“Compared to all my military experiences and all the schools I’ve gone to and the deployments I’ve been on, I think school has been the hardest experience of my life,” Buddi said.
For the first time since World War II, a record number of military veterans are attending college. Amber Mathwig, student veteran assistance coordinator, said the number of veteran students enrolled at UNC has increased 95 percent since 2009. Since fall 2014, the number has doubled to 430 veterans using their benefits.
Like Buddi, who graduated from UNC in the spring and is now pursuing a degree from UNC’s TransAtlantic Masters Program, many veterans are using the Post-9/11 GI Bill to pay for schooling, but the transition to school poses challenges.
Raised in Miami, Fla., Buddi went straight from high school to the military, a decision she said was necessary to provide better opportunities for herself than where she had grown up. With the events of 9/11 still fresh in her mind, Buddi enlisted into the U.S. Air Force in 2002.
When Buddi was completing her training in Texas, she was certain it was the worst mistake she had ever made. Nothing could prepare her for the tough ordeal, but she went on to become an intelligence analyst, deployed several times to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Buddi and her husband met in Afghanistan — a romantic tale, as Hunter Rudd tells it.
“I was the young hunk in a green beret in special ops; my wife was a beautiful intelligence analyst — and I swept her off her feet,” Rudd said, laughing.
Rudd is proud of his wife’s passion and ability to handle adversity — from the war zone to the classroom.
