A New Way to Serve

Fresno State program helps veteran return to school to pursue a career caring for other vets

By Douglas Hoagland (’74)

Cynthia Gomez watched – poised for action – as a military helicopter carrying people rescued from a Sierra forest fire touched down near the Fresno airport.

Hastily-mounted lights pierced the darkness of the September night and revealed scores of first responders – military personnel like Gomez and others – moving quickly to help evacuees from the 2020 Creek Fire. “I remember exactly how I felt that night,” says Gomez, now a Fresno State student aiming to become a nurse who cares for veterans. “It was a sense of pride, and I was really happy that I was able to do my part.”

That desire – plus ambition to keep moving forward in the health care field – led Gomez to a crossroads in 2022. She had worked for more than a decade as a medic at the Air National Guard’s 144th Fighter Wing – coordinating medical care for personnel and then administering vaccines and implementing health guidelines during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She’d deployed once to Kuwait and immediately upon returning was sent to Southern California to help provide emergency care for senior citizens left abandoned in skilled nursing facilities during the pandemic. Gomez worked to set up a care facility of about 125 beds at the Riverside County Fairgrounds in Indio to assist the skilled nursing facilities and to receive overflow from local hospital emergency departments.

At her crossroads, Gomez decided she wanted to take greater control over her future.

“I realized I could be doing more with my life. I needed to go back to school.” Fresno State was the only university she considered attending. “I’ve been in Fresno all my life, and Fresno State has always been a part of me. I knew that was where I was supposed to be going to get my educational career back on track.”

To begin that journey, Gomez entered the university’s Veterans Education Program – a two-semester academic program that prepares veterans and active-duty personnel kickstart their studies at Fresno State. Through her 20s and 30s, she had attended community college and a technical school, but the Veterans Education Program gave her a sense of belonging by connecting her with fellow veterans and providing resources to pursue her college and career goals.

“It felt like there was military accountability to succeed but without a superior looking over your shoulder and saying, ‘hey, get the work done.’ It was your accountability, and a lot of us in the program ended up feeling like masters of our destiny.” Gomez found it – in her words – “refreshing.”

Cynthia Gomez, a medical group technician in the Air National Guard’s 144th Fighter Wing, returned to school through Fresno State’s Veterans Education Program – a two- semester program that prepares veterans and active-duty military to kickstart their studies.

A shared military background builds camaraderie among the students in the Veterans Education Program. “And the best part: the instructors were phenomenal. Always available. Got on us when we needed it. It was good,” Gomez says. She finished the program in spring 2023 and entered Fresno State the next semester as a public health/community health major. Her goal is to transition into Fresno State’s nursing program.

“Health care – taking care of people – is where my heart’s at,” Gomez says. She would like to eventually work at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Fresno, where she would bring an understanding of the pandemic’s toll on mental and physical health. Dealing with that toll has become “a huge part” of her work at the base, Gomez says. “By doing our part here, our members can be more healthy – physically and mentally – and they can do more in life.”

Like many Fresno State students, Gomez balances her studies with work – she’s continuing in her full-time job with the Air National Guard. She says her classes are “fantastic,” and one course on disaster emergency management is particularly energizing. It reminds her of the night the helicopter brought evacuees from the Creek Fire.

“We were helping people come off the helicopter, getting them where they needed to be and making sure families stayed together. I watched my fellow medics and the nurses do the things they’re best at – making sure everybody was taken care of. The whole community – civilian and military – came together. Everybody knew what they were going to do, and everybody executed the mission.”

— Douglas Hoagland is a journalist and freelance writer in Fresno.