This training module has been designed to assist colleges in
their quest to make their campuses welcoming and open to our
returning service men and women. As such, it is dedicated by the
California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office to our Wounded
Warriors. However, as the author of this module, I would like
to offer a special dedication to three groups:
First to: Major Fred H. Bingham USAF
retired (left), who served faithfully and courageously as a bomber
pilot in the Pacific theater during World War II and as a
representative of his, the greatest generation, to all those who
served with him to ensure that our way of life survived.
Second to: Staff Sgt. Nicholas J. Bingham (right, just home
after first tour) who after two tours in Iraq and a Purple Heart
has decided to make the military his career and as a representative
of his generation, to all those who have served in OEF/OIF as
volunteers when a country was in need of a force to fight enemies
both seen and unseen.
Last, but not least, to
those of my generation, Vietnam Era, who fought an unpopular war
and came home to abuse and neglect from a country that could never
separate it's divisive political ideology from those it required to
carry out it's impossible mission. We who did not serve failed to
understand the consequences of war. Today, ignorance can be no
excuse, we must do so much better this time around.