Aug. 20, 2010

By Kenny Ryan

Laredo Morning Times

Paying for college is a frequent struggle for students across the country.

For the growing number of students who are also veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the struggle is magnified by the shortage of funds provided to them by the GI bill.

The average Texas A&M International college student pays $1,750 on textbooks over the course of a full year.

The GI Bill provides military veterans with $1,000 a year for textbooks.

That's $750 short.

As a result, the TAMIU Student Athlete Advisory Council has decided to step in on behalf of these war veterans by holding a fundraiser to help cover the costs of the expensive textbooks.

"Every year we do a raffle benefiting veterans, and this year we decided that the textbook fund would be the best," said Caitlin Barnes, a softball player for TAMIU and the vice president of SAAC.

"The veterans sacrifice so much for this country and this is just a little way to give back to them."

The money will be raised through a raffle fundraiser.

SAAC members and TAMIU athletes will be selling raffle tickets at $10 apiece.

The winner of the raffle will receive two tickets to fly Reliant Air to Las Vegas.

Gabriel Lopez, the president of the South Texas Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Association, emphasized the importance of education to the veterans who were returning from wars abroad.

"We strongly believe that education is the key for any veteran, or any human being for that matter," Lopez said.

The veteran coming back is overqualified to work in law enforcement and under qualified to work in any management jobs because he doesn't have any training. We don't believe there should be a single veteran who comes back and doesn't get an education."

Lopez, at 42 years old, is a veteran of the first gulf war and is currently attending TAMIU.

He is set to graduate in December with a Masters in public administration.

A younger veteran who is also a current student at TAMIU is David Garza.

Garza is a psychology major who earned a Purple Heart while serving abroad, and he is a representative example of the roughly 400 veteran students on campus.

"I'm not working right now, I just come to school fulltime and take 18 hours so my books come out to be a lot," Garza said.

"My gap [in textbook costs] was even bigger with the old GI bill; easily close to a $1,000, maybe a little less, per year."

This year marks the first year raffle proceeds will go to help student veterans pay for their textbooks, but organizers hope that it will be the beginning of a tradition that will endure for years to come.

"We want to set this up for the future years so the veterans have something to rely on," Lopez said.

"Now that the war has ended in Iraq, more and more veterans will be coming to get an education and we want to be there for them."

Raffle tickets are available for a $10 donation from SAAC officers as well as at the Athletics Department office (KCB 107) during normal business hours. Tickets will also be sold at all home TAMIU athletic events and other special events throughout town this semester.

For more information e-mail Dan Lathey or call 326-2892 during normal business hours.