GPC student earns degree while his constant companion receives a ‘dog-gree’

 

by Rebecca Rakoczy

 

She’s an American boxer; he’s a former U.S. Marine and Army veteran. Since 2012, the two have been inseparable.

 

On Friday, May 8, the dog and the veteran will take the stage at the Georgia World Congress Center as part of Georgia Perimeter College’s 2015 graduation ceremonies.

 

Wes McReavy, who served his country for 13 years before coming to GPC, will receive his associate degree in psychology. And Kiah, the American boxer, and his constant companion in class and in the community, will receive an honorary “dog-gree.”

 

McReavy is grateful that Kiah will receive recognition. “My own degree would have been an impossible feat, if not for her,” he says.

 

Kiah is a service dog trained for McReavy, who has had post-traumatic stress disorder since his medical discharge from the Army in 2011.

 

Before Kiah, McReavy says he was always anxious and seldom left his home, the result of an extended stay during the war in Iraq.

 

But he wanted to go to college. His wife, a veterinary technician, suggested he try a service animal to help ease his anxiety. Kiah, a rescue pup, had already been trained as a service dog in a children’s hospital in New York. The couple was able to retrain the dog to respond to McReavy’s needs.

 

Before Kiah, “I worried if someone walked up behind me and startled me,” McReavy says. “You want to know there’s a buddy there who has your back, and Kiah gives me a sense of security. Instead of that anxiety of not knowing that I’m safe, I am able to focus on her.”

 

He also was to focus on his studies, taking the dog to class every day. Kiah was well-known to many on GPC’s Dunwoody Campus, says McReavy. “She has friends I didn’t even know—she was friends with public safety and with the librarians.”

 

McReavy entered the Marines after graduating from high school. “I had my 18^th birthday on Parris Island,” he says. When he left the Marines in 2003 after seven years of service, he found that he didn’t enjoy civilian life and reentered the military in 2006, this time in the Army. “I really had a hard time acclimating to life outside of the military—I didn’t seem to fit in,” he says.

 

He was deployed to Iraq as an ammunitions technician in 2006 and soon was sent to the middle of Baghdad. His unit was part of the surge of troops ordered by then President Georgia W. Bush to take the country from the Taliban, and he was deployed there for more than a year. “There was a big push to put a lot of us on the ground,” he says.

 

He left the Army through a medical retirement in September 2011.

 

Although McReavy is celebrating his GPC graduation in May during the Spring commencement ceremony, he already has transferred to Georgia State, where he is majoring in psychology and where Kiah is making new friends. He hopes one day to help other veterans, possibly working at the Veterans Administration, now the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

 

“There is a real value in going back to school,” says McReavy.” It really is possible and something I initially never thought I would do. I would tell others—just take it one semester at time.”

 

Check out this issue’s other articles about military and veteran students and GPC’s outreach services:
Easing the Transition for Military Students

 

Military Advocates Bring Understanding to Their Role

 

 Mark Eister: Supporting Service Members

 

Marcus Foundation Grant Will Help GPC Serve More Student Veterans