The Collegian (Hurst, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 12, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 25, 2015 Page: 4 of 10
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News
The Collegian
Page 4 • December 2, 2015
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By Brandy Voirin
By Sarah Young
By Matthew McConathy
Terry Burgess never imagined becoming
a public speaker, author or a gold-star dad.
But that’s exactly what he is.
On Dec. 3, Burgess will speak on NE
Campus at the 6 p.m. showing of the docu-
mentary The Hornet’s Nest.
The film, recorded by journalists Mike
and Carlos Boettcher, follows U.S. troops
during nine days of combat in Afghanistan.
Burgess has a personal reason for speaking
about this film.
After being laid off twice in two years
from the same bank, Burgess was jobless for
18 months. But things were finally starting to
look up.
“I had an idea, and my wife Beth encour-
aged me to write all my ideas down,” he said.
“I finally listened, and the first book was pub-
lished. I never dreamed of being an author.”
This wasn’t the first surprise in their
lives.
“One day, Bryan [their son] said he was
joining the Army,” Beth Burgess said. “He
didn’t even ask. He just told us. After 9/11, he
felt it was the right thing to do. We were sur-
prised but supportive of his choice.”
The couple were one day away from the
launch of Burgess’ second book'before being
blindsided with an early morning phone call.
“We were still in the bed asleep and then
everything stopped,” Terry Burgess said.
Bryan had died in combat in Afghanistan.
He is survived by a wife and two children.
“It was shattering,” Terry Burgess said.
“And at rushing speed, thoughts, memo-
ries and regrets all played through my mind.
Death was always an option, but the last thing
I expected.”
After the funeral, Terry Burgess said he
withdrew from writing and went into a dark
place. Books didn’t matter anymore. He tried
to focus on happier memories of Bryan, but
his mind flooded with thoughts of all the let-
ters and care packages he planned to send to
Iraq and Afghanistan but never did. He found
comfort in another place.
“The bottle made it go away. I’ve always
tells you how they identify and what their
pronouns are, just use the pronouns,” Nelson
said. “That’s the easiest step, and it’s very
important.”
A second step, Nelson said, would be to
stop any hate going on in the classroom.
“Don’t continue to allow it to happen and
encourage it,” he said. “The best way would
be to just casually change the subject or to let
students know that ‘Hey, we don’t talk that
way in here,’ and move on.”
Another thing that colleges can do to be
inclusive is to install more single-stall bath-
rooms.
“It’s a lot easier for people to have those
kinds of bathrooms and go into them without
feeling more afraid,” Nelson said, “rather
than using the downstairs mega-bathroom
where everyone stares at you for whatever
reason even though it’s meant for you to go to
the bathroom and get out.”
Nelson also said he has a “vendetta
against Blackboard” for not being able to
change his name.
“If you have an online class, then you
have to do discussions, and whatever name
the school has for you is what’s used on
Blackboard,” Nelson said. “It’s incredibly
crime goes
unpunished
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Transgender students can face unique
difficulties on college campuses, a South
Campus panel said Nov. 23, but students can
help.
At the event hosted by TCC student or-
ganization Spectrum, a panel consisting of
counseling director Ticily Medley and trans-
gender students Dimitri Nelson and Charlie
Foster discussed challenges faced by non-
gender-conforming students.
“You have no clue what’s happening
anyways when you get up to a university.
You’re absolutely lost,” Nelson said. “And.it
makes it a lot harder for people if you’re part
of a gender or sexual minority ... You have to
worry about ‘How am I going to traverse this
new place?”’
Some unique challenges faced by these
students include discrimination by peers, ad-
ministrative difficulties and even discrimina-
tion by professors. These challenges can even
affect student success.
“If you have a professor that doesn’t re-
spect your name or your pronouns each time
they mention you, it feels kind of like a little
bit of a slap in the face,” Nelson said, “like
they’re saying, ‘I don’t actually care what you
have to say. I was just looking for you to give
me the answer that I was looking for.’ So it
makes you a lot less willing to speak up, to
talk to other classmates ... and that gets kind
of isolating, and you’re a lot less likely to do
well in courses if you don’t feel comfortable
there.”
Foster said he has been in this exact posi-
tion in a composition class where people were
not respectful of people’s gender identities.
He said the professor instructed people to
say discriminatory things about transgender
students.
“That hateful environment makes you
very uncomfortable,” he said, “and it makes
you want to leave and never come back.”
Medley agreed.
“College is hard enough without having
to worry about being safe when you come to
campus,” she said.
The panel addressed what students and
instructors can do to create an inclusive envi-
ronment at TCC.
“The first step would definitely be, when
student tells you that they are trans and
let them know we don’t blame them and we
are here for them.”
By accident, the Burgesses created the
network they didn’t have.
“Society expects you to flip a switch and
go back to work, and be normal, and it’s not
possible for them or us,” he said. “Supporting
each other works, and there are more agen-
cies out there veterans don’t know about. This
is now my mission, my new job — telling
Bryan’s story.”
As for writing stories, Terry Burgess is
still doing that, too.
“It took a while, but I was on the deck
one day thinking of Bryan, and a flood of
ideas came pouring in, so much so that I went
from writing them down to typing them on
the computer,” he said. “I felt it was Bryan
speaking to me through the night sky saying,
‘It’s OK, Dad, to write again. Go ahead and
Laws are different for crimes on native
territories and different from the legal systems
of the states, NE students learned Nov. 24 as
part of Native American Heritage Month.
Government professor Lisa Uhlir dis-
cussed crimes that tend to occur on Native
American reservations and said officials often
lack technology to solve them. People who
commit crimes on reservations can sometimes
only get a three-year maximum sentence.
“You see a lot of people cooking meth-
amphetamine within the reservation and not
get a maximum sentence compared to the U.S.
justice system,” she said.
The crime rates in reservations have in-
creased, especially rape and sexual assault. The
reservations make it difficult for investigation
and prosecution because native territories are
far off, take a while to be reached and lack the
technology to identify subjects, Uhlir said.
“Commit a crime, and there’s no way to
find their identity,” she said. “Crime rates [on
reservations] are among the highest crime rates
in the United States, double that of Detroit and
St. Louis.”
Poverty is at 27 percent, and the rate of
post-traumatic stress disorder among children
is high because of violence.
“One out of every five women has been
sexually assaulted within the territory,” she
said.
A 2010 tribal law and order act to address
crime gives Native Americans more ability to
use their own laws and hire more law enforce-
ment officers for reservations. The Bureau of
Indian Affairs handles domestic and sexual
violence to boost safety and conviction rates.
It also handles alcohol prevention, drug abuse
and mental health support programs to help
sustain healthy living guidelines and increase
the life span.
“We need to be more aware of people’s
stories and know of the Indians,” she said.
“There has to be a change in the federal law for
more resources to increase technology and law
enforcement.”
Speaker to remember
his son, fallen soldiers
Photos courtesy Terry Burgess
Terry Burgess, an author whose son was killed in Afghanistan, will speak on NE Campus
Dec. 3 about the combat documentary The Hornet’s Nest, which will also be shown.
just drink. I could drink, then sleep.”
Beth Burgess, who missed her last op-
portunity to see Bryan the year before for his
birthday because she was working, dove her-
self deeper into her work and in taking care of
her husband to soothe the pain, she said.
“Losing his child was the worst thing that
could ever happen to a person,” she said. “I’m
a fixer, and since I was supporting both of us
financially, I just took on everything else so
he could grieve.”
At first, lots of phone calls rushed in and
care packages were sent to the grieving par-
ents, but then it all stopped, she said.
“People go back to their lives, but for us,
our lives will never be the same,” she said.
“You just don’t know what to do.”
Then a phone call came that changed
both of their lives. Mike Boettcher had foot-
age involving Bryan from a battle in Afghani-
stan he planned to use for an ABC Nightline
segment, but producer David Salzberg wanted
to turn the footage into a film. Burgess agreed.
“The day I got that call, I put the bottle
down,” Terry Burgess said. “I put my en-
ergies into promoting the film and telling
had a drink or two to unwind, but this was dif- Bryan’s story.”
ferent,” he said. “I would sit on the deck and The Burgesses have flown around the
Bryan Burgess, who was killed in combat in
Afghanistan, is remembered in the film.
Sara Brooks/77z<? Collegian
Ticily Medley and Dimitri Nelson participate in a South panel discussing discrimination
faced by many transgender students, including harassment from peers and professors.
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difficult to ... put out this legal name that I
have that no one uses, and that’s going to put
me at risk of people being like ‘Well, this
is your real name, so I’m just going to keep
using it even though I met you as this other
name. I just want to use this one now.’”
The one thing the panel believed people
should know is that transgenders are people
like anybody else and that it’s OK to ask
questions and be accepting.
“Just take a step back and ask, ‘OK, what
should I know and how can I understand
this?”’ Nelson said. “Definitely, asking ques-
tions is fine for anybody.”
Medley said discrimination against trans-
genders is just as wrong as any other dis-
crimination.
“If I knew people weren’t accepting of
me just because I was female, or because I
was black, or because I was a mother, I would
want them to get to know me before making
a decision like that,” Medley said. “If you
can look at it from that perspective and say,
‘Would I want someone excluding me just
because I was this way ... or that way ...?’
I wouldn’t like that. That wouldn’t feel very
good, so why should I do that to someone
else?”
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world speaking to others about Bryan, placing
flags on veterans’ cars and creating a support
system of hope.
“This film is like a gift,” Terry Burgess
said. “Zander, Bryan’s son, was 3 years old at
the time, so he didn’t remember Bryan at all.
The film shows what his daddy was like. It
shows the man he was.”
For the Burgesses, their mission is two-
fold.
“Awareness and the cost of freedom and
how it’s paid is something we are hoping to
get across to anyone watching this film,” Beth
Burgess said. “These guys are more than just
robots playing games, more than just a num-
ber. They are someone’s family member, and
they are fighting the best way they can.”
Beth Burgess has found a new way to
cope with the loss of her son.
“I talk daily to the soldiers’ families in
Bryan’s squad. We have an amazing net- ■ writeT- So T did, and I wrote my third book in
work,” she said. “It was tough at first, but we two days.”
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The Collegian (Hurst, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 12, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 25, 2015, newspaper, November 25, 2015; Hurst, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1304528/m1/4/: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Tarrant County College NE, Heritage Room.