A week from today, thousands of Towson students will be crossing the stage and receive their degree that they have worked so hard for. Among those students is Deron Wright, a veteran whose getting his bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice.
“I’m currently working in the legal department at Under Amour, but I have already been accepted to grad school here at Towson for Integrated Homeland Security Management,” Wright says.
Wright reached out to the Towerlight in the beginning of December with an inspiring and heart wrenching background story. Wright, like many other veterans, was sent to Iraq in 2008 and despite being there for just a year Wright came back with memories that haunted him.
“I was so young [when I went to Iraq.] I didn’t really know what to expect and I was scared. For me being away from family and not knowing what the outcome would be was very difficult,” Wright shares. “My PTSD was not as bad as most extreme cases, but different things that happened to m e while I was overseas played a huge role in how my PTSD was experienced, whether it was my relationship, worries about finances, family, or just plain old fear,” Wright says.
Wright joined the U.S. National Guard at only 17 years old. He chose to go to the military when he wasn’t accepted into Towson due to his grades in high school. Before he was deployed, Wright attended Montgomery College and began taking classes before he had to put his education on hold to go to Iraq.
“With a completely different mindset, I thought to myself, ‘What do I do now?’ I attempted to continue my journey in pursuing higher education by re-enrolling in Montgomery College. First semester back, the smell of the ‘moondust’ air Iraq had welcomed me and then I found myself sitting back in class listening to the professor lecture,” Wright recalls.
Wright admits that he doesn’t remember what the lecture was about when it first happened. The reality of being back home kept slipping away from him until he wasn’t acting like himself anymore.
“I was quick to react with a temper in any given situation. I abused alcohol and didn’t care about the consequences. I distanced myself from my family and friends at times because I was afraid nobody knew or could understand how I had changed,” Wright says. “When you return home, everyone expects you to be okay and if you’re not, then they look at you differently like you have some type of contagious disease.”
Then an event occurred that changed Wright’s life forever. Three months after returning from Iraq, Wright was involved in a near fatal car accident that took a year to recover. From there, he decided to finally seek out for help and went to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a nonprofit service organization that helps military veterans. Session after session, Wright began to heal and in 2012, Wright applied and was accepted into Towson.
“Since being accepted, I have changed as a person tremendously. My outlook on life is more positive and I have more motivation to take control of my life. The faculty in the Criminal Justice department have helped me blossom as a person and helped guide me through my path internally by giving me advice on life and academics almost on a daily basis,” Wright says.
Wright has also visited the Veteran’s Center located here at Towson. He has met other veterans who are also Towson students and have experienced PTSD.
“For some veterans, PTSD is one of those things that pretty much everyone knows that each other has it in some way or fashion, but the topic rarely comes up. It’s like talking about race. No one wants to start the topic, but we all know exists,” Wright says.
Seven years ago, Wright was rejected from Towson University. Today, he is graduating with a bachelor’s degree with a GPA of over 3.0 from the very same school that rejected him.
“My message to any veteran struggling with life after deployment is to hang in there and don’t give up even when the odd seems better to not be here anymore. Keep telling yourself that there’s still a reason to why you’re still alive,” Wright says. “It’s not easy to cope with war. We will never be who we used to be not will we change who we are, but one thing for sure is from the day we joined the military, we accepted a pledge of values and morals that can help us weather any storm. Find what really makes you happy or makes you feel normal again and go reach for it with everything you got.”
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