by Anne Paquin | Dec 27, 2010 | News Slider
Nick Livingston knows the lifestyle of a student is far removed from the way he spent the past eight years before coming to Lipscomb. “I was in places like Iraq when I was your age,” Livingston said.”We were hungry, we ran out of food, bullets; you didn’t know if you would have anything to eat or drink the next day.” Livingston, who is at Lipscomb as a part of the Yellow Ribbon program to attract veterans, spent much of his youth at war. The program brought Livingston, now a sophomore Bible major, to Lipscomb the first year it was in effect in 2009. Veterans are able to come to school with G.I. Bill funding, but it’s not enough to cover Lipscomb costs, so the university picks up the remainder of the tuition. This year the Yellow Ribbon program participants nearly doubled in numbers, bringing more than 60 veterans and their families onto our campus. At 18, Livingston graduated from Cibola High School in Albuquerque, N.M., enlisted and left for basic training on May 30, 2001, months before the events of Sept.11 changed the world. He made a choice to sacrifice his youth because he believed in something. “I wanted to create a better world for my nieces and for my family to live in,” Livingston said. He was trained as an intelligence analyst and counter-terrorism specialist. During his eight year stint, Livingston was deployed on multiple tours, which included being in Korea for a year, Iraq for three years total and Afghanistan for eight months. “I don’t really think there are parallels (between Lipscomb and the Army), because you are coming from...
