Honors at SUNY Old Westbury for veterans taking college path

While freshman year can prove daunting for any college student, for 23-year-old Shane McCarthy, a former Army sergeant, starting up at SUNY Old Westbury has brought a new set of challenges, and new chances to lead.

McCarthy began at Old Westbury in September after an honorable discharge earlier this year from an Army career that began after high school graduation in 2019 and, he said, included an eight-month deployment to Syria.

"The transition from military life to college life can be unstable, scary and unfamiliar for our veterans," said McCarthy, a business administration major, at a campus event Thursday.

University officials said he and about 60 other military veterans and now students are making a transition that can be as delicate and anxiety-inducing as leaving the service for civilian life — beginning the academic rigors of university life. 

SUNY Old Westbury set aside some time Thursday to honor McCarthy and the other students for their military and academic efforts as the nation prepares to honor its veterans on Monday.

Outside the Campus Center building, the Salute to Student Veterans included speeches from McCarthy and other vets about reintegrating into civilian life and support services on and off campus.

About 50 students, faculty and community members, plus representatives from Nesconset-based nonprofit Paws Of War, which links veterans with service dogs, and HorseAbility, which brought a pair of therapy horses to the event from its Old Westbury facility.

"Veterans Day is to honor our veterans for their service to our country, to acknowledge that their contributions to our national security are appreciated," said SUNY Old Westbury student and Air Force vet Kevin Hertell, 45, of Melville, "and to underscore the fact that all who served, not only those who died, have sacrificed and done their duty."

Hertell, who served from 1999 to 2003, began studying business administration at the SUNY campus two years ago to help him more effectively run his nonprofit, Suicide Awareness and Remembrance Flag, also known as SAR Flag.

He started the Huntington Station-based group to honor his cousin, an Air Force combat veteran who died by suicide in 2016.

It aims "to break the stigma of mental health, suicide and seeking treatment within our warrior culture" and prevent other veterans from similar fates, Hertell said.

His university has helped him along the way. Hertell's tinnitus, or constant ringing in the ears, inhibited his ability to focus while reading, especially in what others might consider peace and quiet.

Old Westbury’s Center of Excellence for Veteran Student Success, which opened in 2023 thanks to federal grant funds, directed Hertell to the school’s Office of Services for Students with Disabilities, which provided him with software that reads content aloud so he can properly focus on academics said Jennifer Jaikaran, the center's director.

She added that the facility functions as a "single point of contact" to either directly help veteran-students or direct them to the on- or off-campus resource that can best serve them.

The center can reserve a private study area for a veteran, arrange for them to be placed in the back of the classroom so they feel more comfortable with no one behind them and direct them to governmental resources to access their earned benefits, she added.

McCarthy, the vice president of the campus chapter of Student Veterans of America, said for him, the center has helped ease the transition from soldier to civilian.

"You’re coming from a very fast-paced atmosphere, very stressful," he said after the event, "and then you come in here and you’re sitting in a classroom most of the day."