When Joshua Caskey enrolled at RMU on the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, the former Marine had two combat tours of duty in Iraq and nearly 13 years of military leadership experience under his belt. That kind of discipline helped him juggle college and family life — he and his wife, Kelly, have five children.

Joshua chose RMU because of its small class sizes, suburban campus, and reputation as a veteran-friendly university. From the start, he set high goals for himself, and within four years had a bachelor’s degree in history with a 3.99 GPA, a master’s in instructional leadership with a perfect 4.0 GPA, and a special award and recognition from the university president that was announced at commencement ceremonies. He also spent two years interviewing fellow veterans for the Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans Project, creating an online archive for future research. Now Joshua is a logistics operations manager with Amazon in Charlotte, where he manages more than 100 employees who process 25,000 packages each day — a job that requires both people skills and operational decision-making abilities.