Organization puts veterans in schools to mentor students

By  Kevin Hardy

A new local nonprofit, Get Veterans Involved, is working to put recently returned combat veterans into local elementary schools. The thinking was simple: Many groups exist to work with school students. Likewise, lots of organizations exist solely to help military veterans. But few have thought of pairing the two.
The group will pay recently honorably discharged vets to work with local students for a few hours a week while the vets go to school or train for new jobs. GVI director and co-founder Bob Kincaid said many veterans feel lost without the sense of mission the military provides. And thousands of veterans are returning to civilian life as the military continues a massive draw-down of forces after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“They’ve got no mission. No purpose. The hope is to give them purpose,” he said. “If we can have these service members recognize these kids need them, we have a mission for them.”
Kincaid said the program will help in two ways: Veterans will be more rooted as they transition out of military life. And kids will gain exposure to military vets as well as have positive role models in the schools.
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