According to data from Veterans Affairs, the 75% of veterans enroll in post-secondary education after they leave the military.

A program at Northern Kentucky University aims to help military affiliated students adapt to life in the classroom.

It's also giving staff and faculty the tools to assist and better understand the needs of these students.

And the transition in general is tough.

We know this.

We also know that it is extremely important to be engaged with other like minded folks.

The Green Zone Brigade was established two years ago for Veterans Day.

We launched it to train faculty and staff to learn more about military connected and veteran students coming into university in the ones that are here to make sure that they're set up to provide them with guidance, provide them with resources, and have a better understanding of what their experiences are from being in the service or going through some type of that service environment to be successful in the classroom.

It's kind of hard for a lot of us just, you know, getting that started.

I went through high school and I did my first semester and then I left for our deployment for a whole year and then I had to come back.

So that transition from coming back home is really hard.

So I kind of took me a while.

It doesn't matter if you spent two years for year six or 20 plus years, you come out of the service and it can be a struggle.

Getting back into that civilian, quote unquote mindset.

No kidding.

Some of the things that we learned in the training include how to speak to our veteran students.

Sometimes it's simply what are the right questions to ask?

Also, just to be able to know that we can you can build relationships with our veteran students.

And those have been really rewarding to see.

A lot of our veterans, seniors are very focused on what they want to do, and they kind of have a really good sense of the journey that they want to take and what goals that they're going after.

I went through the Green Zone Brigade training, which is a really helpful session in terms of how best to support our veterans.

So that's everything from what to talk about or not talk about what questions to ask or not ask.

What it's fair to expect of people, how what they might be navigating in a major life transition, you know, and how we can be sensitive to support that.

When they go through that training, it helps them like better understanding what we're kind of going through and what we're feeling and helps that transition from being away from so long and then coming back into school and then performing as well.

The biggest difference I see having done the Green Zone Brigade training is I'm more confident in how I interact with our veterans students and how I support them.

How I express my gratitude for their service.

How I support their learning and our programs.

I do think the program is having great success in in for our veteran students themselves.

I think it's just important that we not only appreciate our veterans service, but think about ways to make our veterans feel comfortable and more.

Appreciate it and once they leave that service.

Northern Kentucky University said over 127 faculty and staff have gone through the Green Zone Brigade training.

The training is offered monthly.