Supporting Yesterday’s Warriors, Today’s Scholars, Tomorrow’s Leaders
This post is by Tyler Wright, who served in the U.S. Navy from 2008 – 2013 as a hospital corpsman. Wright assisted in manufacturing craniofacial prosthetics for wounded warriors and cancer survivors. After the Navy, Wright became an AmeriCorps VISTA member with the nonprofit Student Veterans of America in Washington, D.C., where he was subsequently hired as senior regional outreach director.
I was a hospitalman apprentice in the Navy when Hospital Corpsman Second Class Petty Officer Waite asked me a significant, life-changing question: “Are you in college?”
I paused for a moment, and then replied most ambivalently “No, not yet.” This vacant response was immediately met with a steadfast stare and retort that I remember clearly, “What are you waiting for?”
He added, “Use Navy tuition assistance or lose it. Your choice.” I had acquired a mere three community college credits before I joined the Navy, with a distant hope to one day obtain a college degree.
Fast forward four years later, and I am hanging up my uniform for the last time, leaving the Navy behind as a hospital corpsman third class petty officer. Five years of leadership experience and complex medical expertise trailed behind me, yet I was genuinely nervous about the transition.
