HANOVER — For veterans, the military experience can be hard to explain to those who have never served. On Tuesday, veterans from across generations and branches gathered at a town hall at Dartmouth College to share their stories and reflect on the meaning of service with others who understood its complexities.
In a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, 84% of post-9/11 veterans said the American public has little or no understanding of the problems faced by those in the military. Seventy-one percent of the public agreed, and 76% of veterans of earlier wars did as well.
The Veterans Town Hall, held at Raether Hall at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and sponsored by the Veterans Employee Resource Network, asked participants not to discuss politics. Instead of debating foreign policy or war, the event focused on veterans’ personal stories.
The event was open to the public and drew about 20 veterans. Veterans from the 1960s to those who recently left the service shared the floor. Veteran town halls are held annually across the Upper Valley the week of Veterans Day, but this was the first to take place at Dartmouth.
In 2024, there were 81,535 veterans in New Hampshire, making up about 7% of the state’s population age 18 and over, and almost 55% of the state’s veterans were 65 or older, according to New Hampshire Employment Security.
At the beginning of the event, veterans were promised confidentiality, allowing them to speak freely with the understanding that whatever was shared in the space would remain in the space. The Valley News did not report on what was said during the town hall. The comments in this story come from interviews the Valley News conducted with participants after the event.
Jason Mosel, 41, founded Dartmouth’s Veterans Employee Resource Network and organized the event. He established the network in 2020 in partnership with Dartmouth’s Employee Resource Network program. Mosel, a network engineer II at Dartmouth, served in the Marine Corps as a combat medic from 2003 to 2007 and completed three deployments, including two in Iraq.
After the event, Mosel said he was happy with the turnout and with hearing the stories from veterans who shared. “I thought it was really great to hear different perspectives from not only different eras but different branches of service,” he said.
Dan Justynski, 61, senior director of real estate at Dartmouth, said after the event that he used the space to listen and “absorb the pain other people have, and to have the opportunity to be empathetic and listen to what they went through.”
Justynski served in the Navy from 1988 to 1991. He worked as a surface warfare officer in the Gulf War during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
Justynski said he hopes to offer support for other veterans who have experienced more intense trauma. “Hopefully, they can understand that although I didn’t have experiences that are traumatic to me that way, I can be an understanding person to listen because that’s all I can give right now is the ability to share and listen to them,” he said.
In a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, about a third of veterans said they had trouble paying their bills in the first few years after leaving the military. 1 in 5 said they struggled with alcohol or substance abuse and about a quarter said they seldom or never felt optimistic about their future after leaving, according to the 2019 study.
Mosel said the best thing nonveterans can do to support veterans year-round is to listen.
“There are certain aspects of my story that, even now, it could be hard to talk to a nonveteran,” Mosel said, “because you’re afraid of the judgment that someone may bestow upon you because of things that you did at such a young age, and in a different scenario.”
Helping veterans throughout the year, he said, “is really listening and understanding.”
