Rhonda Walsh - Knol: a unit of knowledge

I was an executive secretary when I used the pilot program at Milton High School in Massachusetts which was called work/study. I graduated and went right to work, rising quickly from the typing pool to the secretary to the President of a large company. After 10 years when my first child was born, I quit, left the man who fathered that child who would not grow up at the time, and entered the ranks of women on welfare. I simply refused to allow another person to raise my child, and I could not bear the thought of leaving him for 10 hours a day because of the commute.

Instead, I chose to attend school, and I lined everything up on the Tues/Thurs schedule and then placed my son into playgroup for 6 hours on those two days. I was a great balance for both of us. He got to play with kids his own age, and so did I.

I was determined to learn everything I could about being the best parent possible, and I had every intention of returning to work after junior college. Then, oops; pregnant again. Well, 2 more years in school would be OK, then I could get my BA, and get an even better job.

Meanwhile, I was living on my financial aid, and whatever jobs I could find that would allow me to bring my children. Then, after nursing that child for about 14 months, I went away with my husband for the weekend, and came back pregnant with my daughter.

Well, 2 more years would give me an even better job (sigh) and so yep, you guessed it, I went on for my MS. I learned a lot, and I volunteered every single year since my oldest began school in 1991, and that reinforced the information I was learning in school. It also kept me fresh in the experience department since I did not have a "real job", only the volunteer ones.

Finally, today, my children are 21, 17 and 15. Now, I returned to school for myself. I want to help veterans, and my degree will be in Education Leadership Administration. I am not interested in becoming a Principal, but I am interested in changing the education delivery system of the VA for combat veterans to a preventative model where they use education as a tool for veterans to understand what PTSD is, and how to help them deal with those symptoms. Also, the important thing I would like to add is that the VA must include the family, or it is the same as sending half of the couple to marriage counseling alone. It doesn't work. This needs to be a family effort to overcome the affects of combat syndrome. One will never become the same as when they left, but the hope is that they will recover, and become better.

I have a plan to change the structure of the education delivery system for combat veterans who will be returning home with PTSD, which anyone in a war situation will have: How about as soon as they return they automatically be placed on 100% disability rating? Now as each veteran goes through their therapy and healing with the dignity of having enough money to live on, and they focus on their re-entry into their home lives again, they can focus on healing without worrying about money for a while. This way they have time to make good decisions, and God willing if they are able to return to work, each soldier can decide to either retrain, or whatever they want while they attend PTSD meetings, and get some down time to think and get over the hell that they just came from, and then perhaps they will be able to get off their 100% and go to work. The way that the VA operates now is that the veteran has no healing time, a short reentry, and then he has the medical portion that he can use, but he has to get back to work immediately. This is impossible to heal from PTSD and worry about finances at the same time. What ends up happening is that the veterans end up focusing on earning money, and stuffing their feelings and in my experience with Vietnam Veterans, by the time they finally come through the doors they are 100% total and permanent because they waited so long to come in and get the needed help that it is too late now to do anything else such as retraining, and plus the hell that the VA puts men through just to get their claim is hurtful to watch from the eyes of the people that love them. This is just wrong. This needs to change, and we have 2 wars now, and a new president elect to show him the way that veterans need to be cared for.

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