Student veteran fights to secure financial aid

BY KELLY REQUA | Staff Reporter

OLYMPIA - Chris Goehner sat patiently in the Washington State Senate Gallery Monday afternoon, surrounded by fellow Central Washington University students, as they waited for the senators to return from caucus.

Goehner and his service dog, Pele, had been in meetings with senators and representatives all morning, lobbying for funding for higher education and veterans’ issues. Goehner is not an elected student official and is not getting paid to spend his time in Olympia - he’s just a guy who wants to make sure his voice is heard.

Goehner stayed in Olympia through Tuesday and met with representatives and their staff between sessions. He has a talent for finding representatives when they have a spare minute, but gives Pele credit for grabbing their attention.

“Pele gets me in the door, so they’ve got something cute to look at and they’ll listen to me,” Goehner said.

Goehner is a disabled Iraq war veteran with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Pele, his large yellow lab service dog, helps him stay grounded and has aided him becoming a successful student, triple majoring in psychology, public administration and political science.

Goehner grew up in nearby Cashmere and enlisted in the Navy after graduating high school in 2003. He became a Navy Corpsman attached to a Marine Corp unit out of Camp Lejeune, N.C. and served two deployments in Iraq, before being medically discharged for PTSD in 2006.

“I enjoyed my job,” Goehner said. “I got to see what I wanted to see, I got to do what I wanted to do. I miss it, I want to go back some days.”

After being discharged, Goehner joined the Veterans Conservation Corp, a program that allows veterans to do volunteer and conservation work in return for a monetary stipend and help transitioning back to civilian life. Goehner took classes at Wenatchee Valley Community College and finished his associate degree last year. He now lives in Ellensburg with his wife while attending Central.

Recently, Goehner has been actively speaking out against the proposed budget cuts that will affect the university. He attended the rally in Olympia on Monday and spent his own time meeting with state senators and representatives. Goehner makes it his goal to ensure students understand what is going on and that veterans get their word in, as well.

“He’s aggressive towards the legislative agenda,” said senior Perris Davis, political science and public policy major. “His experience gives him a particular outlook on different issues that he cares about - one that necessarily not other people have.”

According to Goehner, veterans are a minority on campus and are hard to organize since there are no distinct features that set them apart from the rest of the student population.
“Unfortunately, we can’t just walk down the hall and be able to find each other easily based on the color of skin,” Goehner said. “We don’t have visible features, but we still are a minority and we need to help each other out.”

Goehner explains that it’s hard for veterans to receive financial aid due to their combat pay, which is too much to allow them to qualify for it. Goehner sees this as a cop-out by the university because they expect the Veterans Affairs Office (VA) to pay for veterans’ tuition, when often, the VA is months late in payments.

While the GI Bill does help veterans pay for tuition, it can be wasteful to use a month’s worth of GI bill to cover a few classes, he said. Goehner would like to see some state financial aid available to veterans who are just beginning to get back into school and are only taking a few courses each quarter.

“The other thing is, yeah we’re service members, but we paid into that and I think the very least they can do is treat us like normal citizens and give us financial aid just the same as any other student coming to school,” Goehner said.

For Goehner, the rally on Monday was more than just an opportunity to lobby for higher education - it was an opportunity to lobby for mental health and veterans’ issues, as well.
Rachael Helseth, freshman education major, credits Goehner with getting her involved in the rally and lobbying the legislature.

“He’s very good at persuasion and being assertive about getting involved,” Helseth said. “Pele is definitely awesome too - they complement each other.”

Goehner acknowledges the increase in student involvement but notes that the legislature ends in about a month and that students are still very late in organizing.
“We’re getting laughed at,” Goehner said. “I’m not trying to dock the students, it’s just they need to realize it’s not a simple task.”

Goehner has no plans after college, but jokes about buying a van and living in Wal-Mart parking lots to professionally contribute to the People of Wal-Mart Web site.
“Every week new things present themselves,” Goehner said. “But for right now that’s my long-range plan.”