Finding their own way home

By Andy Hildebrand

A year ago, Rhinelander High School alums David Chrisinger and Brett Foley, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, completed a 50-mile ultramarathon to raise money for charity and awareness of the immense challenge veterans face when trying to transition back to civilian life.

It all started with late-night chats between the two friends, but for Chrisinger, before long, working with veterans had blossomed into a full-blown passion.

He pored over book after book and article after article, learning as much as he could about the process veterans go through when their time in the service is over.

Now, a year after completing the marathon and many more since he first started working with Foley, Chrisinger has continued learning and started teaching.

“Before the 50-mile run that was last October, Brett (Foley) and I got invited by a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point to come and talk to his class,” he said. “The class was on running and the meaning of life. It was kind of perfect for us because we were raising money and talking about veterans (transitioning) out of the military. There was an administrator in the general education department who came to watch.”

Afterward, the administrator came up to Chrisinger and asked if he could turn the presentation into a class for student veterans. “The idea certainly intrigued me,” he said.

From there, Chrisinger turned his attention to what he does best – research.

“I started looking around to see if other universities had classes like this,” he said. “I found a couple and I talked to the professors who taught them. I devoured all these different books and research articles about veterans in college, the sorts of things they struggle with and the things they need more help with. I put together a proposal for the class, went through the review process and it was approved, thankfully.”

The class is called “Back from the Front: Transitioning from the Military to Civilian Life” and its objective is to prepare incoming veterans to succeed at UWSP. Chrisinger said all freshmen at the university must take an introductory course, but the courses available aren’t necessarily great fits for veterans.

“The class is situated in this program at the university called the first-year seminar,” he said. “All the freshmen have to take one. There are different topics that they’re centered around. There’s one on ‘Lord of the Rings’ and there’s one on the history of The Beatles. They’re supposed to be fun topics and a lot of what is taught in the course is how to be successful in college. They’re seen as a foundation level class that prepares you to be successful and help you graduate. They were having trouble with non-traditional students in general and veterans specifically who just weren’t relating to the material. A lot of it is geared toward 18-year-olds. Veterans have significantly more life experience than that.”

Chrisinger knew he needed to shape his syllabus in a way that would appeal to veterans and make the transition to college life easier while still teaching the skills needed to succeed in class. As it turned out, that meant he would wind up doing much of the work himself.

“I really struggled to find a single book that talked about all the things I wanted to talk about in the class, so I ended up just writing a lot of the articles that I’ve assigned,” he said. “We also have assigned a book called “The Long Walk” by Brian Castner, who’s an Iraq War veteran. He was an explosive ordinance disposal technician and its a very powerful book about coming home from war and transitioning into civilian life.”

Castner provided a focus for the class to rally around, and it involved one of the lessons Chrisinger learned from Foley years ago.

“One of the things Castner did was write about his experiences, and that’s something I found really helped Brett (Foley) too,” he said. “I’m having the students do a lot of reflective writing in the class, and for their final exam, they’re actually writing a paper between eight and 12 pages. The topic is transitioning out of the military and into civilian life. What’s cool is, we’re going to compile all those essays and put them into an edited collection and sell it through Amazon as a fundraiser for the veteran’s club on campus.”

Later in the semester, Castner will visit the class. He will also give a campus-wide talk about bridging the gap between civilians and the military.

With his syllabus in place and the semester drawing near, Chrisinger said he didn’t know how the students would react.

“I was nervous about the class,” he said. “I didn’t know if they were going to buy into it or if I was going to be a joke to them. For the first couple days, I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t tell. Then they really started to loosen up and open up. One of the students told me afterward they were sizing me up a little bit. They didn’t know what to expect. They realized it was a safe place and they could be themselves without feeling awkward or strange or judged. I think they appreciate that.”

Little by little, Chrisinger got to know his students through class and their assigned writing. Exercise was another approach Castner focused on in his book, so with a 50-mile ultramarathon already in his back pocket, Chrisinger formed a running group with his class. They meet in the evenings a couple times a week. It’s not mandatory, but many of the students attend.