Medgar Evers College in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Adjusting to student life has not been easy for Jackson. She’s learning to manage her time differently; she’s been thinking a lot about priorities.

Jackson was torn over whether to go to class or to the parade this year. She craved the energy of the parade—to be able to yell into a crowd of strangers and have them yell back.

But now that she is a student, Jackson often worries about falling behind. Her four-hour lab class only meets once a week, and she would have to skip the whole thing to attend the parade.

So Jackson listened to Barack Obama’s Veterans Day speech on NPR in the morning. Then she turned off her radio and started studying cell division.

She thought about the people in her Air Force unit while doing her mitosis lab assignment. But no one in biology knew to wish Jackson a happy Veterans Day. She doesn’t like to talk to her classmates about her years in the service.

“People think I’d be able to kill them just by poking them in the eye,” Jackson said. “You have to overcome a lot of misconceptions before you can have a real conversation.”

Jackson would like to meet up with fellow student veterans for support transitioning to school. Medgar Evers College is one of the few City University of New York schools without an established student veterans club, although, according to newly hired Veterans Affairs advisor Rosy Derick Hinton, the school has roughly 60 students receiving GI benefits.

Hinton is working with student veterans to create a club, and encouraged a handful of student veterans to ride the CUNY float in the Veterans Day parade this year.

Jackson was just getting out of biology when the parade ended. She thought about wearing her sky blue Air Force shirt, nametag and ribbons to class on Veterans Day, but was worried that her classmates would think she was there to recruit them.

Really, she said, she was just trying to be a civilian with 24 years worth of ties to the military.

In the end, Jackson went to biology dressed in black from head to toe. She said she thought it was a good way to honor her fallen comrades and those who were recently killed at Fort Hood.

After class, Jackson said she had no regrets skipping the parade this year.

“I was there vicariously,” she said. “I consider myself a very patriotic person. But I’m in transition from being in the military to being an everyday person.”

Jackson plans to attend future Medgar Evers Student Veteran Club events. That is, if she doesn’t have class.

“What I miss most about the military is the camaraderie,” Jackson said. “In the military, you’re automatically part of the group.”