Kinno Dizon is currently a biology major at the University of Guam.\u00a0 He is also a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Dizon was deployed to Afghanistan in 2013, serving as a surgical technologist for the U.S. Navy. He describes this deployment as the most memorable experience of his military service career.<\/p>\n

While serving in Afghanistan, he had done things an average citizen would never experience. As part of his job, he had also seen a lot of trauma and handled situations normal hospitals do not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere [was] good and bad that came out of this experience,\u201d Dizon said.<\/p>\n

The bad things are PTSD and insomnia.<\/p>\n

A good thing is the bond that he developed with fellow veterans of the war.<\/p>\n

Dizon graduated from Simon Sanchez High School in 2009.<\/p>\n

A year later, he joined the U.S. Navy to follow the footseps of an older brother who also enlisted.<\/p>\n

Dizon left active military duty in 2014, but remained a navy reservist.<\/p>\n

Dizon said it took him a while to adjust to civilian life and becoming a full-time college student.<\/p>\n

He was apprehensive at first. For one, he was older than most of his classmates. He adapted quickly, however, and is now comfortable with being a student.<\/p>\n

His advice to people going through a similar experience is to stick it through.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere may be times when you miss the military, but it will pass. Focus and reward yourself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dizon plans to graduate in Fall 2017 and wants to pursue an advance degree in either the dental or the medical school at Ohio University.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to do something in the medical field,\u201d Dizon said.<\/p>\n

But one of those things wasn\u2019t to become a nurse, he said, so he decided not to pursue a nursing degree at UOG.<\/p>\n

Before enrolling in UOG, and working full-time in the military, Dizon took online classes.<\/p>\n

Now, as a civilian student at UOG, Dizon takes primarily offline classes.<\/p>\n

The main difference between offline and online courses, he explained, is the pace.<\/p>\n

Online classes were a faster pace and four weeks shorter.<\/p>\n

The workload was also self-paced and assignments were typically due within a week.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kinno Dizon is currently a biology major at the University of Guam.\u00a0 He is also a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Dizon was deployed to Afghanistan in 2013, serving as a surgical technologist for the U.S. Navy. He describes this deployment as the most memorable experience of his military service career. While serving in … <\/p>\n

Read more “Afghanistan war vet transitions to full-time UOG student”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,4,12],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[268],"yoast_head":"\n