Quiles receives America’s Service Heroes Scholarship from Saint Martin’s

November 17, 2011

Lacey, Washington — Sergeant First Class Benjamin E. Quiles of Olympia, Washington, has been named the recipient of the Saint Martin’s University America’s Service Heroes Scholarship. The award is given in memory of the many service members who have attended Saint Martin’s University in times of conflict and during peacetime.

Quiles is the University’s third recipient of the scholarship. He is a Wounded Warrior assigned to the Warrior Transition Battalion stationed on Joint Base Lewis-McChord. A 13-year member of the United States Army, Quiles has served in multiple military leadership positions, from frontline platoon sergeant supporting combat operations to noncommissioned officer in charge of the Warrior Transition Clinic at Madigan Army Medical Center.

Between 2007 and 2008, Quiles was twice wounded by Improvised Explosive Device explosions, sustaining severe injuries while deployed to Iraq. His actions in support of Operation Enduring Freedom earned him one Purple Heart and a recommendation for a second, adding to a Legion of Merit Medal, two Army Meritorious Service Medals and several other awards Quiles holds. Today, as a member of the Warrior Transition Battalion, he continues his selfless service to his fellow Wounded Warriors and is instrumental in the support network provided to the most vulnerable of our returning soldiers.

Quiles, who began his studies at Saint Martin’s in October, is taking academic courses at the University’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord extension campus. He is pursuing criminal justice and psychology degrees and focusing on the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, drawing from his own experiences and observations of others in combat and during transition to peacetime environments. Quiles is expected to graduate in December 2013.

The America’s Service Heroes Scholarship was created to provide financial assistance to those service members and their families who have sacrificed for our nation’s well-being and security, according to Cruz Arroyo, Saint Martin’s director of extension campuses.

“The ability to provide financial relief to the defenders of our culture and heritage through pursuit of higher education was the motivating force of the scholarship’s founders and supporters, ” says Arroyo. “We salute all of America’s service heroes.”

Saint Martin’s University is an independent four-year, coeducational university located on a 380-acre wooded campus in Lacey, Washington. Established in 1895 by the Catholic Order of Saint Benedict, the University is one of 14 Benedictine colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, and the only one west of the Rocky Mountains. Saint Martin’s University prepares students for successful lives through its 21 majors and six graduate programs spanning the liberal arts, business, education and engineering. Saint Martin’s welcomes 1,250 students from many ethnic and religious backgrounds to its main campus, and 650 more to its extension campuses located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Everett College, Centralia College and Tacoma Community College. Visit the Saint Martin’s University website at www.stmartin.edu.

For additional information:

Cruz Arroyo
Director, extension programs
Saint Martin’s University
253-964-4688
carroyo@stmartin.edu

Sarah Holdener
Director of community relations and event management
Office of Marketing and Communications
Saint Martin’s University
360-438-4391
SHoldener@stmartin.edu