In order to help each student to be successful in school, as outlined in the ASCA National Model, professional school counselors are called to partner with military families in order to work for their children's social, emotional, and academic success during deployments. Possible school-family partnerships that may occur before, during, and after…

With the introduction of the Post 9/11 GI Bill in August 2009, Veterans Affairs anticipated a 25% increase in the number of service members who would enroll in higher education (Student Affairs Leadership Council, 2009). Between fall 2005 and spring 2010 semesters, Western Michigan University (WMU; Kalamazoo, MI) experienced a 43% boom, from just…

Emotions provide a ubiquitous and consequential backdrop to daily life, influencing everything from physiology to interpersonal relationships in the blink of an eye. Instances of emotional experience accumulate and compound to impact overall mental and physical health. Under optimal conditions, emotions are adaptive for the successful navigation…

This article is the eighth of a multi-part series on traumatic brain injury (TBI). Historically, TBI has received limited national attention and support. However, since it is the signature injury of the military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, TBI has gained attention of elected officials, military leaders, policymakers, and the public. The…

Section 574 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, as amended, requires the Secretary of Defense to identify the projected changes in military dependent students by installation as a result of force structure changes, relocation of military units, or the closure or realignment of installations under base…

The study of human rights is inseparable from social studies. Beyond the basic political, economic, and social freedoms and rights spelled out in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, hundreds of specialized topics have developed that demonstrate the complex nature of human rights in the twenty-first-century world--environmental exploitation…

This article features four colleges and how they take on veterans' issues in research and real life. These colleges are (1) Syracuse University; (2) Purdue University; (3) University of Southern California; and (4) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Last year Syracuse established the Institute for Veterans and Military Families to focus…

With America's military out of Iraq, and funding for global military operations on the decline, thousands of newly discharged men and women are trying to figure out "What's next?" Most of the Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and Sailors joined the military before their 21st birthday, and it is often the only job they have ever held. While it is true…

This testimony discusses the Department of Defense's (DOD) oversight of its Military Tuition Assistance (TA) Program. In fiscal year 2010, the TA Program provided $531 million in tuition assistance to approximately 302,000 service members who elected to pursue off-duty postsecondary education. DOD offers these benefits to service members in order…

The United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM) celebrated its 50th anniversary on July 1, 2011. This article reviews its history, evolution, and transition of its research programs as well as its scientific and military accomplishments, emphasizing the past 25 yr. During the 1990s, USARIEM published a series of…

This article summarizes the findings from the Second Annual Trauma Spectrum Disorders Conference, which was held in December 2009 and was sponsored by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury in conjunction with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Institutes of Health. The conference…

The stress and strain on the U.S. Army's community due to nearly a decade of protracted war is well documented in the press and in scientific literature. In response, the Army's Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program is a preventive program that seeks to enhance psychological resilience among all members of the Army community, which includes…

In September 2010, the U.S. Senate's Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the proposed National Defense Authorization Act. The amendment, known as Section 583, authorized a Defense Department pilot voucher program to mitigate the cost of private school tuition for special-needs children of military parents. Sen. Jim Webb, a member of…

More than 90% of the nation's 1.2 million military children attend civilian-operated public schools. Education researchers, however, often overlook the educational experiences and needs of military children attending civilian-operated public schools (i.e., schools that are administered by and under the purview of local education agencies). This…

Perhaps now more than ever before the U.S. military is called on to perform tasks that are outside its normal/traditional purview. Recent wars--Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, for example--have demonstrated the need for the U.S. military to do more than find and defeat a clearly defined enemy. At all levels of the war theater (conflict area), the…