Charlie, Mike, Victor: Student Veterans' Loss of Purpose

Abstract

As student veteran populations and visibility have increased on campus, some scholars have explored how higher education works (or fails to work) to serve those who have served their country. In military radio jargon, “Charlie Mike” means, “continue the mission.” In this study, the mission was transitioning to and persisting through college and the participants were Student-Veterans and Service-Members (SVSM) – a term coined by Arminio, Grabosky, and Lang (2015). Thus – “Charlie Mike Victor” – focuses on the continuation of the mission for several “victors” – the phonetic “v” in ”Victor” here meaning “veterans.” In this study the concept of self-authorship (Baxter Magolda, 2007; Baxter Magolda & King, 2012) was combined with Schlossberg’s (1981) transition theory to explore the experiences of SVSM in higher education. This study seeks to build on the existing scholarship and more fully explore the role of various identities in the experience of SVSM.