“Since the Civil War, Fordham’s men and women have distinguished themselves with courage and honor on America’s battlefields—wherever it has taken them,” he said on Saturday at Fordham’s inaugural military ball, celebrating 175 years of military training and service at the University. “My family, as well as many of yours, has courageously stepped forward when our country called them.”

Gregory was inducted into the Fordham University Military Hall of Fame at the dinner, which was held at the University’s Lincoln Center campus.

“Warren exemplifies cura personalis,” or care for the whole person, said Matthew Butler, PCS ’16, senior director of the University’s Office of Military and Veterans’ Services, referencing one of the tenets of a Fordham, Jesuit education—the promise to encourage and support students, mind, body, heart, and soul. Butler, who graduated from Fordham in 2016 after serving in the Marines, said he counts himself among the Fordham student veterans Gregory has mentored.

From Military Service to Social Work

During the Vietnam War, Gregory served in Chau Doc Province, and he received a Vietnam Air Combat Medal, a Bronze Star, and a Vietnam Service Ribbon for his actions. After he was discharged, he worked in politics and finance in Washington, D.C., before he felt a familiar pull toward service, albeit of a different kind.

He joined Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), a national organization that works with state court systems to offer counseling and support to children in foster care. He went on to earn a master’s degree in social work and become a licensed master social worker, putting his new skills to use in the Army once again, at Fort Cavazos and Fort Hood, where he helped service members returning from combat deployments and worked on suicide prevention and other programs “that made an impact on the lives of his soldiers,” Butler said.

Before retiring, Gregory returned to CASA, first in California and then in Westchester County, New York. He now lives in Utah, and he continues to work with veterans—including at Fordham, where his influence helped lead to the creation of an art history and appreciation course for veterans. The course is open to students in the School of Professional and Continuing Studies and is held at the Lincoln Center campus.

His support isn’t limited to veterans, though. In 1991, Gregory and other members of the Class of 1966 established an endowed scholarship to honor George McMahon, S.J., a former dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill who drove home the value of service, calling it “the rent we pay for our time on Earth.”

“We have to believe in the totality of ourselves, and that’s, I think, what my Fordham education gave me,” Gregory said. “We are part of the universe; we are part of a lot of different things. Military service is an important part of that. My memories of Vietnam are a part of that mix, but there’s also another part: There’s the humanity of life, the opening of understanding, the ability to listen.”

In addition to Gregory, Stephanie Ramos-Tomeoni, a 2005 alumna of Fordham’s Army ROTC program who is now a correspondent for ABC News and a major in the U.S. Army Reserves, was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The military ball was held to help underwrite academic, social, and career transition programming for student veterans, ROTC cadets and midshipmen, and other military-connected students at Fordham.

“Juvie has a heart of a servant and is compelled to help her fellow veterans. She is respected by her colleagues and her student veteran classmates as someone reliable, dependable, and trustworthy,” said Matthew Butler, director of military and veterans’ services at Fordham, who joined Segovia at the NatCon student-veteran event in Orlando from Jan. 6 to 8. “Her selection as a finalist speaks to her exceptional leadership and service to the veterans’ community. Although she wasn’t selected as the winner, just being nominated was prestigious and a great platform for her to inspire others to lead.”

Segovia is a U.S. Army veteran and a graduate student at Fordham’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies. In the 2019-2020 academic year, she served as the vice president of Student Veterans of America’s chapter at Rose Hill, where she communicated the needs of student veterans with the undergraduate student government. 

Sixteen years ago, Segovia immigrated to the U.S. with her family from the Philippines. Two months later, she joined the military. 

“A lot of people thought that was crazy, but I thought of it as giving back. I believe that America is the land of opportunity, and I wanted to make sure that I could give back to the country that has given me and my family so much,” said Segovia, who joined the U.S. Army in her early twenties.  

She was stationed in South Carolina, where she was responsible for onboarding incoming soldiers. (She also met her future husband, a fellow service member. They now share a 9-year-old daughter.) However, she wasn’t able to complete her three-year contract with the military. After suffering from a stress fracture that never healed, she was medically discharged from the military with less than a year of service. 

Yet her passion for the veteran community remained. More than a decade later, her efforts at Fordham and beyond were recognized at the NatCon event—the largest annual gathering of student veterans in the country. She was recognized on stage, where she reflected on what it meant to be a student veteran. 

“It was very humbling, being there and seeing my name mentioned among many outstanding veterans. At first, I felt imposter syndrome. It took me a long time to open up about not being able to finish my contract because I was ashamed. But the veterans in my community accepted me and assured me that yes, I am a veteran because of everything I’ve done for our community.  I reached a point in my life where I was able to take credit for the things I have done,” Segovia said. 

At the conference, Segovia formally introduced herself and spoke at a panel about juggling her responsibilities as a mother, student, volunteer, and former service member. 

“Don’t let self-doubt hold you back. Any professional goal, any career choice is ours to make and work towards,” Segovia said at the conference. “If we take away anything from this week, let it be that veterans have skills, and we know how to excel in using them.” 

At Fordham, Segovia currently serves as a veterans career liaison for Career Services at Rose Hill, where she has helped student veterans find career opportunities over the past two years. She has educated employers about veteran initiatives, prepared veterans for the civilian workforce, and developed a student veteran career guide that will be launched this spring. Thanks to her efforts, she has increased student veterans’ participation in events, internships, and career services, said her manager.  

“Juvie has made a great impact and continues to ensure that the veteran community is able to connect with opportunities,” said Cheretta Robson, senior associate director for Career Services at Rose Hill. 

After graduating from Fordham with her degree in organizational leadership this spring, Segovia said she wants to work in a human resource department for a nonprofit. But her ultimate goal is to manage her own nonprofit for fellow veterans. 

“I want to ensure that they have career and educational opportunities in the civilian world. There are similar organizations that help veterans, but not many on the East Coast,” Segovia said. “I want to try to make transformational change in people’s lives.”

David G. Bellavia, a 43-year-old retired staff sergeant from Lyndonville, New York, was an infantryman in the U.S. Army for six years. But what he is best known for is his role in the Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq, dubbed Operation Phantom Fury, on the night of Nov. 10, 2004. In what was considered the highest point of conflict in the Iraq War, Bellavia almost single-handedly saved his squad in a dark building filled with enemy gunfire, in the process killing four insurgents and wounding a fifth. 

In honor of his heroic actions, Bellavia was awarded the Medal of Honor—the nation’s highest recognition for valor in combat—at a White House ceremony on June 25, just a week before his visit to Fordham.

“Fordham has six Medal of Honor recipients [among its alumni],” said Matthew Butler, the University’s director of military and veterans’ services and a former Marine, in his opening remarks. “So it’s a great honor to have a living American treasure with us today.”

Inside the Bateman Room in the Law School building, Bellavia spoke to an audience of approximately 50 people—the majority of them veterans—about his childhood, life and death on the battlefield, and what he hopes the future holds for veterans across America. 

Stories from Very Different Battlefields

His stories of the past, often told with a waggish sense of humor, brought both laughter and knowing nods from the audience, especially fellow veterans. Among those anecdotes was the time he took a hairdryer to boot camp. But some stories were tragic, like the time he lost his command sergeant major—his “surrogate father”—on the battlefield. 

Bellavia was born to a family of six in Lyndonville, a village located four miles south of Lake Ontario. He said when he was a child, his grandfather, a World War II veteran, would tell him stories about wartime—“noble adventures” about people fighting against evil and tyranny. 

It was a stark contrast to his early military years in Kosovo, where “evil” appeared in the form of chicken robbers.  

“I remember we would get a briefing like, ‘Mr. McMetty’s chickens have been stolen,’ and be like …  ‘It’s go time,’” he said in a hushed tone, as the audience laughed. 

But throughout his six-year military career, he endured far worse. Bellavia recalled the first time he was shot at. He felt a fluctuation of emotions: fear, exhilaration, anger.

Then there was the Second Battle of Fallujah. Fifteen years ago, in a military campaign to defeat the Islamic insurgents in the stronghold city, Bellavia found himself in a concrete building, engaged in close-quarters combat. 

“Fallujah was like the Superbowl of urban fighting … You’re shooting automatic gunfire at point-blank range in concrete structures. Everyone’s got a gouge, a wound, a cut. Glass, metal fragments—you name it,” Bellavia recalled. “Guys clearing out their eyes of glass and metal, and you’re constantly looking at that guy next to you. And no matter how bad they’re hurt, you just gotta keep … you gotta take the threat out. Whoever shot at us has to die, or we’re all gonna die.”

For a long time, he said, he hated the enemy. But eventually, he realized that he wasn’t fighting because he hated the “bad guys”; he was fighting because he loved the “good guys”—his country, his unit, and every parent to whom he made a promise to bring their sons and daughters home. And in the process, he saw his enemies in a new light. 

Respect for the Enemy

“I looked at the enemy with great respect. They believed in what they were doing. These men were giving their lives for what they believe in,” Bellavia explained. “I may not understand it. I’m not gonna stop shooting. But I respect the hell out of them.” 

In a conversation with the event’s moderator, Gerry Byrne, FCRH ’66—vice chairman of Penske Media Corporation and a Marine combat veteran who served in the Vietnam War—Bellavia also touched on the transition from the battlefield to civilian life.

“It’s one of the most difficult parts of being a veteran,” said Byrne.“When I came home from Vietnam, I literally got spit on in uniform at the airport. It’s something I’ll never forget.” 

But those Vietnam vets paved the way for later generations of soldiers, Bellavia said. 

“When I came home from the airport, I had two Vietnam guys crying, and they told me, ‘Welcome home, I love you,’” Bellavia said to Byrne. “It was your generation that made sure our generation was treated with dignity and respect that you didn’t get.” 

In the future, Bellavia said he wants to see not only more student veterans, but also more veteran professors, administrators, and CEOs—veterans “in the highest echelons of elected office, in professional work.” 

‘We Don’t Leave People Behind’

A U.S. Army veteran in the audience asked Bellavia for advice on another group of veterans—those who struggle with suicidal thoughts. Nearly 20 veterans commit suicide every day. 

“There’s a sense that we don’t belong anymore. There’s this idea that ‘Everything was easier when I was over there.’ I woke up, I had a mission, I had a purpose, I had a job, I was appreciated, I was respected. [Then] I come home, and everyone looks at me, waiting for me to snap,” Bellavia said, as several audience members held up their phones and recorded his voice. “But you know what? You’re a damn soldier … I wouldn’t expect you to quit on me when we’re getting shot at; I wouldn’t expect you to quit now. We need you. We don’t leave people behind in a firefight. [And] we don’t leave them behind when we come home.”

On Nov. 2 at Keating Hall, the Fordham Veterans Association hosted two executive leaders from Student Veterans of America (SVA), a nonprofit organization that aids more than 1,500 colleges and 700,000 student veterans across the country. James Schmeling, SVA’s executive vice president, and Jared Lyon, SVA’s president and CEO, gave a talk geared toward faculty and staff at Fordham, which is home to around 500 student veterans and veteran dependants.  

The day’s lecture was a personal topic for many in the room, including Matthew Butler, PCS ’16, director of Military and Veterans’ Services at Fordham and a former Marine, and the two guest speakers—both of whom are first-generation college students who served in the military. And, said Butler, who introduced the talk, it was also a chance to remember Fordham’s veterans who died nearly a century ago.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to draw your attention to the armistice signed on November 11, 1918—a hundred years ago. I draw your attention to the armistice because of the men from Fordham University who joined the fight in Europe during World War I,” Butler said.

“Several of them didn’t come home … Those service members who fought in the war to end all wars are why we are here today.”

Facts and Figures

Schmeling spoke about the post-9/11 veteran population, their challenges with returning to civilian life, and how colleges and universities can benefit from having veterans in their student body.

“Forty-six percent of post-9/11 veterans are somewhere between 18 and 34,” he said. “That’s the population that’s returning to school.”

These veterans face a variety of challenges when they leave the military: navigating their veterans benefits, finding a job, acclimating to a non-combatant life, struggling with finances, and understanding how to apply their military skills to their new jobs, Schmeling said. But they’re also better students than most people might imagine.

On average, post-9/11 veterans achieve higher educational attainment than earlier generations and the general U.S. population, he said. Forty-one percent of post-9/11 veterans have a college or associate degree. On the other hand, only 28 percent of the total U.S. population have that same level of education. Many student veterans are well-educated, Schmeling said—but most people don’t think they are.

“I’ve just given you the data and the facts,” said Schmeling, who sourced statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Census Bureau, journal studies, and information collected in a collaboration between SVA and the Institute for Veterans and Military Veterans at Syracuse University. Then he paused.

“But these,” he said, introducing his next topic, “are the perceptions. And these perceptions are what are really, really important.”

Fighting Commonly Held Perceptions

Schmeling addressed common perceptions held by veterans, non-veterans, employers, educators, and military spouses. He showed the audience several bar graphs from the 2018 Veterans’ Well-Being Survey, a study of more than 4,500 veterans and non-veterans conducted by Edelman Intelligence, a global communications marketing firm.

Majorities from each population indicated that that they think veterans are more than or equally likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree as non-veterans, he said. However, the same is not true for advanced degrees.

A whopping 70 percent of military spouses said they believe military veterans are less likely than the average citizen to obtain a degree ranked around a Ph.D.

He also noted that 53 percent of employers believe that, compared to non-veterans, most veterans do not have successful careers after they leave military service. And barely half of veterans themselves believe that the majority of veterans have successful careers post-military service.

From Combat to Campus

But student veterans have both facts and data on their side. They’re not only college material—they’re an asset to college classrooms, Schmeling argued.

First off, student veterans aren’t likely to incur much debt. As of May 2018, the post-9/11 G.I. Bill/ Yellow Ribbon program has funded $75 billion for veterans’ tuition, fees, book stipends, and housing allowance, he said. Fordham’s commitment to the Yellow Ribbon program guarantees that all tuition and fees are fully covered for admitted eligible veterans.

Student veterans also bring diversity in age, ethnicity, marital status, and disabilities. In addition, they possess military-honed skills that can transfer to their studies and future jobs: work ethic and discipline, mental toughness, teamwork. And on average, he added, student veterans have a higher GPA than traditional students at four-year-degree-granting institutions nationwide.

“This is contrary to the picture that the media paints—of homelessness, of PTSD, of workplace violence, among other sorts of things,” he said. “Why is that? Well—what sells? A negative story, right?”

Veterans typically do best in colleges and universities that have a good peer support system, advisors, and networking opportunities, Schmeling and Lyon said.

“The number one thing we can provide a student veteran—if you give them this one thing, they’re three times more likely to graduate than anything else—shocks a lot of people. It’s a peer. It’s a friend—someone you can relate to firsthand in that college environment,” Lyon said.

“I started my undergraduate experience at the age of 28 years old at Florida State University,” he said. “And as I looked across a sea of 42,000 undergraduates … I mean, one of these things was not like the other. And that was me.”

Schmeling added that many student veterans he’s spoken with, especially first-generation college students, had no idea they could graduate from college after serving in the military.

“They had no idea they could thrive in an environment like Fordham,” he said. “If you tell them that they can be successful, we convince them that they can be successful, and we continue to invite them to our campuses, they will be successful.”

Anna Ponterosso, university registrar and director of academic records, said she found the lecture to be informative. 

Feature photo: Shutterstock; Other photos: Taylor Ha