A recent survey found that the highest concentration of veterans in the Lone Star state are in East Texas. That was the impetus for founding Camp V, a one-stop shop for veterans’ services. In addition to counseling and help obtaining Veterans Administration benefits, Camp V works closely with UT Tyler in getting veterans a higher education to help them return to civilian life more successfully.
Mike Landess: For UT Tyler Radio, I’m Mike Landess. UT Tyler was recently recognized as a “Silver Military Friendly” school out of 8,800 schools across the country. There was also a donation from the Texas Wounded Warrior Foundation to fund a scholarship for UT Tyler student veterans. UT Tyler has long worked with a local veterans’ aid group known as “Camp V,” and here to talk more about that group is Camp V Executive Director Travis Gladhill.
Welcome.
Travis Gladhill: Thank you for having me..
Mike Landess: Now, right off the bat, some may not realize that Camp V is actually an acronym. Would you explain that?
Travis Gladhill: Yes, sir. So Camp V actually stands for Community Assisting Military Personnel and Veterans.
Mike Landess: Tell me how it got started, and how long has it been in existence?
Travis Gladhill: Yeah. So in 2017, a study was done by Texas State University to basically find out where all the veterans were in the entire state of Texas, as well as what kind of resources they had available to them. Come to find out after that study was released, this was also done in conjunction with Texas Veterans Commission, that East Texas, right here, Smith County and the surrounding 14 counties are the second-largest veteran population in the entire state of Texas. And then in that same study, it also found that here in East Texas, we came in dead last for available resources for those veterans. So you had the second-largest population, but the least amount of resources for those veterans. And so basically, that didn’t sit well. Nobody likes coming in last place. We had some community leaders to include our co-founders, Jim Snow and Susan Campbell, get together basically to do a round table to figure out: how can we fix this? How can we serve our veterans better? And that’s when the idea of Camp V came about as a one-stop shop, all veteran needs and services to be taken care of in one centralized location. So we formed in 2017 and purchased a beautiful 20-acre property inside the loop over on West Front Street in 2018. And then we officially opened up our doors Nov. 9, 2019.
Mike Landess: What kinds of programs and services does CAMP-V provide to veterans in East Texas?
Travis Gladhill: So when we say one-stop shop, we mean one-stop shop. We’ve got it all there. We can help with education, employment, VA benefits, healthcare, mental health counseling, mental health treatment, service-dog training, peer groups. We have several different facilities to include our main resource center, which has basically all those different service providers co-located in one centralized location as well as we have a dedicated women’s center. We have a recreation center, just opened.
The VSO office is actually relocating out to Camp V.
VSO stands for “Veterans Service Officers.” They’re the ones who specialize in doing the VA claims for any type of disabilities or anything along those lines. They’re already officed there at Camp V as it is right now, but they basically do a rotation of, one of ’em will come out for a specific month, and then here.
We’re projecting in May they are going to move their entire staff out to Camp V to a brand new building that we’re gonna be opening up here real soon. And then one of the biggest things we actually just opened up was a fitness center free for veterans. And I do mean free. This is a beautiful facility.
It’s got all the strength and conditioning equipment you can imagine, as well as an area for doing different classes. And we just opened that up just a few weeks ago. And so, like I said, we have all you need help with getting a DD-214. We got you covered all the way to helping you train the service dog to here real soon.
We’re actually launching our equine therapy program as well.
Mike Landess: Again, a term I’m not familiar with. DD-214. What’s that?
Travis Gladhill: DD-214 is a form that a service member will get upon their separation from military service. It is basically in retrospect, I guess you can say. More important than your college diploma as far as keeping tabs on that.
Well, some service members, whether they moved, their house went up in flames, something happened, and they lose that DD-214. That DD-214 is your proof of service. That’s your proof that you served in our United States Armed forces and are entitled to different programs and benefits.
Mike Landess: Absolutely. Now what kind of qualification does a veteran need to get help from Camp V?
Travis Gladhill: Just have served in the military in any form or fashion. It doesn’t matter if they were active duty guard, reserve, army, air Force, Navy, Marines. We even take the Space Force and the Coast Guard. I mean we don’t talk about them too much, but we even help them out.
And then we also assist with the families as well because the family has so much importance to that veteran, too. We service the family as well. So if there’s a veteran spouse out there, and they want to possibly get involved with the women’s center or different peer groups, we assist them with that as well.
We do have some specific programs where you have to have specific discharge, but other than those very few specific programs, our doors are open and we’re there for our brothers and sisters.
Mike Landess: Tell us more about your partnership with UT Tyler. How has that been working out?
Travis Gladhill: So that has actually been awesome. I work with Coby Dillard a lot out of the military veteran student success center. He’s got a really long acronym, but yeah, we’ve partnered up with UT Tyler quite a bit. I actually used to work here at UT Tyler. I was a career coach over at the College of Business.
And after I departed here, that’s when I took over as the director for Camp V. And so having that relationship with UT Tyler has been nothing but instrumental, especially with the educational aspect. We have several different VA benefits and non-VA benefits for education for our veterans as well as their family members.
And being able to pick up the phone and call right over to Coby and say, “Hey, I’ve got a veteran who’s interested in starting school. Here’s his situation.” And he can literally pick it up right from there. And then, get them all set for class. It has been nothing but outstanding. And then of course, UT Tyler has always been great supporters of Camp V as far as attending our different events.
Mike Landess: Now, if someone is hearing this interview and wants to learn more about Camp V and the programs and services that it provides, how do they go about that?
Travis Gladhill: So we make it as easy as possible. We’ve got multiple different avenues. Number one, you can go to our website, campvtyler.org. Or you can just come on into Camp V.
We’re located over at 3212 West Front St. Over on the west side of the loop. Our hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. You can follow us on Facebook @campvtyler. And then of course, we have put out monthly newsletters and everything along those lines.
But if there’s a veteran out there, I want them to understand that when they come into Camp V, they are family, they are a brother, they are a sister, because Camp V is basically run and managed by nothing but veterans. So we’ve been through it. We, a lot of us, still go through it. And so to those family members to those veterans, come on in and hang out with your family.
Mike Landess: Our guest has been Travis Gladhill, executive director for Camp V. For more information, you can find a link to Camp V on our website, KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio.
(Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.)
