When James Thomas was serving in Iraq in the Army he knew a soldier who paused before stepping into the shower to let a piece of shrapnel fly by. The shrapnel lodged in the shower wall and the soldier waited a moment to ensure that no more hot metal was flying, then he took his shower.

Life as usual in a war zone!

Now soldiers such as James Thomas and his fellow veterans are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan to face a different kind of challenge. It might not be as dramatic as shrapnel in the shower, but as veterans return home into an economy with 27 percent veteran employment many are choosing to return to school - and the culture shock is real.

As many as 25 percent of the 300,000-plus veterans being discharged this year will be in school within two years, studies say. This comes on top of the 200 percent spike in veteran enrollments that many schools, including Whatcom Community College, have experienced since 2009 - and most schools are not geared up to meet their special needs.

As a result, the 800,000 veterans who are currently enrolled in U.S. schools through the GI Bill are stepping out of the shower each morning and walking into classrooms with needs that, left unaddressed, will undermine their ability to get full benefit from their school experiences.

Challenges include serious conditions, such as PTSD, but many veterans will tell you they feel like a fish out of water, which can be corrosive, too. This is not surprising since they're moving from the "fixed" world of military life to a "fluid" life at school where their fellow students are younger and often have not seen what they have seen.

In addition, the transition can be abrupt. Many veterans shift from the desert to a college desk in a matter of weeks. On their own again, often after years in the military, they are experiencing adjustment issues in three key areas: dealing with school regulations and procedures; social life; and academics.

Some veterans drop out, while others figure it out over time. But as the saying goes: Time is money. The vet loses, the school loses and the government gets less than full utility for its investment in veteran education through the GI Bill.

The good news is that solving the issue is relatively straightforward, but it requires that we mobilize resources and create cooperatives among businesses, government and schools to meet veterans' military-to-school transition needs. How?

Give veterans resiliency training during orientation to help them turn their strengths of military service into tools for social and academic success. Then follow that up with peer support sessions during their first semester to help them apply the action plans they develop in the resiliency workshops.

At Fordham we have created a collaboration of professional schools under the banner of Fordham's Veterans' Initiative to achieve this. We've convened a focus group of student veterans, including James Thomas, to offer their input, and have created "Edge4Vets." The program draws upon four key resiliency principles - adaptability, engagement, optimism and proaction - to provide workshops where veterans learn how to identify their "transitional" strengths in the four areas.

Then they learn how to create personal success plans to apply their strengths from the military to meet social and academic challenges.

We previewed the program at Fordham this week and will introduce Edge4Vets as a semester-long support system in the fall for student/veterans at Fordham and Whatcom Community College as part of a simultaneous East/West Coast launch.

The goal is to test the model at a university and community college, then work with private, corporate and foundation support to make the program available to all schools throughout Washington and the country.

The objective is to give schools a product they can integrate into their existing support systems to ensure that student veterans get the most out of their school experiences. Then one day, the hope is, student veterans won't have to step out of the shower and pause to worry about their adjustment issues.

They'll be able to walk into a classroom and focus fully on the activity in the room - that's how we can help this group that has sacrificed so much for us get the most out of their lives.

Tom Murphy lives in Bellingham. He is the Director of the Human Resiliency Institute at Fordham University, and the author of "Reclaiming the Sky." Contact him at Tom@reclaimingthesky.com.