At an event for students in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), hosted by Yale’s Office of Veteran and Military Affairs, Naval ROTC Midshipman Court Johnson ’25 first encountered someone who would change her life forever.
 
Margo Darragh ’26 JD spoke about her experience as the first female combat engineer officer assigned to one of the formerly restricted ground combat units in the United States Marine Corps.
  
“At the end of the event, she gave out her phone number and told us to please reach out,” Johnson said. “I was intimidated at first. I was newer to the program, so I wasn't sure if I could reach out to someone who outranked me like that. But I took a chance, and I reached out anyway.”

That chance paid off. The two began meeting regularly for coffee, runs, gym sessions, and long conversations about what life in the Marine Corps might look like for Johnson after graduation.
 
Darragh offered everything from form corrections during workouts to candid advice about being a woman in a branch where only about 10 percent of service members, and an even smaller share of officers, are female.
 
“She spoke so highly of her Marines and made her job sound not just meaningful, but fun,” Johnson said. “At some point in our conversations, it hit me—I wanted to do what she did. But even if I don’t get that exact job, I know I want to feel about my people the way she feels about hers.”
 
That mentorship didn’t just shape Johnson’s view of the Marine Corps. It changed her sense of what was possible.

“It was huge for me,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t have been able to connect with this mentor without having something to break the ice, and that was the event organized by Holly’s office. Without that, we never would have met.”

An Opportunity to Give 

The Yale Office of Veteran and Military Affairs, which hired Holly Hermes to serve as the inaugural university liaison for Veteran and Military Affairs in April 2023, exists to meet the needs of Yale’s growing community of veterans and ROTC students. From helping navigate financial aid paperwork and covering conference costs to bringing speakers to campus and organizing meetup events, the office supports these students and creates a university-wide community for them. 

But this mission needs financial support. Gary Kosinski ’90 has established the Endowment for American Veterans at Yale, which provides much-needed funding for the Office of Veteran and Military Affairs. Kosinski, who served as a reunion gift co-chair for his class’s 35th reunion, also decided to match gifts made to the fund.
 
“What made the match powerful was how it got people talking about veterans at Yale,” Kosinski said. “It wasn’t just about doubling the impact, it was about showing others that people like them were stepping up. That sense of shared commitment made the giving feel even more purposeful.”
 
At the reunion, several student veterans who benefit from the office’s work stopped by. 
“People want to invest in something that feels tangible," Kosinski said. “At the reunion, my classmates had the chance to meet the students their gifts support. Seeing that impact up close is incredibly powerful.”

Seth Brody ’98 is one of the donors who has given to the challenge.
 
“My grandfather was a decorated bomber pilot in World War II,” Brody says. “Hearing about his experiences had a profound impact on me. He never took our democracy or freedoms for granted, and his influence shaped my deep respect for all those who serve in uniform.   In school and in my professional life, I see firsthand how the leadership qualities and perspectives that veterans bring elevates everyone around them. The more veterans we can enable to study and be a part of the Yale community, the better all of Yale will be.”

Investing in a Veteran Community  

When Timothy Bang ’25 first arrived at Yale College in 2021, the university’s veteran community felt small and scattered.
 
“You only heard about other veterans through the grapevine,” he said. “There wasn’t really a place to connect.”

Much of that began to shift with the arrival of Hermes, who brought new energy and infrastructure to veteran life at Yale. 

“Holly’s office has become the focal point,” Bang said. “Not only for creating a real veteran community across the undergraduate and professional schools, but also for helping us navigate all the bureaucratic things we deal with. Yale has really invested in veterans, and the experience has completely changed.”

The result, he said, is a veteran community that feels more visible, more vibrant and more connected than ever before.

“There’s so much bureaucracy, especially with the VA," Bang said. “It’s hard to know where to go or who to ask. Holly’s office gives us a place to voice concerns, get help, and connect with other veterans who’ve been through the same thing.”

That change is reflected in the numbers. When Bang enrolled, there were just 24 veterans in the Eli Whitney Students Program, a program that supports students who have been out of high school for at least five years in their Yale College journey. Now, there are 51. 

“That kind of growth doesn’t happen without changes in how Yale supports us,” he said. “It’s night and day.”

Finding Belonging 

Building connections with a broader veteran community has also been crucial for helping Tyler Moncrief ’26 MBA, a United States Marine Corps veteran, feel at home at Yale. When Moncrief first started exploring graduate school, he wasn’t thinking about the Ivy League. 

“Neither of my parents went to college, and when I was applying to undergrad, I just did what everyone around me did and went to school near home,” Moncrief says. “I never imagined I’d end up at a place like Yale.”

But in doing more research into MBA programs, Yale School of Management quickly became his top choice, in part due to its generous Yellow Ribbon Program. 
 
“It was clear they had a lot of respect for veterans trying to take this path—especially in terms of funding,” Moncrief said. 

Moncrief initially wondered how he’d fit in at a place like Yale SOM, but connecting with fellow veterans helped assuage that fear. 

“There’s automatically a bond with other vets,” he said. “There’s this openness and honesty that isn’t always there in networking settings. Usually there’s a professional guard up, but when you're around other veterans, people just let that down. They’re themselves.”

That sense of connection has remained strong throughout his time at Yale, largely thanks to Hermes’ office. 

“Veterans tend to connect really well when we meet, but we’re not always the first to reach out,” he said. “And because Yale’s schools are on different campuses and schedules, it can be hard to interact naturally. What Holly’s doing isn’t just about programming, it’s about making sure veterans feel seen, supported, and connected, no matter where we are on campus.”