ENMU Veteran Helps Other Veterans

By Wendel Sloan

Gretchen Leigh, executive secretary to Clark Elswick, ENMU’s vice president for technology and system CIO, doubles-down as the secretary for Information Technology Services. Going above and beyond her administrative duties, she established a veterans assistance telephone line in her office (575.562.2195) and fields questions or issues veteran students have. She also emails self-identified veterans with information they can use, or sends them leads on employment and career fairs.

Gretchen Leigh

Gretchen first went into the Women’s Army Corps (women weren’t allowed in the regular Army then) in 1973, during the Vietnam era. She went to basic training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, secretarial training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and was stationed at Fort Ord, California. After almost two years, Gretchen was “encouraged” to agree to a discharge for pregnancy.

Seven years later, she decided to go back into the Army (it was combined, men and women by that time), so she enlisted again – and had to go back through basic training. From there, her assignments included Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Heidelberg, Germany, Fort Hood, Texas and the El Cajon Army Recruiting Station in San Diego, California.

Gretchen Leigh receiving one of five Army Achievement Medals.

“The most exciting times were in the Emergency Action Center in Germany,” Gretchen said. “If you ever saw the movie ‘War Games,’ it was similar. I had to walk through the war room to get to our office. We called all the alerts in Europe, monitored nuclear weapons storage sites throughout that part of the world and took ‘incident’ reports that involved military, their family members or Department of Defense civilians.”

After the Army, she joined Robert Half International and helped to start other recruiting companies similar to them. A few years ago, Gretchen decided she wanted to give back to her fellow veterans, so she left the corporate world to become a Disabled Veteran Program Specialist for the state of Texas.

“It was extremely rewarding for me to help veterans or their family members. I’ve always helped companies make a lot of money, but this job was, by far, the greatest job I ever held,” Gretchen said. “I helped veterans get jobs, complete medical paperwork, enroll in school, etcetera.”

A “newbie,” Gretchen started with ENMU two years ago, and “feels fortunate to be so warmly included into the ENMU family.” She is currently a grad student pursuing a master’s degree in business administration. This year Gretchen organized ENMU’s first Veteran Resource event, and she was recently approved to make the event an annual tradition. The second annual Veteran Resource event will be held in March of 2018.