OREM — Nick Kirsch appears to be a typical Utah Valley State College student, with a beige T-shirt and tattoos on his arms.
But his life has been vastly different than most students. After all, he served in the Marine Corps, which included three deployments to the war in Iraq.
Kirsch participated in patrols, raids and security in urban and rural areas.
Kirsch, one of about 600 military veterans at 23,000-student UVSC, usually doesn't tell fellow art students about his life in the military "because they can't relate."
The needs of veterans attending college are unique. On Thursday Kirsch was among about 15 students at a meeting about resources available for veterans in college — tuition assistance, disability benefits, employment and, in particular, mental-health services.
Students were encouraged several times throughout the meeting to seek help for post-traumatic stress disorder if they were displaying some of its 50-or-so symptoms, such as flashbacks, irritability and numbness.
It's believed to affect about 30 percent of veterans of the Iraq war.
"I'm finding as I talk to more and more students at this and other colleges, some of the symptoms can be pretty overwhelming in the school setting," said Dennis Stevens, a Vietnam War veteran and counselor at the Veterans Center in Provo. Stevens believes PTSD can be triggered in college students by the crowds, the constant stress of studying and sleep deprivation.
"Having PTSD myself, my friends and I, we just thought that's just the way we were," said Bart Davis of Utah Transition Assistance Adviser, a program run jointly through the Veterans Administration and the Utah National Guard to help people adjust when they return from war zones.
"You walk around with a chip on your shoulder. You're ready to fight in an instant."
Mental-health professionals at UVSC's Student Health Services see about a dozen veterans a year, said director Jack Jensen.
E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com