EDITOR’S NOTE: This report has been corrected to reflect that Chris Enges served as a Navy Seabee from 1972-76.
PORT ANGELES — At 24, Lauren Piper has seen plenty. And she knows exactly what she wants.
Piper joined the U.S. Air Force a little over five years ago, not long after her 19th birthday, and studied to become a medical technician.
Stationed at Texas’ Lackland Air Force Base, Piper served a stateside deployment with war-wounded service members making the transition home.
“They were hurting physically; they were hurting in many other respects,” she said.
Piper added that she saw, up close, the psychological impact of war, and how interconnected it is with a service member’s whole being.
Today, Piper is making a transition of her own.
She’s among the men and women using Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to attend Peninsula College — which is based in Port Angeles and has sites in Port Townsend and Forks — where she’s preparing to enter the nursing program.
This means tough courses — statistics, anatomy and physiology in winter quarter — but Piper is a potent blend of confidence and desire.
The military presented her with challenges that were very difficult, and that strengthened her purpose in life. Her driving principle, she said, is to see people healthy.
For students like Piper, college is a chance to learn to help fellow vets, whatever their situation. She’s fierce when speaking about this intention — summed up in a favorite quotation from Audrey Hepburn:
“People . . . have to be restored, renewed. Never throw out anyone,” said the late actress, who used her fame in the 1950s to raise funds and awareness for World War II veterans.
Piper is among 105 veterans attending Peninsula College part or full time.
Another 14 children or spouses of vets are also on campus, while 12 students are receiving benefits from a veteran spouse or parent who is disabled, deceased or missing in action.
Benefits vary by length and era of service, but at Peninsula College, most are using the Post-9/11 GI Bill, enacted seven years ago.
These students receive up to 100 percent of tuition, a monthly housing allowance of $1,125 and a yearly $1,000 stipend for supplies and books.
Many vets struggle mightily with the adjustment to academic life, said Terry Smith, the college’s financial aid and veterans’ certifying officer.
They come to this small college from all over the globe, he added, bringing their worldly perspective into the classroom.
“I have vets who have done two tours of duty in Afghanistan and one in Iraq,” Smith said, along with others who were stationed in the South Pacific or the American South.
Sheri Washington, an Army veteran at Peninsula College, is pursuing her dream of a bachelor’s in environmental science, which Peninsula College offers through Western Washington University’s Huxley program.
This means an intense course load of chemistry, biology and pre-calculus.
Washington, 30, also works part time at the Port Angeles WorkSource employment office, helping other vets make use of their benefits.
She grew up in Melrose, N.M., population 650, and didn’t feel ready for college right after high school.
She worked a job for a while, then joined the Army and went to boot camp in October 2005. She was stationed at Fort Jackson, S.C.
Washington speaks of the Army mindset, something that continues to guide her.
Don’t quit. Never leave your comrades behind. Keep moving forward, calling on your inner resources. This is your job, so get it done.
Some of the people Washington works with are men a couple of decades older: guys from various branches of the military, Vietnam vets, men long out of work.
All of these people are connected by their shared experience, she said.
“When you are a service member, no matter what, it’s a family,” she said. “There’s a rivalry among the different branches. But we stand together.”
Of course, not all vets find what they’re looking for in college.
Those struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder or depression have scant access to professional help on campus; Smith said there is one staff counselor for the entire student body.
And the GI Bill benefits come with restrictions: Once a student chooses a degree program, he or she can use the benefits only for courses that apply to that program.
Smith said that when veteran students get in trouble, be it academically, personally or financially, they tend to pull away.
“You’ve got to reach out. We’re small enough so that it’s very personal here,” he said of his campus.
For Chris Enges, who was 60 when he walked onto the campus in 2012, veterans’ benefits meant a new vocation.
Drafted at 20, Enges served as a Navy Seabee from 1972-76 on the north African base of Kenitra and on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean.
After the service, he moved to the Sequim area, where his family lived, and got jobs cutting firewood, in commercial fishing and driving heavy equipment.
Eventually, he went to work for the Clallam County Road Department — and stayed 20 years.
Enges had always been attracted to art but never developed the interest until he learned of the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program, or VRAP. Enacted in 2011, this was for vets age 35 to 60, so Enges was just inside the eligibility limit.
He enrolled in Peninsula College’s multimedia program and found it fit him like a glove.
Enges hails his instructors Marina Shipova, Mia Boster and Renne Brock-Richmond as stellar educators. They teach, he said, with passion.
Now Enges is developing his own photography, videography and graphic arts business.
He counts Olympic Cellars among his clients.
“This place,” he said of Peninsula College, “is a great place to learn something new and take a different tack.”
He urges other veterans — and people around his age — to consider the possibilities on campus.
“But find something you really like doing,” Enges said.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
