Student soldiers create support

From 1968 to 1975, thousands of men and women who had been drafted out of college and who had volunteered to join the military were coming back to the States after the Vietnam War. These Southeast Missouri State University students set up the SEMO Vets Corps as a support group for returning soldiers. After the war ended the group slowly faded out, but recently in response to the Iraq War, a new support group for soldiers, SEMO Student Vets Organization, has reemerged.

Thomas Meyer, who was in the construction combat unit of the Navy during Vietnam and who participated in the original SEMO Vets Corps, said during Vietnam and what the new group wants to accomplish is helping student soldiers -- which are usually non-traditional -- network, find internships and job opportunities.

Meyer works as one of the advisers to the new group.

Starting in April of 2010, the new veterans group currently encompasses 23 of the approximately 250 student soldiers.

"Whenever you're in the military you're part of a group the whole time and whenever you get out you feel like you're not a part of anything anymore," Shane Pridmore, president of the new organization, said.

Pridmore spent five years with the Army as military police and was deployed twice, once in Bosnia for six months and once in Iraq for 12 months.

Currently the group is trying to recruit more students, military or not, to join the group.

"The main reason we started the group was because there is no one to talk to about our [soldiers coming back to school] options," he said. "A couple kids [we've seen] really needed an outlet to go to."