WCU Stories      November 11, 2024

By Julia Duvall

Looking back on his time before coming to Western Carolina University, nursing student Isaac Jennings, a sophomore from Franklin, was always told the most important thing was contacting his chosen college’s military services director.

“All throughout basic training, I always heard ‘go find your military director, you have to get in contact with that office,’” Jennings said.  “But when I came to WCU, I didn’t have to look because Briana Ford found me. She was one of the first people to talk to me and help me get everything I needed.”

Ford, director of military student services at WCU, knew that Jennings was going to shine at WCU, while also overcoming the obstacles often faced by military-affiliated students.

“Isaac is the Student Veterans Association president, in the National Guard and was recently activated for Hurricane Helene,” Ford said. “His situation is an excellent example of some of the challenges our military-affiliated students face while trying to go to school and serve our country.”

Jennings was born in Mexico but grew up in Franklin.

“When I was in high school, I played soccer and wrestled, but I didn’t plan on going to college,” he said. “Towards the end of high school, I learned about the National Guard, and I wanted to make my mom proud and go to school, so I signed up.”

After Jennings finished basic training with the army, he was able to learn about the medical field.

 “When I came back from training, I went to my job training and applied to get into WCU’s nursing program,” he said.

Jennings immediately jumped into campus life, serving as secretary, vice president and is now president of WCU’s Student Veteran Association.

“Briana told me about SVA, and I was eager to get involved. At the time, the SVA room in the University Center was not utilized as much as it should be, so I decided to join and work on growing membership,” he said. “The hardest part is reaching other student veterans, but we have been able to increase our membership by six members through outreach.

“The first semester after coming back from summer break, we were able to raise enough money for the SVA board to go to the SVA National Convention, and we got to see lots of job opportunities.”

While studying full-time and performing SVA presidential duties, Jennings was also part of search and rescue missions in Asheville during and after Hurricane Helene.

“My unit’s readiness sergeant called me the Wednesday before the storm hit and asked if I wanted to go volunteer, and at the time it was going to be about a week, but that was before we knew what was coming,” he said. “I ended up being over there for about 40 days, first starting with evacuations, then search and rescue, welfare checks and supply distribution.”

Jennings was very grateful to his professors for letting him continue to help out even after classes resumed on Oct. 21.

“I was able to be over there that entire time and then once classes returned, I was in contact with my professors, and they were very willing to help me while I was still deployed,” Jennings said. “I am so fortunate to be surrounded by such great support at WCU.”