Interviewing a Veteran

Travis Tahnazanie is twenty-eight and attends the University of Utah. He sits across from me in my ceramics class; no one would guess his school was being paid for by only his Native American scholarship. In addition he is currently living on his GI money. Travis served in the Marine Corps for five years during 2000 and 2005. He finished his entire contract and decided to not further his advancement in his regiment. However, he didn’t know by making the decision of not staying in, it would take a couple of years for him to receive any of his money; which was promised after his contract. During June 2006 until April 2009, he was homeless on and off. Travis felt cheated of course; he filled his side of the contract and he wasn’t receiving their end of the deal. During June 2006 until May 2006 he wasn’t in school and lived in his car. Then from May 2006 to November 2008, he bumped around from his sister’s house and a few friends house, he felt embarrassed to have to bum off of them. And he didn’t have a lot of money; he just had so little, he felt as if keeping as much as he did have was most important. From November 2008 until April 2009, he finally was living on the streets. He would sometimes stay in the homeless shelters but would try not to. He had a job with discover, and was starting up at the U of U. He finally raised enough money to get a place and stay off the streets.

Two direct quotes from Travis:
"the biggest thing about being homeless is that it sucks balls, its hard to figure out where you are going to go and what you are going to do with all your free time. I mean really that is all that you have is time. Time to think about your current situation, how you got there, why it is that you are still there, and basically just time to feel sorry about yourself. Things could always be better but for you right at that time things just keep getting worse."

"A lot of the whole homeless thing is just hard mentally and physically, I would not like to be there again. In fact I work very hard to try and steer clear of the whole idea, even just talking about it to others set me back."